Guy Clark, Nanci Griffith

Comments (0) By William Michael Smith Wednesday, Sep 10 2008

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8 pm Wednesday, September 17, at Verizon Wireless Theater, 520 Texas, 713-230-1600.

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Guy Clark, who has recently overcome both a bout of cancer and a broken leg, is the unparalleled dean of living Texas songwriters. A product of the small West Texas Gulf Oil company town of Monahans, backdrop of his early classic "Desperados Waiting for a Train," Clark has been an anchor for whatever it means to be a "Texas singer-songwriter" in Nashville for more than 30 years. He literally brought Steve Earle into the scene, getting Earle his first songwriting job and employing him as a bass player, and was instrumental in kick-starting the career of Darrell Scott, one of the biggest talents in Nashville these days. Clark has also been a significant influence in the careers of Lyle Lovett and Rodney Crowell; "Black Diamond Strings," another Clark classic, celebrates Crowell's father J.D.

Clark left a huge mark on the Cosmic Cowboy scene in Austin in the early '70s, when Jerry Jeff Walker's versions of "Desperados" and "L.A. Freeway" seemed to be on every jukebox and radio in Austin. Still the undisputed Texas wordsmith, Clark doesn't get down here as often as when he was a regular at Houston's legendary Sand Mountain folk club. Wednesday, he'll be joined by another revered veteran of the Texas singer-songwriter scene, Nanci Griffith, who cut her teeth at Anderson Fair along with Lovett, Lucinda Williams and Eric Taylor back in that little spaghetti bar's musical heyday.