It was a year ago this week when the wild winds of the Houston derecho blew chaos through the city. That night, as people hunkered down and generally cancelled any plans they had going on, one event continued.
The yearly A Night For Guy (Clark) had already been in the works and performers and some audience members were already tucked inside the old bank vault that is Rockefeller’s.
Organizers Shawn and Elisabeth Parks had no idea how bad it was outside the venue and all across the city but when they saw H-E-B shopping carts flying down Washington, they figured it was serious.
“Even that we were able to do the show at all was a miracle really,” says Shawn Camp, performer and friend of Clark’s who collaborated with him for many years. He describes spending the weekend enjoying the company of Lightnin’ Hopkins’ old guitar, lent to him for the weekend to explore and enjoy.
“Every second that I had I was playing Lightin’s old Gibson guitar and I took a nap that afternoon before I went to the venue and I woke up with the storm happening around me and I realized that I was sleeping with Lightin’s old guitar and I felt like the devil was swooping down on us all.”
As the storm made it’s way through town leaving debris, flooding and a massive mess, people somehow made their way to the show.
“It just filled up,” says Parks with continued disbelief. “It was like the only thing going on in Houston that night. The city shut down but people came to this thing and it was such a pure and true testament to what this show means to the audience and the performers.”
Since 2017 Parks has organized a way for Houston performers and special guests to get together and celebrate Texas’s own rough and rowdy poet Guy Clark with this celebration marking the anniversary of his passing.
A Night For Guy will take place this year on Thursday, May 15 at Rockefeller’s with a special show the following evening at Park’s Bojangles Music School featuring special guests Verlon Thompson and Camp, both players with deep ties to Clark.
Proceeds from the event will go to the Guy Clark Family Foundation which like its namesake, offers support to blossoming songwriters.
Parks has seen how the event has also served as a way for some to get to know Clark’s song catalog and get more familiar with the artist, who had deep ties to Houston himself as he lived here throughout most of the ‘60s.
“I think this event is an occasion for people to kind of dig into Guy Clark’s catalog a little deeper and they find these songs that it’s like a little treasure chest full of gems that you haven’t dug deep enough and you haven’t found them all yet,” agrees Thompson who shared the stage with Clark for 30 years.
“Every year I think people get a little more exposure and become a little more impressed with the depth of his work and that takes care of the rest of it and we all just join in and celebrate that.”
This year the evening also will focus on celebrating the 50th anniversary of Clark’s debut album Old No. 1, a quintessential album for anyone interested in the soul and science behind writing a good song.
“I feel like Guy is stronger and more revered now since he passed than he was when he was here. His music stronger because it’s not encumbered by his physical deterioration. It’s stronger, more powerful and it seems to be growing with depth and it’s just more solid and feels like something you’ve got to respect. It’s got a lot of power in it,” says Clark.
The two days of celebration will again feature Thompson, who has been on board since 2018 and Camp who joined in 2022, but this year will feature some new local names like Christopher Seymore, Gabe Wooten from Galveston and Shane and Kayla Doyle from the band Supper Party.
Previous special guests Kam Franklin and Noel Mckay will also join the lineup along with familiar names including Katie Rushing, Sergio Trevino, Hudson Mueller, Nick Gaitan, The Mighty Orq, Tommy Lewis and Matt Harlan.
When asked if his long term involvement has helped him get to know new artists in Houston, Thompson agrees that it has but also recognizes that some artists he doesn’t know at all until they meet the day of the show.
“I just walk in and our common love for a good song is enough to make us become instant friends and we just join in wherever we can to make it sound good. As Townes Van Zandt said, ‘It’s all for the sake of the song.’”
Just as Parks always opens the show, his only public performance all year as he is typically in the role of teacher at his school, Thompson and Camp close it down. Last year the two provided a tender and whimsical moment for the audience as they stepped off the stage and took the show literally right down to the floor which included surprise audience members Mary Gauthier and Jaime Harris.
“It felt like look we all made it here, we’re all safe, we’re all able to sing and rejoice so let’s get down here on the floor and do it together and it turned out pretty sweet,” says Thompson.
“It was a magical evening,” agrees Camp who looks forward to reuniting with Thompson every year to celebrate their friend Clark at his annual birthday celebration in Rockport and then here in Houston for A Night For Guy.
Just as some of that Hopkins magic may have carried itself into the night and into Camp’s playing, through his many years of working with Clark, he knows his friend’s lyrical strengths made their way into his own way of thinking about songwriting.
“Even just to sit there, work with him and see how he worked and what lines or what words kind of tripped his trigger, I think it made me grow. Everybody writes a little different and I’ve co-written with as many or more people in Nashville than anybody I know and I think I pick up a little bit from everybody, but probably the more solid stuff I learned sitting across the table from Guy Clark.”
A Night For Guy will take place on Thursday, May 15 at 8 p.m. at Rockefeller’s, 3620 Washington. $100.
This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2025.
