TERRY CLARKE IN NASHVILLE

London, Houston TX, Atlanta GA, overnight in the Holiday Inn, following morning to the Greyhound bus station... ride north to Nashville. Back up...I'd been ivited by Argyle Bell to perform at the 2nd Nashville Tribute to Gram Parsons & Clarence White. I'd read about the event in a magazine and was so intrigued I'd called him to talk about it...I'd written a song called 'Gram Parsons Sings The Everly Brothers'...I ended up singing to him accapella down the line and he invited me over for the show.

Woke up in the hotel, the radio was playing Bruce Springsteen's 'Brilliant, Disguise', I got a Coke from the vending machine and cab to the bus station. The cab driver was a musician too, told me he played a Gretsch 'Country Gentleman' model.... I was in the South..wanted to talk about Little Richard, Otis Redding and other Georgia names like Tommy Roe and Billy Joe Royal ... all he wanted to talk about was the Beatles..but he was a really humorous guy, I've still got a line from his conversation that comes to mind every so often when I'm stuck in traffic...one day it'll be in a song I swear..nah..ain't tellin'!

Arrived in Nashville in the afternoon, called Joe Sun...great country/honky tonk singer who I'd worked with back in Oxford, in the days of Bob & Anne Moore's Radcliffe Arms reign as the king & queen of country music in England. He picked me up and we drove to the rehearsal hall. As we arrived everybody was just finishing... within a few minutes I'd met the guys who formed the houseband for the tribute ...Andy Arrow, the drummer said I could stay at his house while I was in town.... Rodney Crowell noticed my 'English cigarettes' and availed himself of a Rothman's ... a while later I was with Andy in a cafeteria in Belle Meade under a huge ceiling fan... suppertime. I am writing this thirteen years later .

Nashville... reviled, ridiculed, worshipped, loved, all things to all people. Me? I loved it, met a lot of people who are still my friends, people who've helped me in the music business, people to who I'll always owe a debt of gratitude. People who went out of their way to make me feel at home. Saturday was spent at the venue for the tribute concert ...The Cannery. Rehearsals, soundchecks, people meeting up and getting to know each other, a lot of the other guys renewing friendships. I was and remain grateful to Argyle Bell for inviting me to perform at the event. At that point I had no records released, apart from some long forgotten singles in England. I'll say at this point that I didn't keep a diary ... but the memories of the trip are a bit like those of a favourite film ... sometimes they move out of sequence but ... they're all there.

Showtime ... house band ... Argyle Bell/pedal steel guitar & dobro, JD Foster/bass & vocals,Jimmy Olander/electric guitar, Michael Clark (Byrds)/drums, Scott Baggott/electric guitar , augmented by guest players. Featured performers ... Rodney Crowell, Roland White (brother of Clarence), Marty Stuart, Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Joe Sun, Barry & Holly Tashien, Peter Rowan ... it's a wonderful memory ... all of these great performers filling the room with the songs & music of Gram Parsons and Clarence White. One of the songs I remember most is the version of 'Hickory Wind' sung by JD Foster, JD who was to become a special friend to me ... JD who drove around in a Cadillac with a half empty bottle of tequila and one purple suede stiletto heeled shoe on the back seat ... JD who'd recently left Dwight Yoakam's band to pursue his own road and ended up producing and playing bass on my first album six months later in Austin, Tx. I hung out a lot with him, Andy Arrow (who played drums on my album ), Argyle Bell, Scott Baggott too ... spent a lot of time playing/talking about music ... here were guys who loved Chrissie Hynde, Bob Marley, Robert Johnson, vintage Johnny Horton and U2 in equal measure.

ELVIS' CADILLAC

It was the early autumn, leaves changing colour under a clear blue sky ... Steve Young playing in the open air of Centennial Park, a fond memory ... Townes Van Zandt, David Olney, John Prine at the Bluebird Cafe ... blue abelone butterflies in the black tops of Gibson guitars at George Gruhn's, Ernest Tubb's record shop ... I love rock 'n' roll glamour ... Country Music Hall of Fame ... Elvis' Cadillac, Gram's guitar, Hank's suits, Jimmie Rodgers picture discs ... Merle Travis' guitars/sculptures ... I never did hate all of the 'Nashville Sound' of the 60's like a lot of my generation did, I still think the classic Jim Reeves singles are little symphonies, Johnny Cash made great records in Nashville all through the 60's ... so it was important for me to visit RCA's studio B ... and the guide had a great tale of Skeeter Davis decorating the studio for the recording of Elvis' christmas album - in June! The one night I went to Opryland , Skeeter sang 'End Of The World' ,Roy Acuff, Hank Locklin, Stonewall Jackson singing ' Waterloo' ... a living version of the jukebox that I had on my radio at home as a child and made me fall in love with music itself. Was 87 , now it's 2000, probably time I went back, hard to drag myself away from Austin these days ... but my dear friend Rosie Flores lives there now so ... guess I will soon! In closing ...

Stanley Booth is currently working on a biography of Gram Parsons, check his homepage for details. www.galleryofsound.com/stanleybooth