Frank Gutch Jr: This One’s Personal— Tamara Saviano and Guy Clark; Plus a Compendium of Notes (Whatever a Compendium Is)

Tamara Saviano has written a biography of Guy Clark.  She dedicated it to Chet Flippo who I know as a music writer and historian who wrote for and edited a series of important zines back in the seventies.  The article which struck me the most was the piece he wrote for Phonograph Record Magazine in the March 1974 issue titled “Texas Rock and Roll Spectacular” which broke Texas music into regions and highlighted the most notable musicians.  Buddy Holly was in it, of course, as was Doug Sahm and Johnny Winter and Waylon Jennings and even Groovy Joe Poovey, all cited as influential to Texas music.  Even Townes Van Zandt got mention and I mention that not in the sense that he did not deserve it but in the sense that Guy Clark, very much a cohort of Van Zandt, was conspicuous in his absence.  I have scratched my head over that for years.  I can stop scratching.  Saviano, in this book, sets the record straight.

Frank Gutch Jr: Notary Sojac, the Formative Years (Meaning The Warloks); Gary Minkler and Duggy Degs: On the Fringe; Gary Heffern: Rock’s Poet Laureate; and Stuff in the Form of Notes…..

I’m like the A-Team’s Hannibal Smith in that I too love it when a plan comes together and love it even more when it balloons into an epic tale of adventure, lust and romance.  The romance part, of course, would be my endless fascination for the music of the bands (past, present and future) which came out of the musicians who comprised Notary Sojac, the band few knew and even fewer knew about.