Roy Clark

Roy Linwood Clark (April 15, 1933 – November 15, 2018) was an American singer, musician and television presenter. He is best known for having co-hosted Hee Haw, a nationally televised country music variety show, with Buck Owens, from 1969 to 1993. Clark was an important and influential figure in country music, both as a performer and in helping to popularize the genre. Clark was highly regarded and renowned as a guitarist, banjo player and fiddler.

During the 1970s, Clark frequently guest-hosted for Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show; he also enjoyed a 30-million viewership for Hee Haw. He was skilled in the traditions of many genres, including classical guitar, country music, Latin music, bluegrass and pop. He had hit songs as a country music vocalist (e.g., "Yesterday, When I Was Young" and "Thank God and Greyhound") and his instrumental skill had an enormous effect on generations of bluegrass and country musicians. He became a member of the Grand Ole Opry in 1987 and, in 2009, was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. He published his autobiography, My Life—in Spite of Myself, in 1994.

Clark was born April 15, 1933, in Meherrin, Virginia, one of five children born to Hester Linwood Clark and Lillian Clark (Oliver). His father was a tobacco farmer. He spent his childhood in Meherrin and Great Kills, Staten Island, New York City, where his father moved the family to take jobs during the Great Depression. When Clark was 11 years old, his family moved to a home on 1st Street SE in the Washington Highlands neighborhood of Washington, D.C., after his father had found work at the Washington Navy Yard.

Clark's father was a semi-professional musician who played banjo, fiddle and guitar, and his mother played piano. The first musical instrument Clark ever played was a four-string cigar box with a ukulele neck attached to it, which he picked up in elementary school. His father taught Clark to play guitar when Roy was 14 years old and soon Clark was playing banjo, guitar and mandolin. "Guitar was my real love, though," Clark later said. "I never copied anyone, but I was certainly influenced by them; especially by George Barnes. I just loved his swing style and tone."

Clark also found inspiration in other local D.C. musicians. "One of the things that influenced me growing up around Washington, D.C., in the '50s was that it had an awful lot of good musicians. And I used to go in and just steal them blind. I stole all their licks. It wasn't until years later that I found out that a lot of them used to cringe and say 'Oh, no! Here comes that kid again' when I'd come in. As for his banjo style, Clark said in 1985, "When I started playing, you didn't have many choices to follow and Earl Scruggs was both of them." Clark won the National Banjo Championship in 1947 and 1948. He played his first professional gig in his father's band at age 15, earning a $2 bill and he briefly toured with the band.

Biography summary from English Wikipedia, photograph via Wikimedia Commons.