Tulsa's Roy Clark....

News: Country Music Hall of Fame Inductee Roy Clark 

BMNN wrote: on Apr. 01, 2009:

/CMA/ Nashville, TN -- By Scott Stem

Roy Clark's career achieved national prominence between World War II and 1975

"So many dear friends are members of the Country Music Hall of Fame. It makes me so proud that somehow, in some way, you have found it fit for me to become part of this fraternity."

- Roy Clark (excerpt from remarks at Feb. 4 press conference)

Roy Linwood Clark was born in April 15, 1933 in Meherrin, Va. 

As a teenager, he grew up in southeast Washington, D.C., where his father worked at the Washington Navy Yard. The son of two amateur musicians, Clark learned to play banjo, guitar and mandolin at an early age and often performed with his father as a teenager. At the same time, he pursued an athletic career, briefly with baseball and later with boxing. 

By age 17, he had won 15 consecutive boxing matches as well as two national banjo championships, which earned him his first appearance on the Grand Ole Opry. Soon after, Clark gave up boxing and focused on a music career. 

After working at several local clubs and radio stations, Clark became a regular on Jimmy Dean's Washington, D.C.,-based television show, "Town and Country Time." After Dean left for New York, Clark took over the show and his reputation as a great musician and performer grew. 

Moving to Las Vegas in 1960, he performed with Western Swing bandleader and comedian Hank Penny at the Golden Nugget. Later, he became the leader of Wanda Jackson's band and played on several of her recordings including her single, "Let's Have a Party." After Jackson dismantled her band, Clark performed regularly at the Frontier Hotel in Vegas. 

Clark signed with Capitol Records in 1963, achieving a Top 10 Country hit with his first single, "Tips of My Fingers." After several minor hits, he moved to Dot Records in 1968, reaching the Top 10 again one year later with "Yesterday When I Was Young." 

National television became a key component of Clark's career. Dean was a guest-host of "The Tonight Show" several times during the 1960s, and he brought Clark onto the show, introducing the young performer to a large audience. Clark's musical talent and comedic personality struck a chord with viewers, and more TV appearances followed including, "The Jackie Gleason Show," "Fanfare" and "The Joey Bishop Show." He also played two recurring characters, Cousin Roy Halsey and his mother Myrtle Halsey ("Big Mama") in several episodes of "The Beverly Hillbillies." 

In the late '60s, CBS developed a Country version of the comedy series "Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In" and picked Clark and Buck Owens to serve as co-hosts. "Hee Haw" debuted in 1969 and became one of the most popular shows on TV, while also giving Country Music a new large weekly national viewership. Still, after two seasons CBS canceled the show along with a number of other rural-leaning programming in order to "urbanize" the network's image. The producers of "Hee Haw" sensed the strong public demand for the show and immediately put it into first-run syndication. "Hee Haw" remained in production until 1992, with Clark never missing an episode. During the run of the show, Clark was a member of the Hee Haw Gospel Quartet (along with Grandpa Jones, Owens and Kenny Price) and the Million Dollar Band (along with guitarist Chet Atkins, mandolinist Jethro Burns, pianist Floyd Cramer, trumpeter Danny Davis, fiddler Johnny Gimble, harmonica player Charlie McCoy and saxophonist Boots Randolph). 

During the early '70s, Clark cut a string of Top 10 Country singles, including "I Never Picked Cotton" (1970), "Thank God and Greyhound" (1970), "The Lawrence Welk Hee Haw Counter Revolution Polka" (1972), "Come Live With Me" (1973), "Somewhere Between Love and Tomorrow" (1973), "Honeymoon Feelin'" (1974) and "If I Had It to Do All Over Again" (1976). 

In between his "Hee Haw" duties, he acted on "Love, American Style" and "The Odd Couple" and appeared as himself on TV shows and specials such as "The Captain & Tennille Variety Show," "The Hollywood Squares," "The Johnny Cash Christmas Special" and "The Muppet Show" as well as guest-hosted "The Tonight Show" several times. 

The busy Clark also toured constantly, in the United States and abroad. In 1976, he became one of the first American recording artists to perform in the Soviet Union, where he sold out 18 shows. 

As the '80s began, Clark started exploring different avenues. He was the first Country Music artist to open a theater in Branson, Mo., when he launched the Roy Clark Celebrity Theater in 1983. Other artists followed his lead, and Branson developed into a tourist destination for live music fans. 

Diversifying his interests, he invested in minor-league baseball, cattle, publishing and other businesses. He starred in the 1986 movie "Uphill All the Way" with Mel Tillis, and made appearances in the movies "Country Comes Home" (1982), "Freeway" (1988) and "Gordy" (1995). Clark fulfilled a lifelong dream by joining the Grand Ole Opry in 1987, while continuing to sell out concerts across the globe. 

Clark was recognized by his peers with seven CMA Awards, including Entertainer of the Year in 1973. He also won Comedian of the Year Award in 1970, Instrumental Group of the Year Awards (for his work with Buck Trent) in 1975 and 1976 and Instrumentalist of the Year Award in 1977, 1978 and 1980. He received a Grammy Award in 1982 for Best Country Instrumental Performance for "Alabama Jubilee." Clark has also been honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. 

Clark and his wife Barbara live in Oklahoma. Roy Clark Elementary School in Tulsa's Union School District was named in his honor. While maintaining a strong concert tour schedule, he also enjoys fishing, flying his airplanes and riding motorcycles. He finished filming the movie "Palo Pinto Gold" in 2008, co-starring Tillis and Trent Willmon. 

© 2009 CMA Close Up® News Service / Country Music Association®, Inc.