This One's for Him: A Tribute to Guy Clark

Editors’ Notes This One’s for Him: A Tribute to Guy Clark is a well-crafted collection of the Texas troubadour’s songs done by many of his peers and a few acolytes. Rodney Crowell stays close to the original intimate framework of Clark’s “That Old Time Feeling,” crooning with a slightly weathered warble over piano and simple acoustic guitar strumming. It makes for an effective tone-setting opener. Conversely, Willie Nelson sings “Desperadoes Waiting for a Train” like he wrote the tune in the back of Honeysuckle Rose (his old tour bus). Emmylou Harris and John Prine sing a gripping duet on “Magnolia Wind”: he with a weathered old rasp and she with her ageless inflections somehow untouched by time. The ragged textures in Kris Kristofferson’s gritty growl help give “Hemingway’s Whiskey” an authentic feel—as if he were taking neat sips of that libation between verses.