After seeing a member of country band Jimmy Heap and the Melody Makers playing a homemade washtub bass, W.C. Clark recalled, “I made a guitar out of 2x4s and bailing wire. I figured if he could do that with one string, I could do it with six strings.”
Wesley Curley “W.C.” Clark, fondly dubbed Austin’s “Godfather of the Blues,” passed away March 2. He was 84. He was loved and respected for his music as well as his mentorship of younger musicians, including some future stars.
At 16, the native Austinite joined T.D. Bell & the Cadillacs, playing bass in “Eastside” black clubs. In the early 1960s, he began a six-year stint with Henry “Blues Boy” Hubbard and the Jets at Charlie’s Playhouse, where they were the house band.
“We worked in tuxedos,” he told The Austin Chronicle in 1998. “I learned meaningful things I still use in my performances today. They made me professional.”
There, he met R&B hitmaker Joe Tex, who recruited W.C. to go on the road.
In the early ’70s, Clark formed Southern Feeling with singer Angela Strehli and guitarist/pianist Denny Freeman, but when the group dissolved, he quit music to work as an auto mechanic.
In ’77, keyboardist Mike Kindred formed Triple Threat Revue with Stevie Ray Vaughan and Lou Ann Barton.
“Stevie and I went over to McMorris Ford, where W.C. was an ace mechanic, and ran our spiel on him,” Kindred recounts. “We said, ‘Come on, man, let’s form the greatest band in town.’ I’d written ‘Cold Shot’ in 1971, with a walking bass line. W.C. started playing a riff, and we all went, ‘Whoa!’ That’s why I cut him in as co-writer. When you hear that bass line, you know what song you’re listening to. I told him, ‘You just made this tune a hit.’”
The song became a staple in the repertoire of Vaughan’s subsequent Double Trouble.
Though a stellar guitarist, Clark explained to Blues Blast in 2016, “Stevie needed someone that knew what they were doing on bass, to kick him and not drag him back. I joined him to do just that.”
“W.C. was the teacher and mentor and friend to all the white kids, who were in their early 20s and didn’t know crap,” Kindred added. “He stood out from the rest of the older musicians in his outreach to us and his generosity to teach. Of course, just playing with him was a learning experience in itself.”
In ’79, the Sexton brothers, Will and Charlie, got some training from Clark – at nine and 11, respectively.
“We were the special guests as an oddity of children in a bar,” Will remembers. “W.C. was one of the very first musicians to get me onstage and mentor me. The most valuable thing I learned from him was his core. He would venture out to various styles, yet keeping such a personalized sound.”
Clark’s guitar playing could be gritty or sophisticated. Despite his blues handle, his soulful vocals were closer to Al Green than Muddy Waters.
In ’89, at the urging of Casey Monahan, director of the Texas Music Office, “Austin City Limits” staged a 50th-birthday tribute to Clark, with disciples Stevie Ray, Sexton, and Jimmie Vaughan joining him.
“At that time, it was rare that you were featured on ‘ACL’ if you didn’t have a national release,” Monahan points out. “W.C. was a wonderful person who deserved more respect and love. His voice, the tone of his guitar, his smile, his willingness to help other people – he was a heavy soul.”
In 1997, Clark was at the wheel when his fiancé and drummer were killed in a car accident. It inspired the moving original “Are You Here, Are You There.”
The recipient of three W.C. Handy/Blues Music awards, Clark was inducted to the Texas Heritage Songwriters’ Association Hall of Fame in 2023.
“His songs didn’t sound generic,” said Hammond Scott, who signed Clark to Black Top Records. “He was cutting new ground. His guitar playing always had a coloring or chord voicing or turn of phrase totally unique and recognizable. There were no wasted notes, no accidents; it was perfect economy, strongly melodic, and always building with that beautiful loose and funky picking style.”
“I was fortunate to play on and produce four of W.C. Clark’s best-known CDs, and it was always magical to work with him,” added saxophonist Mark “Kaz” Kazanoff. “A gifted singer, wonderful guitarist, and excellent songwriter, W.C. was so connected with the beautiful world of soul and blues. Every time we got to make music together, he would teach me something. He was a true gentleman with a heart of gold.”
Vicky Moerbe, his manager for 35 years, reports that he was gigging and seemed healthy, but on Thursday, February 22, he appeared at a venue he had been booked to play on Mondays. “He was acting irrationally, and was taken to the hospital,” she said. Diagnosed with cancer, he passed eight days later.
Thanks to his many peers who wrote letters, Clark was buried in the Texas State Cemetery, a true place of honor.
This article originally appeared in VG’s June 2024 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.
