“Music was my salvation, the thing I loved most and did best. In the fertile, diverse musical soil of cosmopolitan D.C., he began playing bars and dives on Friday and Saturday nights until he was playing every night and skipping school–eventually dropping out at 15. He was 15 when he earned $2 for his first paid performance, with his dad’s band.
LAWRENCE WELK CAUSE OF DEATH TV
That same year, 1947, he made his first TV appearance. Dad said, ‘Never turn your ear off to music until your heart hears it–because then you might hear something you like.'”īeginning on banjo and mandolin, he was one of those people “born with the music already in them.” His first guitar, a Sears Silvertone, came as a Christmas present when he was 14. “I was subjected to different kinds of music before I ever played.
LAWRENCE WELK CAUSE OF DEATH FREE
His father played in a square dance band and took him to free concerts by the National Symphony and by various military bands. Born Roy Linwood Clark on Apin Meherrin, Virginia, his family moved to D.C. That he was raised in Washington, D.C., often surprises people. The book reminded many that there is much more to Roy Clark than fast fingers and a quick wit. In fact, that’s what Clark titled his autobiography, My Life - In Spite of Myself! with Marc Elliot (Simon & Shuster, 1994). What’s happened has happened in spite of me.” I could’ve pushed it too, but it wouldn’t have happened any sooner. “Sure,” he said, “I had dreams of being a star when I was 18. But I’ve come to realize that a real sincere smile is mighty powerful.”įor a man who didn’t taste major success until he was 30, the key was not some grand plan but rather taking everything in its own time. I used to believe that everything had to be a belly laugh.
“If you’re a bad person, people pick that up. “A TV camera goes right through your soul,” says the man who starred on Hee Haw for 24 years and was a frequent guest host for Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show. Bob Hope summed it up when he told Roy, “Your face is like a fireplace.” And his talents turned Hee Haw into the longest-running syndicated show in television history.īut the bottom line for Roy Clark was the honest warmth he gave to his audiences.
He was the pioneer who turned Branson, Mo., into the live music capitol of the world (the Ozark town today boasts more seats than Broadway). Sure, he was one of the world’s finest multi-instrumentalists, and one of the first cross-over artists to land singles on both the pop and country charts. Roy Clark’s decade-defying success could be summed up in one word - sincerity. – Roy Clark, the legendary ‘superpicker’, GRAMMY, CMA and ACM award winner, Country Music Hall of Fame and Grand Ole Opry member and co-host of the famed ‘Hee Haw’ television series, died today at the age of 85 due to complications from pneumonia at home in Tulsa, Okla.
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