Guy Clark Cold Dog Soup CD

Personnel includes: Guy Clark (vocals, acoustic guitar); Verlon Thompson (acoustic, nylon-string & National resonator guitars, banjo, nylon-string banjo, harmonica, background vocals); Darrell Scott (acoustic & nylon-string acoustic guitars, dobro, mandolin, mandocello, autoharp, accordion, bass, background vocals); Shawn Camp (acoustic guitar, fiddle, background vocals); Emmylou Harris (background vocals).
Producers: Guy Clark, Verlon Thompson, Darrell Scott, Chris Latham.
Recorded at EMI Studio, Nashville, Tennessee.
Personnel: Guy Clark (vocals, acoustic guitar); Verlon Thompson (vocals, acoustic guitar, resonator guitar, banjo, harmonica, sound effects); Darrell Scott (vocals, acoustic guitar, nylon-string guitar, autoharp, mandocello, mandolin, accordion, bass guitar); Shawn Camp (acoustic guitar, fiddle).
Audio Mixers: Chris Latham; J.D. Andrew.
Recording information: EMI Studio, Nashville, TN.
Photographer: Senor McGuire.
Cold Dog Soup follows Dublin Blues in its poignant observations of life, love, death, and all the states in between. Clark's voice may be a little worn, but his songwriting skills are sharper than ever here. He uses a group of musicians that revolve around longtime collaborators Verlon Thompson and Darrell Scott and the backing vocals of Emmylou Harris. Clark has become comfortable with co-writing in recent years and Cold Dog Soup's no exception. Three of the cuts were penned with Verlon Thompson, a pair with Jon Randall Stewart, and one with Shawn Camp, who is also part of his band. In addition, there are two new Clark songs and a trio of covers that are awesome and very different interpretations of the originals. There's Steve Earle's "Fort Worth Blues," written as an elegy for their late friend, songwriter Townes Van Zandt; there's a gorgeous read of Richard Dobson's "Forever, for Always, for Certain"; and the album closes with the old-time folk song "Be Gone Forever," written by Anna McGarrigle and Keith Sykes. Performed as a duet, it is one of the most traditional pieces of music Clark has ever recorded. The tragedy "Water Under the Bridge" feels a lot like the folk-blues of Bob Dylan's "Ballad of Hollis Brown," and in its own way is just as harrowing, with the mandolin fills floating around the guitar lines. "Bunkhouse Blues" is a cowboy blues complete with yodels that gets to the high and lonesome better than most bluegrass. "Men Will Be Boys" is a good-time anthem that could have been written and recorded during the Austin era with Jerry Jeff Walker and the rest. Ultimately, Cold Dog Soup is another fine Guy Clark album. He's been on a roll for nearly three decades and shows no sign of resting on his considerable laurels. ~ Thom Jurek
When the roster of great Texas songwriters is called, the two names that usually tumble out first are Townes Van Zandt and Guy Clark. These two compatriots shared a gift for combining the simple and the poetic in an unassuming but endlessly memorable country/folk style. With Van Zandt's passing, Clark was left to shoulder the burden of Lone Star poet laureate alone (he's based out of Nashville these days, but you can't take Texas out of the boy). COLD DOG SOUP registers the presence of Van Zandt nevertheless; the opening song mentions him by name, and is followed by Steve Earle's Townes memorial "Ft. Worth Blues."
Nevertheless, Clark has always been fully his own man, and his unique vision is fully intact throughout the album. The songs are presented in a pared-down acoustic format, with Clark mostly accompanied only by Darrell Scott (mandolin) and Verlon Thompson (guitar). This allows the uncluttered, deceptively simple imagery of Clark's songs room to breathe. His weathered, gritty voice sounds full of wisdom as it delivers sharply observed truisms about the ups and downs of life, all the while maintaining a bemused but ultimately optimistic attitude.CMJ (11/1/99, p.28) - "...Clark's earthy songs and dusty vocals have only ripened with age....the perfect setting for his honest approach to songwriting."
Dirty Linen (2-3/00, p.53) - "...Clark's knack of carving out a lean and seamless verse...always draws the listener into the heart of songs as vivid as three-minute movies and guarantee a CD's worth of 'songs you can smell'..."