The efficient way of introducing you to “Cowboy” Jack Clement is to note that while you may not know his name, you do know his music. As a songwriter, he wrote hits for Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, George Jones, Bobby Bare and Garth Brooks. According to the All Music Guide database, more than 1,000 recordings of his songs exist.

Jack Clement

As a producer, Clement helped give birth to rock ^‘n’ roll, serving at Sun Records with Sam Phillips when Cash, Lewis, Elvis, Roy Orbison, Carl Perkins, Charlie Rich and other rockabilly rebels changed the world. Clement went on to produce Charley Pride, John Prine, Louis Armstrong and Waylon Jennings, and when U2 wanted a back-to-basics sound for “Rattle and Hum,” they collaborated with Clement.

That’s the efficient introduction. The more complicated version integrates Clements as a philosopher and influence well beyond his name recognition.

Tipped by an Oxford American column by Roy Blount, Jr., I tracked down a DVD of “Shakespeare Was a Big George Jones Fan: Cowboy Jack’s Home Movies.”

A person can change the world when talent and luck embrace, and Clement seems to understand the roles of both forces in his life.

“Home Movies” is exactly that, glimpses of Clement’s friends and fellow musicians in their most relaxed and unguarded moments. Bono offers a spot-on impersonation of Marlon Brando’s Godfather, pushing his cheeks out as he imitates the Don. Cash clowns around in a new car and lies down for a smoke on the grave of country music pioneer A.P. Carter. Lewis, Jones and Pride reminisce about Clement’s influence in and out of the studio, with the casual love only decades can foster.

It is Clement’s offbeat and earnest philosophy that merits closer scrutiny. Clement has a way of being simultaneously authoritative and inviting, a difficult blend to maintain. His many sayings and bits of philosophy reflect a man who is generous with his experience yet unwilling to suffer fools lightly.

Among his “rules for band members” are 1. Be alert and 2. Be on time.

I’d rather have someone be alert and a bit late than be on time and unprepared,” he says in one clip, “which is why ‘be alertâ^‘ is first.”

His “expert’s tips for songwriters” include: “Remember that experts are often wrong; Experts tend to be narrow and opinionated; Experts don’t buy records; Reveal some of yourself with most of your songs.”

That last tip strikes me as applicable to column writing, as well.

Other gems include “Even an air conditioner has to warm up before it can be cool,” “Whatever may be wrong with the world, at least it has some good things to eat” and “As Shakespeare must have said at one time or another, ‘I could have said that better if I had wanted to.’ “

Two of Clement’s quotes get to the heart of more than the music industry; they pop into my head when I see or hear a local politician:

• “There is a big difference between being smooth and being slick. Smooth is cool. Slick is like sh*t.”

• “There is a difference between fake and phony. I may be a fake, but I am not a phony.”

Both of these require patience to parse, but with enough reflection, one understands that Clement has summed up the age of irony and jaded cynicism in less than 40 words.

I called Clement’s Nashville office on June 2 to ask about setting up an interview, and was surprised, after a 10-second silence, to be patched through to the Cowboy himself. I asked him to expound further upon his two most memorable quotes.

“Things like music flow in a certain way, dancing flows in a certain way,” he said. “Smooth versus slick. ‘Dancing with the Stars^‘ isn^‘t dancing, that’s just steps. It’s slick, but not smooth. If something is too slick, too perfect, all the sweetness is sucked out of it. Romance is like that; it begins with the feet. It’s stepping with rhythm and some spontaneity, not controlled choreography. It^‘s being smooth, not showing off, not trying too hard.”

Clement also elaborated on the differece between fake and phony: “The Wizard of Oz is a fake, but he^‘s not a phony,” Clement said. “Phonies are people who are onstage all the time; fakes want to entertain people. Show biz is fakery, but you don^‘t have to be phony.

“I can^‘t stand most of the people singing songs on the radio these days, and I bet in their hearts, they can’t stand themselves. They don^‘t understand or believe what they are singing, and that makes them phony.”

Before I ended the conversation, I asked Clement to talk about his survivor status, as he has outlived contemporaries, such as Cash, Jennings, Orbison, Presley and Porter Waggoner. Does the Cowboy think the likes of these artists will ever be seen again?

“I hope so,”he answered slowly, audibly chewing on the question. “Music will keep getting worse, and someone will come along like Elvis and shake it up. The corporate music is phony and the singers are a pain in the butt.

“I still love them, though. As I say all the time, there are a lot of people who I love them a lot more than I like them.”

Michael S. Miller is editor in chief of Toledo Free Press. Contact him at mmiller@toledofreepress.com.

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 11th, 2009 at 10:25 pm and is filed under Lighting The Fuse, Opinion.
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