Forum - Banjo Ben Clark

Sad News Roy Clark passed away

What a talented man. Amazing picker and story teller and funny guy. Watch a young Roy Clark tear his guitar apart on the Jimmy Dean show.

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You brought joy to soooo many people! R.I.P. (I hope that doesn’t trigger some PC alert these days… but it is meant genuinely.

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What an entertainer!

What does he play right after under the double eagle? Cuz thunderstruck beware if that becomes popular :joy:

Buffalo Gal’s won’t you come out tonight

Perhaps in the top 10 entertainers in the last 100 years, which is a big statement, but I believe it.

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@BanjoBen You have met and played with soooo many great musicians over the years(great includes you), from playing with Taylor Swift and soo many others. Did you ever have the pleasure of meeting Roy Clark?. He seems like such a humble guy, it would have been cool just to hang out with him. And I agree with the top 10 entertainer statement.

I never got to meet him, unfortunately. I did have the honor of hanging out with Buck Owens a couple of times out in Bakersfield, but never Roy. Also, the word is that these two guys didn’t get along well at all. Roy was a pretty strict professional, whereas Buck liked to…um, party, you might say. It caused quite a bit of tension behind the set of HeeHaw and they were at each others’ throats over the years, but you could never tell it!

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I did have the honor of hanging out with Buck Owens a couple of times out in Bakersfield…
[/quote]That would have been awesome, just to talk to him and hang out.
My sister lives in Bfield. I havent been there in eons.
According to Wikipedia…" In the late 1940s he became a truck driver and drove through the San Joaquin Valley of California. He was impressed by Bakersfield, where he and his wife settled in 1951." I would think that in the 1940’s you could see from one end of Bakersfield to the other…
"

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Well then, that’s the fastest I’ve ever heard buffalo gals played

Roy was a slick player

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I wonder who will play at his funeral? I bet there will be some amazing music there. Roy Clark has always been a favorite of mine.

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Brandon I think there will be a huge lineup.

RIP Roy. He was a great musician, a great entertainer, and from all accounts, an overall great human being.

This is worthy of more discussion. One doesn’t hang out with Buck Owens in Bakersfield and not come back with some stories. At least I hope not. However, this thread is about Roy and probably not the place to probe and prod Ben for Buck Owens’ stories. I’m starting a new thread…

All Buck had to do was strum open chords though. Roy was tons better from an instrumental perspective, though Buck had a better voice.

I can sure understand why things were like that between them. Roy had to work a lot harder.

Woodshed, it was actually Dwight Yoakam who started me liking country music again. (I hated it through my teen years and most of my 20’s). Then, I saw him play Guitars Cadillacs on Hee Haw and it blew me away. My wife thought I had gone out of my mind when I started switching the radio over to the local country station.

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I’m a HUGE Dwight fan!

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Be it banjo or Dwight’s voice, Twang is Good! :+1

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That’s sad news indeed. Being quite a newbie to the banjo scene and not having the benefit in the UK of growing up or seeing him on the ‘Hee haw’ show, I didn’t know too much about him until I began learning banjo. I’ve since seen his unique musical talents thanks to YouTube and watched him on Hee haw and many other shows. I’ve seen his amazing banjo pickin, fiddle playing and guitar playing. Genius seems to be an understatement and I am sad to hear of his passing but rejoice in the fact that thanks to these recordings we can still watch and learn from this great man.

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I found out about him when I began learning the banjo. Just discovered that he passed away. It’s sad.