The Songs Still Stand: Revisiting a Texas Blueprint Through New Voices

By any honest measure, Guy Clark didn’t just write songs—he built something sturdier than most men ever manage. He built a body of work that doesn’t bend to time, trend, or taste. It just is. Like caliche roads, mesquite roots, or the kind of truth you don’t always want to hear but recognize the second it’s spoken.

For decades now, his 1975 debut, Old No. 1, has served as a kind of field manual for songwriters—especially the Texas kind. It wasn’t flashy. It wasn’t trying to be. It was precise, deliberate, and unflinchingly human. Songs like “L.A. Freeway” and “Desperados Waiting for a Train” didn’t just tell stories—they sat you down inside them and made you live there awhile.

So when a project like Old No. 1 Revisited comes along—bringing in a roster of artists to reinterpret those same songs—you’re not just dealing with a tribute album. You’re dealing with something closer to a cultural handoff. A test, even.

Because covering Guy Clark isn’t like covering a hit song. There’s nowhere to hide.

There’s a reason Old No. 1 still gets passed around like gospel in songwriter circles from Austin to Alpine. Clark’s writing was stripped down to the studs—no wasted words, no ornamental fluff. Just story, detail, and delivery.

He wrote about welders and drifters, lovers and liars. He wrote about leaving and staying, and how sometimes they feel the same. And he did it with a craftsman’s discipline—every line earned, every image placed like it mattered.

That’s what makes a revisit like this risky.

These aren’t songs you “put your spin on” and walk away from. These are songs you approach carefully, like stepping into someone else’s house after they’ve passed on. You don’t rearrange the furniture. You don’t repaint the walls. You just try to understand why everything is where it is.

What Old No. 1 Revisited does well—at its best—is exactly that: restraint.

The strongest performances on the record don’t try to out-sing Clark or modernize him into something slicker. They lean into the grain of the songs, respecting their pace and their silence as much as their melody.

There’s a temptation, especially today, to polish everything. To fill every empty space. But Clark’s songs live in those spaces. The pause between lines, the breath before a chorus—that’s where the weight settles.

The artists who understand that deliver something rare: not imitation, but continuation.

Others… well, they remind you how difficult this material really is. A little too much production, a little too much vocal gymnastics, and suddenly the song loses its center. Not ruined—but unmoored.

And maybe that’s part of the point, too.

Why These Songs Endure

The real takeaway from Old No. 1 Revisited isn’t about who nailed it and who didn’t. It’s about the fact that these songs still hold up under pressure.

They can be stretched, reshaped, even slightly misunderstood—and they don’t break.

There’s a through-line that runs from Guy Clark to just about every serious songwriter to come out of Texas in the last fifty years. You can hear it in the phrasing, in the storytelling, in the willingness to let a song breathe instead of forcing it to perform.

Projects like Old No. 1 Revisited aren’t about rewriting that legacy. They’re about reminding us it’s still alive.

And maybe more importantly—they’re about proving that the standard hasn’t moved.

In a world that turns things over faster than it understands them, these songs remain. Steady. Grounded. Unimpressed by the noise around them.

The Songs Still Stand

In the end, that’s what you’re left with after the last track fades out.

Not a comparison. Not a ranking.

Just the quiet realization that the songs themselves—those original bones Clark put together back in Old No. 1—are still doing exactly what they were built to do.

They’re still carrying stories.
Still holding weight.
Still finding their way into the hands of people who need them.

And no matter who sings them next…

They’re going to keep standing.

When the Road Meets the River: Steve Earle, Reckless Kelly, and the Song That Ain’t Afraid to Bleed

Some names in country music ain’t just artists — they’re landmarks.

Steve Earle’s one of ’em. I’ve carried his songs with me like road maps through rough years and long nights. He’s the kind of writer who don’t lie to you — just tells the truth plain, even when it hurts.

He didn’t just learn from Townes Van Zandt and Guy Clark — he lived in their shadow and their light.

Townes taught him that truth doesn’t need polish. Every word can bleed and still sing.

Guy showed him that craft matters — that you can whittle a song like cedar until the grain shows its soul.

Earle mixed the two: the poet’s ache and the craftsman’s hand, wrapped in a rebel’s snarl.

“Townes Van Zandt is the best songwriter in the world and I’ll stand on Bob Dylan’s coffee table in my cowboy boots and say so.“

Earle once said, “Townes Van Zandt is the best songwriter in the world, and I’ll stand on Bob Dylan’s coffee table in my cowboy boots and say that.”

That’s not bravado — that’s respect spoken through grit, the kind of loyalty that don’t fade when the amps cool down.

I’ve always loved that about Earle — the honesty, the edge, the way he writes like he’s still got something to prove even when he’s already proven everything. His songs make me want to pour another cup of coffee and listen to the wind for a while.

Now slide over to Reckless Kelly, and you’ll find that same fire burning in younger hands.

To me, they’re original Red Dirt, as true to the roots as Cross Canadian Ragweed or Stoney LaRue.

They never chased trends — they chased the sound of open roads, broken strings, and hearts half-healed by the next song.

The Braun brothers and the boys from Reckless Kelly play like they’ve still got a tab running somewhere between Austin and Amarillo — a sound soaked in truth and barroom grit. They’re the sons of storytellers, the torchbearers of a Texas sound that don’t care what Nashville’s selling this week.

Then Came the Collab — “Bad Girls Never Sad Girls”

When Steve Earle teamed up with Reckless Kelly, it wasn’t just a studio session — it was a handshake between generations.

They cut Bad Girls at Arlyn Studios in Austin, live and loud, the way songs like this ought to be born.

The guitars growl, the drums roll like thunder over dry plains, and Steve’s voice comes in rough as mesquite bark. Reckless Kelly brings the horsepower — tight, fierce, and fearless.

Lyrically, it’s a toast to women who don’t flinch, don’t fold, and sure as hell don’t apologize.

These ain’t “bad” girls — they’re the kind who make their own weather. Earle tips his hat, the Brauns back him up, and somewhere in that groove you can almost hear Townes smirking and Guy sharpening his knife for another verse.

This ain’t nostalgia — it’s heritage with its boots still dirty.

Bad Girls sounds like the kind of tune you play on a Friday night after a long week — volume up, conscience off, heart open.

It’s proof that outlaw country ain’t dead, it just keeps changing hands.

Some songs fade when the fire dies. Bad Girls ain’t one of ’em.

It’s got the bones of old Texas truth and the pulse of Red Dirt youth.

Steve’s still out there preaching the gospel of Guy and Townes, and Reckless Kelly’s right behind him, carrying that torch like a brand.

If you ask me, this collab ain’t about fame — it’s about respect.

About two generations of songmen tipping their hats across the same dusty stage, proving that the spirit of outlaw music ain’t something you retire from.

So here’s to the bad girls, the honest boys, and every one of us still trying to find that fine line between the poet and the rebel.

Because as long as songs like this keep getting written — the road stays open.

Till next time,

— Pancho

“Dublin Blues” — Guy’s Goodbye, Noeline’s Echo

Some songs don’t just get written — they happen to a man. “Dublin Blues” is one of those. Guy Clark penned it back in ’95, and it’s been echoing down barrooms and heartbreak ever since. It’s the sound of a man who’s seen the world and found out it don’t hold a candle to what he’s lost.

Now folks still argue what he meant by it. Was it Guy sayin’ goodbye to his old running mate Townes Van Zandt, the kind of friend you loved enough to fear losing? Or was it a weary kind of amends to Susanna, the woman who stood by him through storms most folks couldn’t weather? Maybe it was both — or maybe it was just Guy doing what he did best: turning his own ache into something the rest of us could bleed to.

Fast-forward a few decades, and a young Canadian singer named Noeline Hofmann sits behind a mic and hums along to that same tune. She’s sung it enough times to make it her own — not by changing the words, but by understanding them. Her voice feels like it’s riding shotgun on a backroad somewhere between Tahoka and Tatum, carrying that same kind of quiet hurt that made Guy’s songs immortal.

That’s the mark of a true cover: not imitation, but conversation — one soul reaching out across years and miles to answer another.

And as the Gospel of Pancho says — they don’t make ’em like Townes, Guy, or John Prine anymore.

Just lucky we’ve still got folks like Noeline keeping their ghosts company.

Life Gets Lifey

Life Gets Lifey is what I always like to say, what I really mean, is that things happen beyond my control. It’s how I react to them is what really matters, I mean like this blog , call it writers block, laziness, or something else. I also really don’t care what anyone thinks of me. That is what makes me, well me.

For the most part, my life rocks . I mean just last weekend I found myself on the Baylor campus in Waco Texas for something that was better than I could have ever imagined. The wife got me tickets to The Boys from Oklahoma, featuring Cross Canadian Ragweed, Turnpike Troubadours, Shane Smith and the Saints , and American Aquarium.. next thing i know there’s Wade Bowen on the bill.. then a series of other amazing performances by several of all my all time favorites throughout the night , including Pat Green and Robert Earl Keen.

Add in the final song of the night , Django Walker, son of the world famous late Jerry Jeff. Django sang a song that his daddy made famous which in my opinion helped to put songwriter Guy Clark on the map.

LA Freeway.

The whole concert had this kinda energy.. it was really something to see in person.

When the Turnpike Troubadours got back together a year or so ago, I recall, tweeting.. “all we need now is for Ragweed to come back”

Well.. now they have and I got to see them live in person after a 16 plus year’s hiatus..

And Gawddamn I am happy!

Pancho.

Tough Country

“Wonder why we settled here,” sings William Clark Green, “ with the rattlesnakes and the prickly pear and a water table two hundred feet down…”

The Panhandlers were ecstatic to be back in West Texas last night as they graced the stage at the Wagner Noel in Midland.

This band’s music centers around the land they all adopted as home.. a sentiment that rings in as West Texas the Best Texas.

Cleto Cordero Flatland Cavalry/ Panhandlers

Band member Cleto Cordero grew up in Midland and the hometown advantage was felt by all.. as his mother sat in the front row he sang the songs he’d written along the way from places like Lubbock and Marfa and Eastland. Songs about the oil and the cattle and the cotton,

I love the people here most of all and there is a culture that is a mixture of a cowboy and a farmer and a roughneck and everyone in between..

This was the second time I’ve seen this act live although I’ve seen each individually.

The singers of the band consist of Cleto, who heads up his band Flatland Cavalry, William Clark Green, Texas Country turned Rock Show, Josh Abbott of the JAB who holds the whole project together, and songwriter and performer John Baumann. Each brings talented musicians from their own groups together on one stage as they sing songs together in a style that is not usually heard in their own shows.. Each of them are accomplished songwriters and together they are unstoppable.

The ties they share stem from their college days as alumni of Texas Tech university and their love of songwriting.. specifically songs about Texas..

The band plays mainly original songs they’ve written although they can and will throw in covers by other notable Texas Musicians, including Guy Clark , and Terry Allen. They also recorded a song called “West Texas in My Eyes,” written by a personal friend of theirs and mine, Charlie Stout. And last night they covered the Highwaymen… Willie Nelson , Johnny Cash, Kris Kristofferson and Waylon Jennings.

I ain’t crying…

Pancho.

Ditch

Sometimes I just find a sound that resonates within me. Through a random shuffling of a Spotify playlist for the music of Payton Matous, I came across the music of Sam Baker.

Baker, an American folk musician, based in Austin, Texas has a way with his words. This poet grew up in Itasca, Texas and even played high school football with A fellow Texas legend, the great Tommy Alverson.

After an accident on board a train in South America that left Sam Baker without the dexterity of his fingers he re taught himself to pick the guitar, “left handed.” Writing music and poetry helped him relearn words and memories that had been lost in the accident.

Sam Baker is a survivor and the kind of man who I aspire to be. A man who never gives up no matter how great the odds.

Baker’s song ditch off of his 2013 self released album, “Say Grace,” is a song about life. Just a regular Joe going through the struggles of adulting and just doing his best to keep it all together.

Some of Bakers work has been compared to fellow great story telling artists like Guy Clark, John Prine, and Townes Van Zandt.

Take a deep dive into Sam Bakers stories and you are sure to find something that resonates within you as well. Until then, keep streaming the music and buying the merch to support the music you love.

Pancho.

Gettin By

The first time I ever gave an honest listen to Jerry Jeff Walker was when I found his album, Viva Terlingua. I say found because literally I found the album. It has been said that one man’s trash is another man’s treasure. At the young and impressionable age of ten I was an avid dumpster diver. In the dumpster behind my parents home I found a box full of records. Jerry Jeff’s Viva Terlingua was one and I still have it today.

As most all of us know. Jerry Jeff Walker was one of the original Texas Musicians and there hasn’t been many who could hold a candle to his sounds and styles. It was Jerry Jeff who first recorded the poetic lyrics of Guy Clark. Jerry Jeff also wrote many of his own songs that are still popular today.

The world lost Jerry Jeff Walker in the middle of a pandemic but his music will always be on my playlist. I will always hear his song in my brain.

Another great Texas singer and songwriter, Steve Earl , who has previously released tributes for the late Guy Clark and of Townes Van Zandt has begun his own tribute to the music of Jerry Jeff Walker, Earle’s cover of the Walker penned . “Gettin’ By” recently released on Spotify

A great remake of the same old song. Jerry Jeff Walker’s “Gettin’ By” originally released on the Viva Terlingua Album in 1973.

“Don’t matter how you do it , just do it like you do it, I’ve been down this road once or twice before.”

Pancho.

Sad Bastard Songs

I originally discovered the music of Texas singer songwriter Vincent Neil Emerson after Charley Crockett released his song, “Lily my Dear.” Along with Crockett, co-writers listed on the song are Vincent Neil Emerson and Tyler Heiser. When South Texas Tweek released his song “50 Dollars A Week,” Vincent Neil Emerson also had a had a hand in that sound. At the time I began listening to VNE he had very little of his own discography. His song, “Willie Nelson’s Wall,” caught my attention. It wasn’t very long after that that Emerson released his self-titled album. That first album that was produced by the legendary Rodney Crowell is definitely one of my go to records, the entire composition is perfection in my opinion. Many of those songs tell a sad story of Emerson’s upbringing and many songs are so much in tune with my own life. I don’t know about you, but a sad song makes me happy. Vincent Neil Emerson is the newest king of the “Sad Bastard Song.”

Emerson’s sounds are much like his favorite songwriters. People like Townes Van Zandt, Guy Clark, and Steve Earle. Many a VNE song leaves me with a haunt or a chill in the air. It is as if VNE were a TVZ re incarnate. Emerson’s newest release, “Son of A Bitch,” just might be the most haunting yet.

Vincent Neil Emerson was born in East Texas and raised by a single mother. As a child, his guitar was his only friend and writing songs was the way he found he could cope with his emotions. Vincent began playing the bar scene around Ft Worth at the age of 19. He began sharing pieces of his life through the stories in his song. His career has flown high and continues to grow. I am expecting that he will one day be listed as one of the greatest songwriters ever and will represent Texas just like that long list of writers who came before him.

Pancho.