Was Roy Clark the shrewdest chameleon in popular music history? One minute, he was yucking it up with fellow Hee Haw wiseacre Buck Owens, and the next he was displaying his virtuosic banjo-picking abilities while casting nonchalant grins at the camera (a demeanor possibly co-opted from fellow musical wizard and syndicated television star Myron Floren). And, while examples of his facility with the aforementioned hallmarks of down home American entertainment were disseminated into homes nationwide on a weekly basis, he simultaneously reinvented himself on record as a somber pop balladeer, and an astonishingly effective one, at that. He was perhaps able to lend more genuine gravitas to his material than even Glen Campbell, who specialized in just that sort of thing.
“Yesterday, When I Was Young” is one of my favorite songs ever, even if it’s a bit melodramatic and manipulative. I also really like Jimmy Webb, so maybe I’m just a sap. “Yesterday” was originally a French song (by Charles Aznavour), which may explain the preoccupation with remorse and regret (“Seasons in the Sun” was French too, you know).
