Editor’s note: Roy Clark, the legendary country singer and guitar player known for his eternal smile, died Thursday, Nov. 15, 2018, at his home in Tulsa, Oklahoma, following complications from pneumonia. He was 85. Writer Mike Wolcott reflected on Facebook:
He was as central of a figure in my childhood as ever existed. From “Cousin Roy” on “The Beverly Hillbillies” to all those years on “Hee-Haw” and, especially, a show at Konochti where I took my parents and, as he was walking off stage, walked back just to shake my father’s hand — a firm handshake with smiles and eye contact that said “We’ve got a little somethin’ in common, don’t we?” And oh, how he could play a guitar (and several other instruments).
One of the best musicians of this or any age and blended with a sense of humor unlike any other. If you didn’t laugh during “Thank God and Greyhound,” you have no funny bone at all; if you don’t cry every single time you hear “Yesterday When I Was Young,” you have no soul. RIP Roy Clark; say hi to Buck for me, because there will be pickin’ and grinnin’ in heaven tonight.
— Mike Wolcott
