Listening to “This Land,” the recently released third major- label studio album by Gary Clark Jr., brings to mind the story of the six blind men who were asked to describe an elephant — one touched a leg, one touched the trunk, a third touched the tail, a fourth a tusk, and so on. Each of the six came away with a very different impression of the elephant.
Clark’s album is a similar experience. Almost every song offers a different impression of who this versatile and immensely talented man is and where he’s going with his music.
The title song is an angry indictment of the racism inflicted on generations of African-Americans in Texas.
Others describe the love of a father for his children — Clark has a 4-year-old son and 1-year-old daughter — and the sacrifices involved in leaving your loved ones at home while you’re on tour.
“I’m talking about where I come from, my experiences of being a black man and growing up in the South in the ’80s, ’90s and 2000s — and even to now in certain situations that I deal with,” Clark said, patched in via conference call from his home “out in the country” near Austin, Texas.
“There’s that and there’s the love and there’s the family, and then reflecting on the past of being lost and getting into trouble. It’s just everything. It’s pretty much summing up my experience — which is not easy to do — and I don’t think I really achieved that, but trying to do the best I can to give you a view of what its like to see life through my eyes.”
“Some people can relate and some people can’t, and I think I’ve stopped trying to make everything relatable to everybody because it’s not.”
Clark plans to have his wife and children with him when he comes to Hawaii this week for two nights at The Republik. It will be his first time in Hawaii and he’s heard a lot of good things about it.
“I want people to come on out and have a good time,” Clark said. “I’m not a political guy. I’ve had my experiences, and that’s what the record is, and to go beyond that I don’t think is going to serve anybody.”
At 35, Clark said he doesn’t need to spend much anger on things that happened in the past.
“I’m fortunate,” he continued. “I have a great life, going around the world and making music. I have a beautiful family and people are paying attention to this record and I’m so grateful for it. It’s finally brought me to the place where I can come to Hawaii and see this beautiful place everybody’s been talking about for so long. I’m in a place now where I can do that, and I just feel fortunate and I feel grateful.”
LISTENING TO Clark’s larger body of work — his discography also includes two live albums — it is easy to see why so many people see him as a modern-day Jimi Hendrix, or as a peer of Eric Clapton and the late Stevie Ray Vaughan and insert-the-name-of-your-favorite-guitar-god-here.
Step back, take a deep breath and listen to “Feed the Babies,” another track on “This Land,” and the musical legacy of Chicago- born soul music superstar Curtis Mayfield comes into focus.
“Being black in America, Curtis Mayfield is part of your soul DNA,” Clark said. “I’ll give credit 100% to Curtis Mayfield for being an influence to ‘Feed the Babies,’ but I also wrote that with a guy named Jacob Sciba — the guy who produced and helped me write a few of the songs on the album — and it was really his penmanship that helped spark the idea, so I got to give credit to him on that one.”
Mayfield was known for his distinctive falsetto. Falsetto is one of the several singing styles Clark uses on “This Land.”
“We actually had a debate about singing it falsetto,” he revealed. “I had people listening to it, coming into the studio saying ‘Maybe you should sing it in your full voice.’ I said ‘No, I’m singing it this way, just like Curtis Mayfield sang ‘Move On Up’ and everything else.’ I went to ‘church’ with ‘Pastor Mayfield!’”
Gary Lee Clark Jr. was born and raised in Austin. Looking back years later, Clark said that “Austin City Limits,” the PBS television music program, had been one of his early influences and the way he experienced the music of B.B. King, Albert King, Bonnie Raitt and Robert Cray among others.
He was also inspired by Marvin Gaye, Barry White, Teddy Pendergrass, Michael Jackson, Prince, Albert King and 1990s- vintage R&B groups like Boys II Men.
Clark started playing guitar when he was 12. He was playing small gigs around Austin when he was noticed by Clifford Antone, owner of the Austin music club that had been the launch pad for the guitar- playing Vaughan brothers — Jimmie and Stevie Ray. Antone became his mentor, and Clark was soon working with Jimmie Vaughan and other members of the Austin music scene.
Clark was an experienced musician in his mid-20s and had recorded two indie- label albums when he was introduced to Eric Clapton at a music festival in 2010; public interest in him blew up after he took part in a three-way jam with Clapton and Sheryl Crow.
In the last decade, Clark has performed with or recorded with a list of A-list artists that includes the Rolling Stones, B.B. King, Jeff Beck, Beyoncé, Dave Grohl, Buddy Guy, Alicia Keys, Childish Gambino and the Foo Fighters.
All the experience that comes with 23 years of playing the guitar went into “This Land.”
“THIS LAND,” released in February, entered the Billboard Top 200 Album chart at No. 6 — Clark’s third consecutive Top 10 album — shortly afterwards.
Clark’s been having “really interesting conversations” about it ever since, he said — “some with people who haven’t heard my music before and some with people that did, and they said they liked this about it and they didn’t like that about it.
“That’s what being honest and open as a human being means — that some people are going to like you and some people aren’t, and some people are going to appreciate what you have to say and some people aren’t going to appreciate it at all, and that’s fine.”
“I’m not going to pretend like I’m something great and not deny the fact that sometimes I feel low and lonely and lost,” he said. “And so I think with ‘This Land,’ it’s just kind of a reflection of my life and my experiences with talking with people and travelling all over the world.
”I feel like for the most part people have their great intentions,” Clark said. “Sometimes they get lost in living and being in the moment, and kind of lose sight of their goals and their intentions and what the right thing is.”
GARY CLARK JR.
>> Where: The Republik
>> When: 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday
>> Cost: $47; $150 VIP
>> Info: 941-7469, jointherepublik.com
