BIOGRAPHY > ARTICLES > 1973 Bio

COMPREHENSIVE BIOGRAPHY (as of 1973): JACK CLEMENT

Social scientists and philosophers say a man is the product of his background. If that theory were to be applied to Jack Clement, it might be necessary to re-phrase it, saying there are many Jack Clements because of his many backgrounds. Perhaps it's the variety of his many backgrounds that makes Jack Clement such a colorful character. Undoubtedly the fact that he excels in varieties of endeavor contributes to his uniqueness. Whatever the reason, the finished product has no equal.

While he amazes his friends and associates daily with his ever-expanding range of interests and involvements, dominating all descriptions of Jack Clement at the moment are his phenomenal successes in the music business. Clement is a top record producer, songwriter, music publisher, recording studio owner and operator, and so forth. But Jack Clement is much more, because he's done so much more.

Item: He was a U. S. Marine in the early 1950s, stationed in Washington, D. C., where he served as a member of the prestigious Marine Corps Drill Team, which participated in official U. S. Governmental ceremonies. lie also was involved with the Marine Corps Institute, a correspondence school. While stationed in Washington, Clement attended the Washington Bible Institute and George Washington University. He read voraciously and began in Washington what was to become his natural, close involvement with music.

Item: He's been down the road as a "picker and singer," and in so doing, he's experienced first-hand the struggles of a musician trying to earn a living. Clement began his musical experiences in Washington, D. C.; he later performed in nightclubs in Boston and in Wheeling, West Virginia, where he also was a member of the famous WWVA Jamboree ("I was 'Jack,' of 'Buzz and Jack, The Bayou Boys,"' he chuckles today).

At that time, Clement already was thoroughly skilled at playing the guitar, and he was beginning to display an awareness for dynamics and musical intricacies that later, after refinement and testing, would play important roles in his production and songwriting work.

Clement finally returned to his home town of Memphis in 1954 and began playing steel guitar for local country bandleader Slim Wallace. The two men decided to form their own record label, to be called "Fernwood Records," and Clement began his production career in a home-made studio built in a garage.

Item: While maintaining his involvement with music, Clement's urge for diversity of experience caused him to spread himself in other directions as well. He began attending Memphis State University, studying everything from nutrition to physics.("Physics really gave me a tussle," he says, frowning. "I hadn't had any math or science in high school, so I was totally unprepared for the calculus and trigonometry I needed for this class. I put more time in on this one than all the rest put together. And I'd get mad when I couldn't solve a problem - I'd throw my books around, and everything. I used to keep an old garbage can outside the back door, and when I couldn't solve a problem I'd take a hammer and beat the top of that can for awhile. Then I'd go back and solve the problem. I got a 'C' in the course.") But Clement concentrated his program of study on English and Literature, for he already was beginning to write songs.

Item: Not having decided on a career, Clement continued to experiment with and test all his interests. "I've always been interested in construction," he says, "so I took a job with a building supply firm in Memphis. They were going to train me to be an estimator, and I liked that fine. But in the meantime, they had me working in the hardware department, and I didn't like that at all. So I quit."

Item: At that point, the next phase of his life began, and there was no question about the direction it was taking him. He broke into the record industry. Clement and his bandleader friend Slim Wallace had made a record, their first, and they were very enthusiastic about it. In fact, they just knew it would be a smash national hit. As far as they were concerned, all they needed to do was "put it out," which meant they had to get it pressed, which in turn required technical services referred to as "mastering." (Distribution was of no concern to them at this point!)

Memphis, already significant to the history of American music because of its famous blues musicians (W. C. Handy, et. al.) who started there before spreading out across the nation and around the world, also was the home of Sam Phillips' Sun Records. This new company had leaped off to a fabulous beginning with a new kind of music that contemporized the Memphis blues-influences. Elvis Presley was on Phillips' roster, before RCA bought the contract. So was Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, and Bill Justis. Phillips, therefore, already was recognized as an important man in the music business.

Clement took his tape to Sun Records for mastering. When he came back for it a few days later, Sam Phillips said he wanted to talk to Jack. Jack came out of the meeting as a new Sam Phillips' employee.

Assigned at first to assist Phillips during recording sessions, Clement plunged into his work and his learning with a zest that comes only from total response to instinct and desire. Within a few months, Phillips was giving increasing amounts of production responsibility to Jack.

Beginning with Johnny Cash, Clement began a string of record masterpieces that today are considered historic milestones in the development of American music. These sides, which began appearing in the throbbing years of 1957, 1958 and 1959, included country, pop, and rock musical forms, and they played an extremely formative role in dictating some of the directions American music was to take.

Some of the songs were written by Jack himself, songs like "Ballad Of A Teen-Age Queen," "Guess Things Happen That Way," "Just About Time." Working also with Jerry Lee Lewis and Carl Perkins, writing for them and producing their records, Clement continued to make early rock-and-roll history with such titles as "Fools Like Me" and "It'll Be Me." His creativity showed up in other respects too. Insatiable for knowledge about the engineering or technical aspects of recording, Clement threw himself into the world behind the face of the control panel, asking elementary questions at first ("How do you get the echo?").

If, as was frequently the case in those early, comparatively primitive days, Clement wasn't satisfied with the answer or with the limitations imposed on him by the prevailing techniques, he began figuring out ways to get the operation closer to what he wanted. ("At first I was told we could get the echo only on one mike. Well, I wanted it on everything!'')

Clement's work with Jerry Lee Lewis was an early example of his desire for freshness. He not only helped Jerry Lee develop the performing style that eventually became internationally famous, but he devised the studio conditions that helped Lewis achieve his remarkably successful recorded sound.

Clement was far beyond a crucial turning-point. But he had become fully qualified to move ahead in these musical directions. He had amassed a tremendous amount of technical knowledge and skill. But technical skill by itself is not enough.

Jack also had experienced a wide range of experience related to "Life." Furthermore, his uncanny perceptive abilities enabled him to understand whatever he experienced. And gifted with rare talent that enabled him to communicate in the form of music whatever he perceived, he had the foundation needed to work effectively with the music of Life itself -- American music in all its forms, including rock, folk, country, and pop.

Clement began working for Phillips in 1956. In 1959 he struck off on his own and moved to Nashville. He commuted to Memphis, however, where he had an interest in a recording studio, and where he had formed Jack Music, Inc., the first of what were to be numerous Clement-owned music publishing companies. (The first song he put into his new company was his own "Motorcycle Michael.")

One of Clement's primary responsibilities in Nashville was, in some respects, a "first" in this rapidly expanding recording center. Referred to as an "associate of" or "assistant to" RCA's Nashville chief Chet Atkins, Clement was, for all intents and purposes, one of the first independent producers to work for a major label in Nashville. His relationship with RCA has become virtually another story in itself, since he brought to the label Charley Pride, one of the biggest sellers in the company's history.

In those early Nashville days, Clement's race to leadership was just beginning. During this period he wrote his incredibly successful "Miller's Cave" and the big Jim Reeves (and later Charley Pride) hit, "I Know One."

Clement also began working with other songwriters. He brought Dickey Lee and Allen Reynolds, fellow Memphians, into his firm. They contributed hit songs, like "She Thinks I Still Care" and, later, hit records, like Dickey's million-selling "Patches." By 1963, Jack Clement had become involved with the operations of recording studios in Texas (Beaumont and Houston), working with his close friend Bill Hall. Major hit records came out of Clement's Texas operations, including "Patches," then Dickey's follow-up, "I Saw Linda Yesterday," and Rod Bernard's "Colinda." Clement wrote more songs during this period, such as "Just Between You And Me,"which later, when recorded by Charley Pride, firmly solidified the career of Clement's young discovery. George Jones recorded some of Clement's songs during this period, too. These included his smash hits of "A Girl I Used To Know" and "Not What I Had In Mind." Jones also made a hit out of Dickey Lee's "She Thinks I Still Care," a masterpiece that since has been recorded all over the world.

In 1961, Clement and Bill Hall became partners in the formation of Hall-Clement Publishing. They displayed confidence in two young writers just getting started. By 1970, about nine years later, Jerry Foster and Bill Rice had become the hottest writing team in Nashville.

Also during this period, Clement was sharpening his skills as a producer. As an example, Johnny Cash summoned Clement to arrange, play lead guitar on, and participate in the production decisions that gave him another gold record, "Ring Of Fire." Cash frequently consulted Clement then, and he still does today. The two men have a tremendous mutual respect.

In 1964, a family country music group struggling for big success formalized a relationship with Jack Clement. Jack first met The Stonemans during his Marine Corps days in Washington, D. C. Having been a fervent admirer of their musical abilities, Clement began working with them, helping them to improve their stage work. Finally, in 1964, he produced their first album, for World-Pacific Records, in California. Later he brought them back to Nashville and got them affiliated with MGM Records. He wrote many of their early hits, including the famous "Five Little Johnson Girls." He aided them as they moved into syndicated television and assisted in the group's management and direction from then on.

Clement's involvement with music would be a back-breaking load for anyone else to shoulder. But Clement is absolutely unable to turn off his mind; his enthusiasm, his inquisitiveness, or his fanatical desire to "act involved."

As time passed, Clement's financial foundation broadened, and he found himself able to respond to interests outside the music industry. This diversification included such areas as burglar alarm systems and other electronic security devices. This also displays his uncanny foresight, for security has become one of the hottest fast-growth industries. By the end of 1964, Clement had written songs like "The One on the Right is on the Left," "Everybody Loves A Nut," "Back To Nashville, Tennessee "Now I Can Live Again."

By February, 1965, Clement decided to cease the time-consuming commuting between Nashville and Texas, and he firmly anchored himself in Nashville. He recognized Nashville's potential, and he had a pretty good idea of how he wanted to fit into Nashville's magnificent future.

A few months later, early in 1965, Jack Clement and Charley Pride met for the first time, beginning a relationship that now ranks as one of the most significant artist-producer relationships of all time. Clement instantly spotted the young Negro's talent and his sincere love for country music. Clement also was one of the few individuals who could look beyond the racial considerations, which at that time were very serious questions. Ignoring the skeptics who loudly denounced the idea of a Negro singing the music whose market base was the Old South, Clement took Pride into a recording studio in August, 1965, paying all costs out of his own pocket. The results of that first session eventually got Pride his contract with RCA Records, and the first record was released in December. What's happened since "The Snakes Crawl At Night" is history. Today, experts find it impossible to estimate with a reasonable degree of accuracy Pride's up-to-the-minute sales in records and tapes.

Another indication of Pride's popularity was his being named "Entertainer Of The Year" and "Favorite Male Vocalist" by the members of the Country Music Association in 1971. The awards were presented to him on nationwide television, on the Kraft Music Hall Awards telecast from Nashville in October.

Also in 1965 Clement recorded "Moods Of Mary," another Jack Clement composition, with Murv Shiner, the beginning of a warm relationship that continues today.

In 1966, Jack began recording studio work with Tompall and The Glaser Brothers. This production relationship has grown and prospered to the extent that when the group was declared "Vocal Group Of The Year" on the 1970 Kraft Music Hall awards telecast, Tompall Glaser went out of his way to express the Glasers' gratitude to Jack Clement

By 1968 and 1969, Clement had become seriously overworked, a situation created by his generosity with his time, energy, and mind. It's almost possible to see Clement's mental agony when he finds he has to deny his help or ability to someone he values. This goes hand in hand with his innate sincerity and fanatical honesty. When he spots talent or some other potential to which he attaches value, he wants to provide his all-out support.

Late in 1968 he took a look at the plans for new enterprises already begun. Then he trimmed his list of outside obligations so that he'd have the time he knew he'd be needing.

In the spring of 1969, Clement began construction on what was to become Nashville's finest recording studio, the Jack Clement Recording Studios. Planning these studios for years, creating a virtual utopia, Clement eliminated every drawback he had come across and incorporated every innovation that he wished he had encountered throughout his career.

In December, 1969, the studio was opened; by the next month, there was no question as to its ranking as a Nashville music industry institution. In the first year of its operation, the studio handled an incredible 1200 "master sessions." One of the biggest-selling records of the year around the world was recorded there -- Ray Stevens' "Everything Is Beautiful."

In May, 1970, expansion again had become necessary and was begun. By February, 1971, even more expansion had begun, massive expansion that forced all his other offices to re-locate away from what was to have been their "permanent home" next door.

Late in the summer of 1971, the new addition was opened, and its interior design and technical capabilities at once astounded Nashville's music community. Early in 1970 Clement brought some commercial artists to Nashville from Louisville, after being told they were the best Louisville had to offer to the profession. He asked them to "build an art studio primarily for the music business." By October of that year, the facility was expanding into commercial photography as well, and by February, 1971, the Pinwheel Art And Photography Studios -- another Jack Clement business enterprise -- was in full swing. Even the major labels were assigning album cover design, advertising layouts, and publicity chores to the Pinwheel staff. By mid-year, Pinwheel had become the art facility for Nashville's music industry and was branching out into other industries as well.

Late in 1971, Clement announced a major re-structuring of his music publishing companies, plus the formation of his own new record company. These enormously significant developments were designed to give Jack and his creative associates some additional outlets for their concepts, ideas, and their talent.

To attempt to list other interests of Jack Clement would be an impossible job, for his mind engulfs practically everything with which he comes in contact. There is no way of determining what is taking place in his mind, particularly when he's in a contemplative mood or physically motionless. He's probably formulating plans that he'll put into operation ten years from now. Or, perhaps he's figuring out a way to bring into his organizations an individual he feels has strong potential.

For recreation, Clement is fond of playing the steel guitar and other instruments. He spends much time reading -- he's particularly fond of cleverness in writing such as that of English humorist P. G. Wodehouse.

A constant stream of humanity flocks around him, an assortment of people of every description, people of every profession, talent, ability, and inclination. Jack has a way of making everyone feel that he is Jack Clement's best friend, and it's probably true that everyone regards Clement as his or her best friend in return.

Clement is an example of what it takes to be successful in working with whatever purports. to be a representation of life, whether it's a song or a movie. He's dis-interested in very little; he's fascinated by almost everything, and he prods and analyzes and inquires until he's satisfied. He's totally unconcerned about asking elementary or fundamental questions, whereas other people would rather not risk embarrassment. When he feels he's learned an adequate amount, he'll begin making his own creative or managerial contribution. Or else he'll schedule it for his future attention.

Practically everything can be found in his work: cleverness, insight, poetry, solidity, perfect blending, and most importantly, honesty, reality, and objectivity.

Clement's work, then, is the best description of Clement himself