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For Jack Clement, Things Happen This Way

Jack Clement, celebrated as a producer and songwriter since working with Johnny Cash and Jerry Lee Lewis at Sun Records in the 1950s, is a soulful and elegant singer, too. But it's not surprising if that's news to you. Mr. Clement, 73, has released only two albums, 28 years apart. The first, "All I Want to Do in Life," was a critically acclaimed but little-heard gem from the height of the country "outlaw" craze that was taking his friends Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings up the charts. His second, "Guess Things Happen That Way," came out this month on the, Dualtone label. You have to wonder: Why now - and not before?

"I wanted to do it the way want to do it," Mr. Clement said in a recent interview at his home, "though I didn't know what that was; I'm a natural-horn experimenter. I wanted to do something you don't hear on the radio, figuring that that would be what you need to hear on the radio. And these people let me do it."

Last year, Mr. Clement had supplied a memorable cut to the label's tribute to Waylon Jennings, his one time brother-in-law. He's put together Cowboy's Ragtime Band, which appears with him now and again around Nashville-its members include rocker Billy Burnette and acoustic-guitar ace Shawn Camp, who has himself written recent hits for everyone from the Del McCoury hand in bluegrass to mainstream country's Kenny Chesney. Mr. Camp co-wrote with Mark D. Sanders "Off to Join the World" on Mr. Clement's album, a circus of a song in lyric and sound. And "Cowboy Jack," as everyone who knows him has long called Mr. Clement, had a few tunes of his own just about ready, given those 28 years to lock them in.

"Well, I've never really strained at writing," Jack said, "maybe because I never was a full-time writer. I think people write their best songs in their spare time, when they've got another job, instead of a song deadline."

With this laid-back approach (and the generally Hawaiian-shirted, amiable Mr. Clement is the personification of that description), he's nevertheless written such unquestionable classics as the title song "Guess Things Happen That Way," which is on the new CD as a previously unheard, jaunty 1980s duet with its original hitmaker, the late Johnny Cash. Also performed by Jack is another song he wrote for Johnny, "Ballad of a Teenage Queen".

Jack Clement, who was given the Americana Music Association's Lifetime Achievement award on Friday, is the writer behind Jerry Lee Lewis's "It'll Be Me" (rendered sweetly by Jack himself now). Norah Jones's "Be Here to Love Me," and Dolly Parton and Porter Wagoner's gorgeous "Just Someone I Used to Know." At least one new ballad introduced on this album, "Leavin' Is the Lovin' Thing to Do," is about that delicate, mellow -- and beautiful. Since Jack is also the author of such famed Cash novelties as "Flushed From the Bathroom of Your Heart," it's no surprise that he's got an ode to carrot juice on his new disc. Fussing with preparation of the drink and topping that off with a song about it, he says, cost him at least one marriage.

The "day job" Mr. Clement keeps is, of course, as an imaginative and idiosyncratic producer. He's produced key recordings for Townes Van Zandt and Messrs. Cash and Lewis, the hit albums of Charley Pride and - often forgotten - 1970 country LP with Louis Armstrong.

Add to these the quiet, surprising "Dreaming My Dreams," often cited as Waylon Jennings's best album; the singing shows the phrasing influence of laid-back Jack. (Mr. Clement sings its title track on the new release.) And he's working, even now, on a comeback album for country crooning legend Eddy Arnold.

He does his producing work a little bit outside the Music Row norm, too-in a comfortable, inviting, in-home studio known as "The Cowboy Arms Hotel and Recording Spa." There are no control windows for artists to see gesturing, grimacing or half-asleep engineers through; the atmosphere is more like that of a living room - with equipment and lights for video. "I thought that a recording studio was the worst place in the world to make a record, so I built this studio at home 25 years ago," he says. "Now everyone wants one!"

What does veteran producer Jack Clement have to say about getting the best. possible performance out of Cowboy lack Clement, the part-time singer?

"That's not as easy to do as You might think. That first album, back in 1978, took 2 1/2 years to do and say yes to; this one only took three or four monthsonce we really got into it."

There are plans afoot for live appearances by Mr. Clement in New York this fall, and at the Getty Museum in Los Angeles on Dec. 10. Mr. Clement doesn't travel much. So, it's necessary to ask: Will we he waiting until the year 2032 for the next Cowboy Jack album-on whatever medium they happen to be favoring at the time?

"Actually, with six or eight tracks left over from this project, it's a head start on another one. I'm in a mood to cut some more!"

Mr. Mazor Writes about country music from Nashville