Digital Interviews: When did you first develop a desire to play music?

W.C. Clark: I think a young man becomes more ambitious when he's working hard. I knew I didn't want to work hard all my life, so I was around music all the time -- guitar playing, harmonica playing, piano playing, gospel, blues, country. I saw guys on TV, jumping out of Cadillacs, and their guitars, on the shows. I thought, "That's what I want to do." That was just the ambitious part of it. I was around so much talent, it couldn't help but rub off on me. My mom was a singer. My responsibility was seeing that my grandmother got to church. Walking to church and back home, I was around gospel singing. I wasn't around blues a whole bunch, from the very beginning, because my family was all gospel. My stepfather would listen to blues on the radio, and I would get to listen to it then. I had a cousin -- I've got a cousin -- Big Pete Pearson. He was my biggest influence. He was already singing the blues, and playing the blues, and he got me into it. I followed in his footsteps. He's still going, and I am, too.

DI: Tell us what the Austin music scene was like when you were young.

WC: It wasn't as commercial -- a tourist attraction. It was food for the soul, having fun, being able to express yourself. I just grew up in it. Back then most black people grew up in the blues -- from the blues, in the blues. As I got older, things were changing. It was easy to see that the blues scene for the blacks was thinning out. It was getting weak, simply because everybody was reaching for something different. I heard Rufus Thomas say something in an interview that really struck me. He said, "The blues has to go on, and has to grow." You can't hold it down. It has to go on, on its own. So, if it's not active in one place, it'll just find another place and do the same thing. I can really vouch for that, because I've seen it change, and I've been on both sides.

DI: Who were some of your early blues teachers?

WC: I didn't learn the blues from anybody. I was raised up around gospel singers and guitar players that played gospel. There were a few hanging around that played blues, I mean real blues, on guitars and harmonicas and violins. It was more like that sound energized the feeling that was already in me.

DI: How did you become part of Joe Tex's band?

WC: He lost his original band. I knew Joe Tex. He was from Navasota, Texas, and I was from Austin, Texas. He had been coming through Austin, playing with us and stuff. I found out he needed a guitar player. We got together. He hired me to play guitar, and we went on the road.

DI: When you returned to Austin, you formed your own band.

WC: I'd had bands before that, but yes, I came back and formed my own group called Southern Feeling. That was with Angela Strehli and Denny Freeman. We were based in Austin. Everybody was from different places, but we were based in Austin and we had a real good band. We played around for awhile -- came down to San Francisco and out in Seattle, and played. Got back to Austin, and everything was advancing so fast. People wanted to do other things. Everybody was really trying to get into recording, so that band busted up. Then I formed the Blues Revue -- that's the band I have now.

DI: You're always going to be asked about Stevie Ray Vaughan.

WC: Sure.

DI: You left your band, took a "regular" job, then you played with him. How did all of that come about?

WC: I was married and I had to have money coming in at all times. I was still playing as much as possible. Since I didn't have a regular income playing, I took a job as a mechanic. I am a mechanic by trade, if I want to -- which I don't want to. [laughs] When Stevie first came to Austin, he'd sit around and play with me, visit us, come over to my house. He was a real nice, music-seeking type of guy, and he was playing with the Cobras during that time. He would come and sit in with my group. After that, I started to work. He came down one day where I was working and started complaining about the way I was treating my hands -- grease and stuff all over my fingernails, things like that. He said he was putting together a band: him, Mike Kindred, Freddy Walden and Lou Ann Barton. I said, "Sure." We started rehearsing and put the band together, called it Triple Threat. We played and had a wonderful time. Then that band? Same thing; everybody started goin' off in different directions. Stevie formed Double Trouble. By that time I had the group I've got now.

DI: You released your first album in 1987.

WC: Before that, I got a 45 with Stevie. I don't know where to find it, but I put out a 45 with Stevie playing guitar. That was probably '82, and then around '86, '87, Something for Everybody. I did it all myself -- my own label, my own publishing and wrote all the songs. [laughs] I did it my way. It's a good album. People are still buying it today. I wouldn't advise anybody to do that. It's more simple today. With CDs, you can buy your own burner. Back then you had to depend on so many different people, and every time you have to depend on somebody, it costs you money. So it cost me a lot of money. Today it's a lot easier. But I did it.

DI: After that album, you concentrated on the road. Why?

WC: I think I came out of a cycle of musicians that were so dedicated that money wasn't the purpose; learning the unity of it, the love of it, the love of the time, of that time. Everything was different. I was satisfied. I was making good money and I was living fine. I wasn't -- and a lot of the musicians back then weren't -- so interested in record companies. We were more off into the negative side of the record companies. Eventually we saw that there are going to be some doors you're gonna knock on. They won't open unless you go through these changes. Maybe they were good changes. That was the reason why I wasn't so interested then.

DI: You came back in 1994 with Heart of Gold, which blew everyone away.

WC: I'd never had experience with a professional producer before, so that was a lot of fun. I was dealing with people that knew something about what they were doing, and I knew what I was doing. I knew what needed to be done, and it was happening. That was real good. Kaz, my musical producer, he's real educated and real calm. I never had a producer to produce my voice and my playing. Kaz and I had been playing together for years. I trust his judgment. It worked out fine.

DI: Then you released Texas Soul.

WC: I didn't expect to win a W.C. Handy Award. I didn't expect to have the Album of the Year. I can't say too much more, you know. [laughs] About that same time, I was receiving a platinum album from Stevie Ray doing "Cold Shot." I got 20 percent of that. All that was fallin' at the same time. So that was a good year. [laughs]

DI: Recently you were the only survivor of a tragic van accident. How did that change your outlook on music, and on life?

WC: On the next CD [1998's Lover's Plea] -- "Are You Here, Are You There?" -- I wrote that tune. It represents the accident. The change was, I realized that a life is not as important as we think it is. We think a life is so important. If it's so important, how come it can be wiped out just like that? [snaps fingers] That's what I learned. Either you can go, or you can stay -- just like that. That's it. So after that, I got real serious about my playing. I went through a little mental thing because of it. I didn't see a psychiatrist or anything; I worked it out myself. But I wasn't sure if I was gonna play again. I wasn't sure if I was doing the right thing. I had to go through that. I was sitting on the commode, and I hadn't really thought deep into the accident, but I was thinking, "What am I gonna do?" Then, all of a sudden, my mind became aware of my hands and feet. I started thinking, "I got all my parts. Nothing's broken, and I'm worried about if I'm supposed to play again? Sure I'm supposed to play again." I got out there and started playing again. I'm just more serious. I'm more serious now than I ever was. I'm playing better and singing better.

DI: And you have an album coming out soon?

WC: The other three CDs were with Black Top. This one will be on Alligator.

DI: What advice would you give a young musician?

WC: I learned that there was a place for everything, and everything in its place. I learned there were certain things that you could do and couldn't do -- or you shouldn't, maybe. If you're a bass player, you got a category. If you're a guitar player, you got a category. You've got a position within the music itself. A place where you're supposed to play -- your place -- and not jump over into somebody else's place. As long as a person knows what they're playing and what category they should maintain during that time, it's okay.