Roy Clark entering Country Music Hall of Fame Sunday
Roy Clark performs in 2006. (Associated Press photo)
Roy Clark, Barbara Mandrell and Charlie McCoy are announced as the 2009 inductees of the Country Music Hall of Fame at a press conference hosted by the Country Music Association on in February at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville.
From Friday’s Weekend Look section of The Oklahoman.
Tulsa resident Roy Clark to enter country music hall
Country music icon Roy Clark will be formally inducted Sunday into the Country Music Hall of Fame.
The longtime Tulsa resident, along with singer Barbara Mandrell and musician Charlie McCoy, will enter the institution at the Medallion Ceremony at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville, Tenn. The ceremony takes place during an annual reunion of the Hall of Fame membership.
“I’m honored to be in the Country Music Hall of Fame because I know or knew 90 percent of the people who are in here; they’re my friends. And the rest of them I don’t know are my heroes,” Clark said in February, when his induction into the hall was announced.
Clark, 76, learned to play the guitar, banjo and mandolin at a young age. By age 17, the Virginia native had won two national banjo championships, which earned him his first appearance on the Grand Ole Opry.
He became a regular on Jimmy Dean’s TV show “Town and Country Time” and took over the series when Dean left. Clark moved to Las Vegas in 1960 and became a fixture at the Golden Nugget. He later joined Oklahoma native Wanda Jackson as leader of her band.
In the 1960s and ’70s, Clark charted several Top 10 country singles, including “Tips of My Fingers,” “Yesterday When I Was Young,” and “If I Had It to Do All Over Again.”
He also ventured into acting, first with TV shows such as “The Tonight Show” and “The Beverly Hillbillies” and later in the movies “Uphill All the Way,” “Freeway” and “Gordy.” He finished filming the movie “Palo Pinto Gold” with Mel Tillis and Trent Willmon last year.
In 1969, Clark and Buck Owens were picked by CBS to co-host “Hee Haw,” a country version of the series “Laugh-In.” He and Owens, who died in 2006, hosted “Hee Haw” for more than 20 years.
In his six-decade career, Clark has won a Grammy and many other awards, gained a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and joined the Grand Ole Opry. He and Jackson, a Rock and Roll Hall of Famer, were inducted into the Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame in 2000.
Clark and his wife Barbara have lived in Tulsa for many years; Roy Clark Elementary School in the Tulsa Union district is named for him.
He will be inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in the “Career Achieved National Prominence Between World War II and 1975″ category.
-BAM
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