When Brad Paisley was asked about Roy Clark, he didn’t talk about Hee Haw. He talked about guitar. “How many guitar players started with a Roy Clark guitar method book?” Paisley said. “How many guitars were sold to people wanting to play because of him? I practiced his style, then practiced making his facial expressions. He was a hero.” That last sentence — practiced his style, then practiced making his facial expressions — is the most precise description of what Roy Clark was: a guitarist of genuine world-class virtuosity who packaged that virtuosity inside a comedic entertainer persona so warm and accessible that millions of people absorbed a lifetime of guitar education without realizing it was happening. The grin was real. The picking behind the grin was extraordinary.
Roy Linwood Clark was born on April 15, 1933, in Meherrin, Virginia. He grew up in a musical family — his father and uncles played guitar, banjo, and fiddle at small socials in the Washington, D.C. area — and received his first guitar on his fourteenth Christmas. Within three years he had won the National Banjo Championship not once but twice, in 1947 and 1948. The $500 prize from the banjo championship bought him a Fender Broadcaster — one of the first production solid-body electric guitars in existence — and gave him his first serious electric instrument. That Broadcaster, and the trajectory it pointed him toward, was the beginning of a guitar career that would span six decades, produce dozens of albums, sell out Carnegie Hall, and make him the highest-paid country music star in America in the early 1970s.
What the Hee Haw co-host persona obscured — and what anyone who watched him play for more than thirty seconds immediately understood — was that Roy Clark was one of the most technically complete guitarists who ever lived. He could play bluegrass flatpicking runs at blistering speed, jazz chord-melodies with the sophistication of a bebop-educated musician, Spanish classical and flamenco passages that would impress a conservatory-trained guitarist, and country honky-tonk with the authority of someone who had played thousands of hours in Bakersfield and Nashville clubs. He performed with the Boston Pops. He headlined a Soviet Union tour in 1976 — one of the first country musicians to play for Soviet audiences. He recorded a jazz album with Texas blues legend Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown and a Hank Williams album with Joe Pass. His guitar instruction books inspired Brad Paisley to become a musician. Leo Fender himself named Roy Clark as one of his favorite guitar players. This is the complete guide to the instruments and amplification through which he delivered fifty years of that playing.
Background: From Meherrin, Virginia to the World Stage
The Virginia farm background and the Washington, D.C. migration of Clark’s family placed him in a musical environment that was simultaneously country, bluegrass, and jazz — the D.C. area absorbed influences from multiple traditions, and Clark’s father’s musical circle exposed him to a wider range of styles than a more regionally isolated upbringing would have provided. He absorbed everything without hierarchy: the banjo repertoire of Earl Scruggs, the jazz guitar vocabulary that he heard on radio, the country picking tradition of Chet Atkins and Merle Travis, and the classical guitar music that he encountered through recordings. This multi-directional absorption is the key to understanding why Clark sounded unlike any other country guitarist of his generation: he wasn’t exclusively of one tradition.
His early professional career was the working musician’s circuit: backup guitarist for touring country acts through the early 1950s, residency work in Washington clubs, and the slow accumulation of the kind of all-encompassing live performance experience that conservatories cannot replicate. He worked with Ernest Tubb’s touring organization — where he became acquainted with Tubb’s guitarist Billy Byrd, who would later co-design the Gibson Byrdland — and honed his rock and roll chops as a member of Wanda Jackson’s band in Las Vegas. Las Vegas taught him something no country tour could: the absolute necessity of commanding an audience’s attention through performance rather than through genre loyalty. A Las Vegas room in the 1960s would not stay for country music on reputation alone. Clark had to earn every room he played, and he did it by being undeniably entertaining while being undeniably great.
The Jimmy Dean Show in the early 1960s gave him national television exposure. Leo Fender himself gave him a Jazzmaster at a recording session — a gesture of respect from the man who built the instruments Clark had been playing. His first vocal hit, “The Tips of My Fingers,” came in 1963. His crossover breakthrough arrived in 1969 with “Yesterday When I Was Young” — a French chanson by Charles Aznavour that Clark recorded in English translation and turned into a country-pop hit of genuine emotional depth. In his 1994 autobiography, Clark wrote that it had “opened a lot of people’s eyes not only to what I could do but to the whole fertile and still largely untapped field of country music.” Hee Haw launched the same year, and Clark co-hosted the show with Buck Owens for its entire 24-year run. The combination of the crossover vocal hit and the nationally syndicated television comedy show made him one of the most recognizable figures in American entertainment throughout the 1970s. The CMA named him Entertainer of the Year in 1973 and Comedian of the Year in 1970. He was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2009. He died November 30, 2018, at his home in Tulsa, Oklahoma, from complications of pneumonia. He was 85.
The Rig: Roy Clark’s Guitars, Amps, and Effects
Guitars
Fender Broadcaster (First Professional Electric, 1947–Early 1950s): Roy Clark bought his first serious electric guitar with the $500 prize from winning the National Banjo Championship — a Fender Broadcaster, one of the earliest production solid-body electric guitars ever made. He had seen a Marine bring one into a Washington, D.C. club where he was playing and had never seen anything like it. The Broadcaster — which became the Telecaster after the Gretsch company objected to the name — was Leo Fender’s first fully realized solid-body production guitar: ash body, maple neck, two single-coil pickups, bridge pickup characterized by the cutting brightness that would define country guitar tone for generations. Clark’s Broadcaster was his primary instrument through his early professional years, and the solid-body electric’s playability — crucially, its low, fast action compared to the high-action acoustic guitars he had previously played — was revelatory. “Up until then he had been playing guitars that had a very high action, which was not conducive for his style of playing,” one account notes. The Broadcaster changed what was physically possible for him.
Gibson Byrdland (Primary Electric Guitar, 1960s–2000s): The Gibson Byrdland became Roy Clark’s primary instrument through his most visible and influential years — the Hee Haw era, the concert tours, the television appearances that made him one of the most recognizable guitarists in America. The Byrdland’s design specifics were particularly suited to Clark’s playing approach: its 23.5-inch short scale length (compared to standard 25.5-inch), a full inch shorter than the standard Gibson archtop scale, placed less physical demand on the left hand and enabled the lightning-fast passage work that had earned Clark his “Lightning Fingers” nickname since his earliest professional years. The Byrdland’s slimmer body — shallower than a standard L-5 — made it more comfortable for extended playing sessions. Clark’s specific Byrdland configuration is documented as featuring a P-90 pickup in the bridge position and a Charlie Christian bar pickup in the neck position — a hybrid arrangement that gave him the punchy, midrange-forward character of the P-90 for lead work combined with the warm, smooth jazz voice of the Charlie Christian pickup for chord-melody and rhythm playing. He maintained this guitar as his primary instrument for decades, though the airlines’ repeated damage to the instrument eventually forced him to retire it from touring use. “It’s so expensive I’m taking a chance hauling it out on the road,” he told Vintage Guitar magazine. He discovered an unwrapped Byrdland in his closet once — he had owned it seventeen years and forgotten it still had the original packaging on it.
Heritage Roy Clark Signature Model (Primary Touring Guitar, Later Career): When airline damage to his Byrdland became too frequent and too costly, Clark switched to Heritage Guitars’ Roy Clark signature model for touring. Heritage, based in Kalamazoo, Michigan — in the original Gibson factory building — built guitars in the tradition of classic Gibson archtop designs, and Clark’s signature model captured the essential character of the Byrdland in a more road-appropriate instrument. He acknowledged that the Heritage had “a slightly different sound” from the Byrdland, particularly at volume: “Almost any guitar through any amplifier might sound great at low volume, but if you crank ’em up onstage, they’ll lose it. The maple-neck guitar also has a tendency to get a little ‘hard’-sounding at volume.” The Heritage signature — effectively a single-cutaway semi-hollow in the ES-335/Byrdland tradition — was his practical answer to the touring demands that the irreplaceable Byrdland couldn’t sustain.
Ovation 12-String Acoustic (Classical and Flamenco Showcase): For his signature performance of “Malagueña” — the Spanish classical/flamenco standard that was one of the most breathtaking set pieces in his live show and a staple of his Hee Haw appearances — Clark used an Ovation 12-string acoustic. “Malagueña” on a 12-string, with its doubled strings adding natural chorus and shimmer to the already complex fingerpicking patterns of the classical arrangement, was the definitive demonstration of what Roy Clark could do that nobody expected a country comedian to be able to do. He also used two Ovation solid-body instruments — an Ovation Deacon 12-string for Russian folk material and other specific repertoire. Ovation’s round-back fiberglass construction provided excellent projection and feedback resistance at live volumes, making the acoustic instruments practical for performance environments where traditional flat-back acoustics would struggle.
Martin Acoustics (Bluegrass and Flat-Top Work): Clark owned and played a Martin D-18 (his first good guitar, by his own account), a Martin 00-18, and received a 1939 Martin D-45 as a gift from guitarist Doyle Dykes — one of the finest pre-war flat-top acoustics ever built. For bluegrass material on the road, he used a Takamine flat-top. The Martin collection reflects his engagement with the acoustic fingerpicking and flatpicking tradition that ran alongside his electric work throughout his career.
Gibson Archtop Collection (L-5, L-7, L-10, Super 400, Les Paul): Clark’s Gibson collection extended well beyond the Byrdland. He owned two late-1930s Gibson Super 400s — the most prestigious archtop in the Gibson catalog, full 18-inch body, carved spruce top — as well as Gibson L-5, L-7, and L-10 models representing the full range of Gibson’s pre-war and post-war archtop production. He also owned a 1952 Gibson Les Paul Goldtop that he never sold, and a Gibson Les Paul Custom. The breadth of this collection reflects a guitarist who understood the tonal variety available across different archtop designs and who engaged with the full history of the electric guitar rather than settling for a single definitive instrument.
Fender Broadcaster / Jazzmaster / Jaguar (Various Periods): Beyond the original Broadcaster, Leo Fender personally gave Clark a Jazzmaster at a session in the early 1960s — the same Jazzmaster that Leo had just introduced to the market. Clark used it on the Jimmy Dean Show, though he found the Byrdland more comfortable and reverted to it quickly. He also owned a 1963 Fender Jaguar and a 1958 Fender Stratocaster. His relationship with Fender was personal enough that Leo Fender named him publicly as one of his favorite guitar players — remarkable given that Clark had primarily been playing Gibsons. “Roy Clark,” Leo said in an interview. “He plays the guitar the way a guitar should be played.” When told Clark was playing Gibson at the time, Leo said: “You can’t win ’em all.”
String Gauge and Action: Clark played with slightly higher-than-average action by preference. In a Guitar Player interview, he explained: “I like to feel some resistance.” This preference — which he actively advocated as pedagogically useful — contradicts the widespread assumption that speed requires the lowest possible action. His high-speed runs were executed against string resistance that most shred-oriented guitarists would find unnecessarily demanding. His string gauges were not extensively documented, but consistent with the clean-tone Byrdland approach: medium-gauge flatwound or roundwound strings suited to both jazz chord-melody and fast single-note passage work.
Amps
Fender Twin Reverb (Primary Touring Amplifier): Roy Clark’s amplification of choice across the majority of his professional career was the Fender Twin Reverb — the 85-watt two-12-inch clean amplifier that was the standard for Nashville and country musicians requiring high headroom and pristine clarity at stage volume. The Twin Reverb’s specific character — enormous clean headroom that stays crystalline at high volumes, warm Fender spring reverb, and the ability to reproduce the complex harmonic content of an archtop guitar’s full frequency range — made it the natural partner for Clark’s Byrdland. His playing style, which required that every note of his fastest passages be individually audible, demanded an amplifier that amplified rather than processed: no natural saturation to blur fast runs, no compression to squash the dynamics of his chord attacks, just the clean representation of what the guitar and his hands produced. Documentary evidence places him with a Fender Twin Reverb with JBL speakers for live performance work.
Fender Hot Rod DeVille (Later Career): In his concert appearances later in his career, Clark was documented using a Fender Hot Rod DeVille — a 60-watt two-12-inch tube combo that continued the Fender clean-tone tradition in a more portable and more modern package. The Hot Rod DeVille’s three-channel configuration gave him more tonal variety than the Twin’s simpler control layout, while maintaining the clean Fender character he had used throughout his professional life.
No Effects (Signal Philosophy): Roy Clark’s signal chain was fundamentally simple: guitar into amp, with the Guitar’s natural acoustic and electronic character doing the tonal work. He was not a pedal user. The complexity of his sound came from his hands, his instrument choices, and his technique — not from processing. This is the most important single fact about his gear: everything he achieved tonally was achieved through the guitar-amp relationship and the physical reality of his playing, not through effects augmentation.
Effects
No Pedal Chain (Consistent Throughout Career): Clark maintained a direct guitar-to-amp signal path throughout his career. No overdrive, no modulation, no delay, no reverb beyond the Fender Twin’s onboard spring tank. For a guitarist of his speed and technical complexity, effects would have obscured rather than enhanced: his runs are fast enough that any added reverb or delay tail would create mud rather than space, and his clean archtop tone through a clean Fender amplifier already possessed all the harmonic richness his playing required. The absence of a pedalboard is not an oversight; it is a deliberate approach to guitar tone that prioritizes transparency above all else.
Playing Style & Tone Philosophy
Roy Clark’s playing style is one of the most genuinely multi-genre accomplishments in the history of the electric guitar. The word “versatile” is used so casually about musicians that it has nearly lost meaning — but Clark’s versatility was of a specific, technically verifiable kind: he could play within the conventions of bluegrass, country, jazz, and classical guitar in ways that practitioners of each genre recognized as legitimate rather than superficial. This is an extremely rare achievement. Most guitarists who attempt multiple genres reveal, on close listening, the primary tradition their hands actually live in. Clark’s hands lived in all of them simultaneously.
His bluegrass flatpicking — the tradition of Doc Watson and the Appalachian fiddle tune repertoire played on flat-top acoustic with a plectrum — was fast enough and accurate enough to earn him multiple national banjo championship titles before he pivoted fully to guitar. His jazz vocabulary — the chord-melody approach, the bebop-inflected single-note lines, the sophisticated harmonic substitutions he brought to the Byrdland — is documented on his 1966 Capitol album Stringin’ Along with the Blues, recorded alongside jazz heavyweights Howard Roberts, Barney Kessel, Ray Brown, and Earl Palmer. He described feeling intimidated in that session — “I didn’t want to take my guitar out of the case. Talk about heavyweights!” — but the musicians around him recognized his facility as genuine. His classical and flamenco playing, demonstrated on “Malagueña” in countless television appearances, combined accurate technique with genuine musicality rather than mere note-execution.
His tone philosophy was the direct consequence of these diverse commitments: he needed a guitar and amplifier combination that was transparent enough to reveal the specific tonal demands of each genre, warm enough to satisfy the jazz vocabulary without sounding harsh, clean enough to articulate every note of his fastest passages, and versatile enough to move between a Spanish classical piece and a country honky-tonk shuffle without a gear change. The Byrdland through a Fender Twin — warm archtop with short scale through enormous clean tube headroom — was the answer to all of these requirements simultaneously. His slightly higher action added resistance that he equated with feel and expressiveness, giving each note a physical character that lower-action setups can lack.
How to Sound Like Roy Clark
Replicating Roy Clark’s tone requires a warm semi-hollow or hollow-body guitar through a clean, high-headroom Fender amplifier — and the humbling acknowledgment that most of what makes his recordings sound the way they do is in his hands.
Guitar: A Gibson Byrdland is the authentic starting point — still in production, with the short 23.5-inch scale and slim body that Clark favored. The Heritage Roy Clark Signature model captures the same essential character with better road durability. For more accessible options, the Gibson ES-335 or Epiphone Casino get you into the warm semi-hollow archtop territory. The key pickup configuration for his electric work: a P-90-style pickup at the bridge for lead clarity, a warmer voiced single-coil at the neck for chord-melody and rhythm.
Amp: Fender Twin Reverb — the blackface or silverface era is ideal, or the modern reissue. The Hot Rod DeVille is a more affordable and more portable option. The absolute requirement is clean headroom: the amp must not break up at stage volume. Every note Clark played must be audible, and harmonic saturation blurs fast runs.
Amp Settings (Fender Twin Reverb or Hot Rod DeVille):
| Control | Setting (0–10) | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Volume | 4–6 | Loud enough to project but clean — no power amp breakup |
| Bass | 4–5 | Present but controlled — archtop has natural warmth |
| Mid | 5–6 | Natural — Clark’s tone is warm-midrange, not scooped |
| Treble | 5–6 | Balanced — archtop pickups already have warmth built in |
| Reverb | 2–4 | Subtle spring reverb — presence without wash |
For the Malagueña approach: Use a 12-string acoustic or electric 12-string for the natural chorus and shimmer of the doubled strings. The tremolo-picking technique at the heart of the piece — rapid alternation of pick strokes on a single string to sustain a melody note — requires extended practice before it sounds musical rather than mechanical. Clark’s version achieves both speed and singing expressiveness simultaneously, which is the benchmark.
Influence & Legacy
Roy Clark’s influence operates on two distinct levels that are easily confused but must be separated for accurate assessment. The first is the direct pedagogical influence: his guitar instruction books, his television performances, and his method videos directly inspired a generation of players to pick up the instrument. Brad Paisley has stated explicitly that Clark’s guitar method books were his entry point into guitar playing — making Clark the direct pedagogical ancestor of one of modern country music’s most technically accomplished guitarists. This influence is incalculable in its scope because it operated through mass media television at a time when Hee Haw was one of the most-watched shows in America.
The second level is the artistic influence — the demonstration that country music guitar could encompass jazz vocabulary, classical technique, and bluegrass flatpicking within a single player’s arsenal without compromising any of them. This model of the multi-tradition guitarist is the template that Chet Atkins had established in Nashville and that Clark extended to a mass television audience. His 1979 collaboration with Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown — the Makin’ Music album — demonstrated the specific connection between country and Texas blues guitar that his playing embodied, and pointed forward to the kind of genre-crossing that later guitarists like Brad Paisley would pursue as a deliberate artistic strategy.
His 1993 album with Joe Pass — Roy Clark & Joe Pass Play Hank Williams — is perhaps the most direct statement of his jazz credentials. Joe Pass was among the most technically accomplished jazz guitarists of the twentieth century, a player of bebop vocabulary and chord-melody sophistication that intimidated most of the professional guitar world. Clark sat across from him and held up his end of the conversation. The recording demonstrates definitively that the comedian persona was the package, not the content — the content was world-class guitar playing that could operate in any musical context it was placed in.
His 1976 Soviet Union tour — one of the first country music performances in the Soviet Union, in the depths of Cold War cultural separation — was a political and cultural event as much as a musical one. Clark played for Soviet audiences who had limited exposure to American popular music and connected with them through the universal language of instrumental virtuosity that transcended lyrical content. He performed at the Rossiya Theatre in Moscow and brought country music guitar to audiences who had never encountered it, which is as significant a cultural act as playing Carnegie Hall or the Grand Ole Opry.
He was the first country music entertainer to open a theater in Branson, Missouri, in 1983 — the Roy Clark Celebrity Theatre — which established the Branson theater model that dozens of country performers subsequently followed. This entrepreneurial legacy, less discussed than his playing, shaped an entire entertainment economy.
Internal Links:
- Chet Atkins’ Nashville fingerpicking approach
- Brad Paisley’s modern Telecaster country guitar at #112
- Hank Garland’s Gibson Byrdland and Nashville session work at #109
Frequently Asked Questions: Roy Clark Guitars & Gear
What guitar did Roy Clark play on Hee Haw?
Roy Clark’s primary guitar during the Hee Haw era (1969–1993) was the Gibson Byrdland — a short-scale (23.5-inch) archtop hollow-body guitar that he had configured with a P-90 pickup at the bridge and a Charlie Christian bar pickup at the neck. In later years of the show and his touring career, he switched to a Heritage Roy Clark signature model when airline damage to the irreplaceable Byrdland became too frequent and costly. He played multiple instruments on Hee Haw depending on the number, including a Gibson banjo, Ovation 12-string acoustic for “Malagueña,” and various other guitars from his extensive collection.
What amplifier did Roy Clark use?
Roy Clark’s primary amplifier throughout most of his professional career was the Fender Twin Reverb — the 85-watt two-12-inch clean tube combo that provided the enormous headroom his clean, transparent tone required. He needed an amplifier that would amplify his guitar’s natural character without adding saturation or compression, as his fast single-note runs required every note to be individually audible. In later years he used a Fender Hot Rod DeVille, continuing the Fender clean-tone tradition. He did not use effects pedals.
What is Roy Clark’s connection to the Gibson Byrdland?
Roy Clark was one of the most prominent long-term users of the Gibson Byrdland, though he was not involved in its design (that was guitarist Billy Byrd and Hank Garland, who co-designed it with Gibson in 1954–55). Clark became acquainted with Billy Byrd through Ernest Tubb’s touring organization and subsequently adopted the Byrdland as his primary instrument. The guitar’s 23.5-inch short scale and slim body suited his playing style perfectly, and he used it as his main electric guitar for decades. He has described finding an unwrapped Byrdland in his closet — he had owned it seventeen years without knowing it was there.
Did Roy Clark really play “Malagueña” on Hee Haw?
Yes — repeatedly, across the show’s 24-year run, and on other television appearances. Clark’s performance of “Malagueña” (the Spanish classical/flamenco piece by Ernesto Lecuona) on Ovation 12-string acoustic was one of the most genuinely stunning guitar moments in American television history. For audiences who knew Clark only as a country comedian, seeing him execute an intricate classical/flamenco piece with concert-level technique was a revelation. He recorded it for Capitol Records in 1965, and it became one of his signature instrumental performances.
Did Roy Clark influence Brad Paisley?
Directly and explicitly. Paisley has stated that Clark’s guitar method books were his entry point into guitar playing, and that he “practiced his style, then practiced making his facial expressions.” The influence extended beyond technique to the model of the virtuoso entertainer — the demonstration that extraordinary guitar playing and accessible personality were not mutually exclusive, and that country music could contain jazz vocabulary, classical technique, and bluegrass flatpicking within one career. Clark’s approach to guitar as a universal rather than genre-specific instrument is visible in Paisley’s own cross-genre versatility.
What other instruments did Roy Clark play?
Roy Clark was a legitimate multi-instrumentalist, not a guitarist who dabbled in other instruments. He won the National Banjo Championship twice (1947 and 1948) as a teenager and was a lifelong banjo player of professional caliber. He played fiddle, mandolin, harmonica, and twelve-string guitar. His classical and flamenco guitar technique was sufficient for concert performance. He appeared as a guest performer with major orchestras including the Boston Pops. He was, in the fullest sense, a musician rather than a guitarist who happened to play other things.
Who said Roy Clark “plays the guitar the way a guitar should be played”?
Leo Fender said it — the designer and manufacturer of the Fender guitar and amplifier line, in an interview where he was asked about his favorite guitar players. The interviewer noted that Clark was playing Gibson guitars at the time, not Fender. Leo’s response: “You can’t win ’em all.” The anecdote captures something important about Clark’s stature among people who actually understood guitar playing: the man who built the Stratocaster and the Telecaster considered a Gibson Byrdland player to be the exemplar of how a guitar should be played.
