'Cowboy' Jack Clement RIP

Another of the seminal figures in rock and roll has died - 'Cowboy' Jack Clement at the age of 82. Born just outside Memphis,he worked at the mixing board at Sun records for recording sessions with Roy Orbison, Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash, Charlie Rich and Jerry Lee Lewis (who he discovered). Elvis Presley opened for Clement at the Memphis club The Eagle's Nest.
Jack wrote two of Cash's biggest hits, Ballad of a Teenage Queen and Guess Things Happen That Way, and after leaving Sun he moved to Nashville to work for Chet Atkins, before relocating to Beaumont, Texas. There, he met George Jones and convinced him to cut the song, She Thinks I Still Care. In 1965, Clement returned to Nashville and financed a demo by then-unknown Charley Pride and persuaded Atkins to sign him to RCA. Clement also wrote Pride's first two hits, "Just Between You and Me" and "I Know One," and produced Pride's first 13 albums for the label.
Clement launched the solo career of Don Williams through his JMI record label, a project that also introduced Allen Reynolds as a record producer.  Clement released his own album, All I Want to Do in Life for Elektra in 1978 (pictured). Later he produced three tracks for the U2 album Rattle and Hum. I remember seeing Jack play at the Barbican in 2005. RIP Jack.   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBRjeGQ6Vao
A final word, too, for George Duke (67), a key board player, composer, singer and producer in both the jazz and pop genres, who recorded around 30 solo albums as well as working with many artists as arranger, music director, writer and co-writer, including Jean-Luc Ponty and Frank Zappa.