Guy Clark was born on 6 November 1941 in Monahans, Texas, USA. He was married to Susanna Clark and Susan Spaw. He died on 17 May 2016 in Nashville, Tennessee, USA.
In the late 1960s, he went to Houston, where he played folk music on a club circuit that included contemporaries Van Zandt and Eric Taylor as well as blues legends Lightnin' Hopkins and Mance Lipscomb. He spent time in San Francisco and Los Angeles which inspired his songs "Madonna w/ Child ca. 1969" and "L.A. Freeway," before moving to Nashville in 1971.