Heartworn Highways

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Heartworn Highways
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This is an important movie for Guy Clark fans. There is some great stuff in this film, but also some very boring sequences. However, with the DVD there is just too much ("ain't near enough") good stuff. The quality of the bonus footage is superior to the actual movie, as if the cutting room floor stuff was stored more carefully than the film itself.

I made this chart up in the days of VHS. Now, with just one click you can be on to the next chapter. Nonetheless, I've catalogued some interesting things here. See also Marq's Lone Star webstation for a ton more about this DVD.

Artist/Person	Song/Sequence	From	To	Length	Notes
Guy Clark	L.A. Freeway	00:45	03:35	02:50

Larry Jon Wilson	In the studio	03:35	09:47	06:12
Larry Jon Wilson	Ohoopee River Bottomland	09:47	12:39	02:52
David Alan Coe	In the bus	12:39	13:43	01:04
Big Mac MacGowan	Dialogue in the Wig Wam Tavern	13:43	15:50	02:07
Townes Van Zandt	Rabbit holes; hilarious!	15:50	19:39	03:49
Big Mac MacGowan	More dialogue in the Wig Wam	19:39	21:44	02:05
Glenn Stagner	The Doctor's Blues	21:44	23:45	02:01

Guy Clark	That Old Time Feeling	23:45	26:53	03:08	Steve Young and others off camera play along

Seymour Washington	Interview by Townes	26:53	31:19	04:26	Susanna sings along.
Townes Van Zandt	Waitin' Around to Die	31:19	33:44	02:25
David Alan Coe	I Still Sing The Old Songs	33:44	36:31	02:47
Barefoot Jerry	Some Instrumental song	36:31	39:53	03:22
Rodney Crowell	Bluebird Wine	39:53	42:42	02:49	Guy Clark sings harmony, Steve Earle and Steve Young play along,
David Alan Coe	In the bus	42:42	43:10	00:28
Steve Young	Alabama Highway	43:10	47:33	04:23	Same group as with Bluebird Wine

Guy Clark	Texas Cookin'	51:01	53:34	02:33

Gamble Rogers	Intro story. Very good and funny.	53:34	58:07	04:33
Gamble Rogers	Black Label Blues	58:07	1:00:40	02:33
Big Mac MacGowan	Jammin' at the Wig Wam	1:00:40	1:02:18	01:38
Peggy Brooks	Let's Go All the Way	1:02:18	1:04:25	02:07
Charlie Daniels	Setup for Charlie Daniels concert	1:04:25	1:08:50	04:25
Charlie Daniels	Texas	1:08:50	1:11:39	02:49
David Alan Coe	In a roadside café, segue into setup and story	1:11:39	1:15:58	04:19
	Living On The Run	1:15:58	1:17:07	01:09
	More talkin'	1:17:07	1:21:58	06:00
	Oh Warden	1:21:58	1:22:59	05:52
	River	1:22:59	1:25:06	03:08
Steve Earle	Elijah's Church	1:25:06	1:26:15	03:16
Rodney Crowell & Others	Silent Night	1:26:15	1:31:15	5:00

Last Updated on 5/5/99

Omaha Rainbow, Issue 15, had the following infomation:
Talking to Richard about the film, Townes said ....."Have you seen the movie that I think is dedicated to Dennis? I haven't seen it either. We did it last year, a year ago last winter. They just came and filmed us for a couple of days and it all happened at the same time as I started a big gig in Austin where we lived for a time. It was winter and they wanted to have a Seymour style barbecue where we lived, Seymour's house being famous for barbecues. He's this old black man, he was 82 at the time, and a real ham. A couple of friends and I tried to get a fire going. There were people driving past looking at us like we were nuts."

Gamble Rogers Monologue
I thought this story was so well crafted that I transcribed it completely. I really enjoy his demeanor as he presents the story. Sadly, I later learned that he drowned in 1991.

Now nothing exciting ever happened at Charlie's except when Harvey came in. Harvey was a prominent, devout, deeply committed, totally involved, commode hugging drunk. He dealt mainly in small numbers. He'd steel hubcaps off Peterbilt Diesels in the A&W parking lot and fence them at the Western Auto Store. He'd dynamite catfish in copious commercial quantities in the Little Econalhatchie river and sell them in bulk to the Howard Johnson's for scallops. Cut em out with a copper tube. But he was chiefly celebrated among the populous of our community for having imported into our thankful midst a young woman of sporting morality. An inconscienable asthete by the name of Marita, who had been drummed out of high rolling society in Phoenix City, Alabama, after her health card had been punched so many times it dissapeared into thin air. And this Marita considered herself an interpretress of the modern dance. And lo, when ever the dulcet and melifluous tones of Ms. Peggy Lee were heard to resonate upon the Werlitzer, singing that grand old American standard, Fever, Marita would lose herself in engaging series of peregrenacious pirohuettes and bumps and grinds, calculated leave even the most diffident of observers frought with horn.

On this particular night, Harvey and Marita, and a randy retinue of rednecks came stompin' into Charlies's. All the local good 'ol boys were bellied up to the bar, snapping the suspenders on their big dads. Their left hands up raised in that fervid type of monodigital articulation, which bespeaks an argument in progress about the relative merits of posthole digging attachments for John Deere vis-a-vis International Harvester tractors. They turn about and beheld the entry of Harvey and Marita, and in a great man-swarm gaggle of arcadian underachievers, they sloughed crabwise over the polished floor of that gaming establishment, stoking the juke with legal tender in such a manner that Peggy Lee's Fever played 92 times.

And Marita so lost herself in a transcendental evocation of her timeless art, struggling gamely as it were, up the Olympiad of her sensiblity, that she shucked her duds right on Charlie's gerazo floor. That's the second most exciting thing that ever happened around the turkey farm after the great massacre of '53. I responded to this visual phenomenon of unslate carnality by instantly proposing marriage to a one eyed waitress who happened by. I didn't want to get into anything heavy, I just wanted to set up light housekeeping in a pup tent in the parking lot till closing time. I was out there with my borrowed ball peen hammer, and my steel tent stakes, putting that mother up in the asphalt. Some fool run over my foot with a pickup truck, emptied out his ashtray in my sleeping bag, peed in my cook fire. And the woman rejected me, so I had to go home and write this damn song. I just wanted you to know the true story so you'd understand where art comes from.

On that night of nights there were a mess of us knocking around Charlie's, scarfing up huge quantitites of an Appalachian ambrosia concocted by a craven mis-crim named Motlow, who along with a hand-picked group of charcoal filtered felons, from Moore county Tennessee, turns this fire-water in what is rumored to be short supply. Although armed with approximately eight dollars and the address of any whiskey store, I've never yet failed to find at least five shelves groaning under the weight of these rare square bottles. I'm not talking about Jim Bean, I aint talking about Ezra Brooks, JW Dant or George Dick. I'm talking about Tennesse sour-mash sipping whiskey. I'm talking about Jack Daniels Tennesse sour-mash sipping whiskey, and this is the old Black Label Blues!
begins song. . .