Sophia Michaels
Gary Clark Jr. talked the Grammys, religion, his new album This Land and his Texas beginnings in an interview with CBS Sunday Morning.
“I was raised real religious – Baptist, go to church every Sunday. The fear of God was very present in the house,” Clark Jr. said.
“I’m not, like, a religious person. I quit going to church a long time ago. But, like, music is my religion, I guess you could say. It’s calming, it can hype me up. It’s everything.”
In the career retrospective, CBS Sunday Morning correspondent Kristine Johnson noted that Eric Clapton once said that Clark Jr. has the best “flow” he’d seen in a guitarist since Jimi Hendrix. “Oh damn,” the guitarist said of the compliment. “Pressure.”
Clark Jr., who won a Grammy in 2014 for Traditional R&B Performance, is up for four more awards at next week’s awards: Best Contemporary Blues Album (This Land) and Best Rock Song, Best Rock Performance and Best Music Video (“This Land”).
“I’m not special. I’m just a simple dude, simple dude from Austin, Texas who picked up a guitar and [explosion],” Clark Jr. added.
In addition to the Grammys, the guitarist has also been tapped to participate in both MusiCares’ tribute to Aerosmith next week and the Let’s Go Crazy: The Grammy Salute to Prince special later this year.
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