Genre
Most Recent Book Title
Without Getting Killed or Caught: The Life and Music of Guy Clark
Book Description
Without Getting Killed or Caught: The Life and Music of Guy Clark traces the life of music pioneer Guy Clark, who, with his wife Susanna, shaped the contemporary folk and American roots music scene in Nashville and Texas much like F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald fashioned the jazz age in Paris. The biography follows Guy’s journey as he moves from Texas to Los Angeles to Nashville to become one of the most revered songwriters in Americana music and an influential folk hero of the 20th century.
The biography opens as Guy and Susanna pull into Nashville on a rainy November night in 1971. The white Volkswagen bus is loaded with everything they own, including a scrap from a burger sack with a partial lyric: “If I could just get off of this L.A. Freeway without getting killed or caught.” There is a new Music City brewing underground. Outlaw songwriters are bubbling up into the mainstream and Guy is about to become a lion in this modern breed of Nashville Cat. The story reveals Clark’s role in the rise of songwriters in Nashville and how that influence stretches back to Guy’s home state of Texas.
The author analyzes how Guy’s early years in Monahans affected him as a storyteller. You meet Guy’s colorful and beloved grandmother, Rossie Clark, a divorced, amputee, former bootlegger who ran a hotel for oil drillers and bomber pilots and Rossie’s boyfriend Jack Prigg—a fascinating wildcatter who lived at the hotel and showed young Guy a world of pool halls and taverns and oil wells that gushed black gold. Without Getting Killed or Caught includes exclusive interviews with Clark and his friends and family and unique never-before-seen photos and images from Clark’s private collection. The story reveals how Guy spent his formative years in the beach town of Rockport as captain of the football team and student body president. He learned to play guitar from his father’s law partner, worked for the shrimp boat builders in the harbor, read poetry around the kitchen table and was awarded a National Science Foundation grant for summer study at M.D. Anderson Hospital.
Houston is a big part of Guy’s story. In the early 1960s, after selecting out of the Peace Corp, Guy settled in the Montrose neighborhood, a center for the burgeoning counter culture movement. The author spends ample time discussing how the city and artists who lived there inspired Guy and also details how Guy’s best friend from Houston, Townes Van Zandt, came to be the third person in Guy and Susanna’s marriage.
Guy released Old No. 1 in 1975, an album rooted in the culture of the West Texas desert. The book analyzes Guy’s struggle with the mainstream music business as Nashville tried to figure out how to fit him into commercial country music and explains how Guy finally took control of his own recordings with 1989’s Old Friends. It was a gutsy move at a time when the major label business was making money hand over fist.
The biography explores how Guy made an even a stronger commitment to his art as the next seven albums unfolded. After several GRAMMY nominations for Best Folk Album, Guy’s 2014 album My Favorite Picture of You finally prevailed in 2014. The title track is a profound, final tribute to Susanna, who died in 2012 after spiraling downhill following Townes’s death in 1997.
The biography opens as Guy and Susanna pull into Nashville on a rainy November night in 1971. The white Volkswagen bus is loaded with everything they own, including a scrap from a burger sack with a partial lyric: “If I could just get off of this L.A. Freeway without getting killed or caught.” There is a new Music City brewing underground. Outlaw songwriters are bubbling up into the mainstream and Guy is about to become a lion in this modern breed of Nashville Cat. The story reveals Clark’s role in the rise of songwriters in Nashville and how that influence stretches back to Guy’s home state of Texas.
The author analyzes how Guy’s early years in Monahans affected him as a storyteller. You meet Guy’s colorful and beloved grandmother, Rossie Clark, a divorced, amputee, former bootlegger who ran a hotel for oil drillers and bomber pilots and Rossie’s boyfriend Jack Prigg—a fascinating wildcatter who lived at the hotel and showed young Guy a world of pool halls and taverns and oil wells that gushed black gold. Without Getting Killed or Caught includes exclusive interviews with Clark and his friends and family and unique never-before-seen photos and images from Clark’s private collection. The story reveals how Guy spent his formative years in the beach town of Rockport as captain of the football team and student body president. He learned to play guitar from his father’s law partner, worked for the shrimp boat builders in the harbor, read poetry around the kitchen table and was awarded a National Science Foundation grant for summer study at M.D. Anderson Hospital.
Houston is a big part of Guy’s story. In the early 1960s, after selecting out of the Peace Corp, Guy settled in the Montrose neighborhood, a center for the burgeoning counter culture movement. The author spends ample time discussing how the city and artists who lived there inspired Guy and also details how Guy’s best friend from Houston, Townes Van Zandt, came to be the third person in Guy and Susanna’s marriage.
Guy released Old No. 1 in 1975, an album rooted in the culture of the West Texas desert. The book analyzes Guy’s struggle with the mainstream music business as Nashville tried to figure out how to fit him into commercial country music and explains how Guy finally took control of his own recordings with 1989’s Old Friends. It was a gutsy move at a time when the major label business was making money hand over fist.
The biography explores how Guy made an even a stronger commitment to his art as the next seven albums unfolded. After several GRAMMY nominations for Best Folk Album, Guy’s 2014 album My Favorite Picture of You finally prevailed in 2014. The title track is a profound, final tribute to Susanna, who died in 2012 after spiraling downhill following Townes’s death in 1997.
Additional Book Titles
The Most Beautiful Girl: A True Story of a Dad, a Daughter and the Healing Power of Music, a memoir
From Art to Commerce: A Workbook for Independent Musicians (with Rod Picott)
From Art to Commerce: A Workbook for Independent Musicians (with Rod Picott)
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Location (city/state/country)
Nashville, Tennessee, USA
Author bio
Tamara Saviano – Producer, Writer, Director
During the past two decades Tamara Saviano has established herself as a tireless advocate of American music and its artists. As the creative force behind Tamara Saviano Media, she is a Grammy and Americana award winning producer, a music business consultant, artist manager, publicist and author. Saviano has been curious about the lives of songwriters since she first discovered Guy Clark at the age of 14. As a writer and producer, she is deeply inspired by good storytelling. She is also a business woman and entrepreneur, directing a full service creative agency serving folk and Americana artists.
Saviano has told stories of American songwriters in different mediums: (1) in print as Managing Editor of national magazine Country Music, Editor-in-Chief of Sundance Broadcasting’s regional radio magazines Country Today and The Best of Times, and Senior Writer at national magazine Country Weekly; (2) in television as the operations manager at Great American Country cable network and producer of Country Request Live, a 30-minute live, call-in music television program; writer and producer of Bill Cody’s Classic Country, a weekly hour-long scripted music documentary and interview show; and several music documentary special events, including production of The Americana Honors and Awards, a live concert/award show broadcast from Nashville’s historic Ryman Auditorium; and (3) in music as the producer of the 2004 Grammy- winning Beautiful Dreamer: The Songs of Stephen Foster, 2006’s The Pilgrim: A Celebration of Kris Kristofferson, 2012 Americana Album of the Year and Grammy-nominated This One’s For Him: A Tribute to Guy Clark and 2014’s Looking Into You: A Tribute to Jackson Browne.
Saviano provides complete record label and project management services, writes media and marketing materials, produces video and electronic press kits, recruits clients, manages budgets, creates and implements PR and marketing campaigns, and hires and manages staff. She manages the day-to-day operations for Kris Kristofferson’s record label KK Records and has managed projects and record releases for many artists in the folk and Americana genres. Saviano co- created From Art to Commerce: A Workshop for Independent Musicians, a comprehensive one- day program that demystifies the perplexing elements of the music business and teaches entrepreneurial skills to independent artists.
In 2002, Saviano formed American Roots Publishing. As the founder and director, she created and implemented the business model and recruited a top notch board of directors including Apple Computers co-founder Steve Wozniak; singer/songwriter Emmylou Harris; New West Records president Cameron Strang; noted author and music critic Dave Marsh; music industry executives Tom Frouge, Kathi Whitley and Steve Fishell; publishing executive Steve Garvan; and actress/singer Bobbie Eakes. In the first year, Saviano raised the funds for the debut CD “Beautiful Dreamer: The Songs of Stephen Foster.” She managed the project from inception, working with co-producers to recruit artists to perform, securing donated studio time and materials, managing the manufacturing and distribution process, creating and managing the marketing and publicity campaigns, and securing educational partners. “Beautiful Dreamer” was honored with a 2004 Grammy Award for Best Traditional Folk Album. The success of “Beautiful Dreamer” allowed Saviano and her team to fund the next chapter of the New American Songbook Series, “The Pilgrim: A Celebration of Kris Kristofferson,” which was released in

June of 2006. “The Bluegrass Elvises, Volume 1: Shawn Camp & Billy Burnette” followed in August, 2007 to mark the 30th anniversary of the death of Elvis Presley.
In 2011, Saviano produced This One’s For Him: A Tribute to Guy Clark, for Houston’s Icehouse Music. The double-CD set was honored as the Americana Album of the Year at the 2012 Americana Music Association Honors & Awards show and was a nominee for the 2012 Grammy for Best Folk Album. Saviano co-produced 2014’s Looking Into You: A Tribute to Jackson Browne, released by Austin-based Music Road Records.
Saviano collaborated with Guy Clark on a definitive biography to be published by Texas A&M University Press in 2016. She is also writing, producing and directing a documentary film about Clark’s extraordinary life.
Saviano has had the opportunity and pleasure to work as a publisher and/or editor for several magazines during her career. The first were regional magazines for the progressive Sundance Broadcasting (WMIL & WOKY) in southeastern Wisconsin. As editor and publisher of the magazines, Saviano was part of the team of innovators at the forefront of building non-traditional revenue streams in broadcasting. Long before the Internet, Sundance Broadcasting was creating groundbreaking programs in the form of magazines, interactive phone systems, database marketing programs and other non-spot revenue sources. Saviano also contributed, as managing editor, to the revamping of a national magazine, Country Music, during its tenure with New York’s Sussex Publishers. After leaving Country Music, Saviano was hired to open and manage the Nashville office of Jones Media Networks/Great American Country cable television network where she produced daily and weekly music shows and artist profile documentaries.
Saviano is an alumna of Leadership Music, Class of 2007 and former board member for the Recording Academy, Future of Music Coalition, and Folk Alliance International. Saviano is a past president and six-year board member of the Americana Music Association. She produced the annual Americana Honors & Awards at Nashville’s historic Ryman Auditorium in 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2008. The Honors & Awards have hosted appearances by artists including as Johnny Cash, Elvis Costello, Vince Gill, Emmylou Harris, Arlo Guthrie, Rodney Crowell, Kris Kristofferson, John Prine, Mavis Staples, Solomon Burke, Allen Toussaint, Guy Clark, and many others.
During the past two decades Tamara Saviano has established herself as a tireless advocate of American music and its artists. As the creative force behind Tamara Saviano Media, she is a Grammy and Americana award winning producer, a music business consultant, artist manager, publicist and author. Saviano has been curious about the lives of songwriters since she first discovered Guy Clark at the age of 14. As a writer and producer, she is deeply inspired by good storytelling. She is also a business woman and entrepreneur, directing a full service creative agency serving folk and Americana artists.
Saviano has told stories of American songwriters in different mediums: (1) in print as Managing Editor of national magazine Country Music, Editor-in-Chief of Sundance Broadcasting’s regional radio magazines Country Today and The Best of Times, and Senior Writer at national magazine Country Weekly; (2) in television as the operations manager at Great American Country cable network and producer of Country Request Live, a 30-minute live, call-in music television program; writer and producer of Bill Cody’s Classic Country, a weekly hour-long scripted music documentary and interview show; and several music documentary special events, including production of The Americana Honors and Awards, a live concert/award show broadcast from Nashville’s historic Ryman Auditorium; and (3) in music as the producer of the 2004 Grammy- winning Beautiful Dreamer: The Songs of Stephen Foster, 2006’s The Pilgrim: A Celebration of Kris Kristofferson, 2012 Americana Album of the Year and Grammy-nominated This One’s For Him: A Tribute to Guy Clark and 2014’s Looking Into You: A Tribute to Jackson Browne.
Saviano provides complete record label and project management services, writes media and marketing materials, produces video and electronic press kits, recruits clients, manages budgets, creates and implements PR and marketing campaigns, and hires and manages staff. She manages the day-to-day operations for Kris Kristofferson’s record label KK Records and has managed projects and record releases for many artists in the folk and Americana genres. Saviano co- created From Art to Commerce: A Workshop for Independent Musicians, a comprehensive one- day program that demystifies the perplexing elements of the music business and teaches entrepreneurial skills to independent artists.
In 2002, Saviano formed American Roots Publishing. As the founder and director, she created and implemented the business model and recruited a top notch board of directors including Apple Computers co-founder Steve Wozniak; singer/songwriter Emmylou Harris; New West Records president Cameron Strang; noted author and music critic Dave Marsh; music industry executives Tom Frouge, Kathi Whitley and Steve Fishell; publishing executive Steve Garvan; and actress/singer Bobbie Eakes. In the first year, Saviano raised the funds for the debut CD “Beautiful Dreamer: The Songs of Stephen Foster.” She managed the project from inception, working with co-producers to recruit artists to perform, securing donated studio time and materials, managing the manufacturing and distribution process, creating and managing the marketing and publicity campaigns, and securing educational partners. “Beautiful Dreamer” was honored with a 2004 Grammy Award for Best Traditional Folk Album. The success of “Beautiful Dreamer” allowed Saviano and her team to fund the next chapter of the New American Songbook Series, “The Pilgrim: A Celebration of Kris Kristofferson,” which was released in

June of 2006. “The Bluegrass Elvises, Volume 1: Shawn Camp & Billy Burnette” followed in August, 2007 to mark the 30th anniversary of the death of Elvis Presley.
In 2011, Saviano produced This One’s For Him: A Tribute to Guy Clark, for Houston’s Icehouse Music. The double-CD set was honored as the Americana Album of the Year at the 2012 Americana Music Association Honors & Awards show and was a nominee for the 2012 Grammy for Best Folk Album. Saviano co-produced 2014’s Looking Into You: A Tribute to Jackson Browne, released by Austin-based Music Road Records.
Saviano collaborated with Guy Clark on a definitive biography to be published by Texas A&M University Press in 2016. She is also writing, producing and directing a documentary film about Clark’s extraordinary life.
Saviano has had the opportunity and pleasure to work as a publisher and/or editor for several magazines during her career. The first were regional magazines for the progressive Sundance Broadcasting (WMIL & WOKY) in southeastern Wisconsin. As editor and publisher of the magazines, Saviano was part of the team of innovators at the forefront of building non-traditional revenue streams in broadcasting. Long before the Internet, Sundance Broadcasting was creating groundbreaking programs in the form of magazines, interactive phone systems, database marketing programs and other non-spot revenue sources. Saviano also contributed, as managing editor, to the revamping of a national magazine, Country Music, during its tenure with New York’s Sussex Publishers. After leaving Country Music, Saviano was hired to open and manage the Nashville office of Jones Media Networks/Great American Country cable television network where she produced daily and weekly music shows and artist profile documentaries.
Saviano is an alumna of Leadership Music, Class of 2007 and former board member for the Recording Academy, Future of Music Coalition, and Folk Alliance International. Saviano is a past president and six-year board member of the Americana Music Association. She produced the annual Americana Honors & Awards at Nashville’s historic Ryman Auditorium in 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2008. The Honors & Awards have hosted appearances by artists including as Johnny Cash, Elvis Costello, Vince Gill, Emmylou Harris, Arlo Guthrie, Rodney Crowell, Kris Kristofferson, John Prine, Mavis Staples, Solomon Burke, Allen Toussaint, Guy Clark, and many others.
Favorite Quote or Personal Motto
"A woman is successful if she wakes up every day, goes to bed every night and in between does what she wants."
