From: "Dik de Heer" Date: Fri Apr 5, 2002 12:15 am Subject: Born To Be With You : Jack Clement JACK CLEMENT (By Shaun Mather) Born Jack Henderson Clement, 5 April 1931, Whitehaven, Tennessee Cowboy Jack Clement is one of the legendary maverick figures of the country music scene, cutting his teeth at Sun Records before making his mark in Nashville. Born in the Memphis suburb of Whitehaven, he joined the marines before cutting a record for the small Sheraton record label of Boston. He returned home to Memphis in 1954 and joined Slim Wallace's country band as a steel guitarist. Together with Wallace they planned to launch a company called Fernwood Records. Billy Riley was to be the first artist, but Clement took the tape of Trouble Bound to Sam Phillips at Sun Records and was immediately offered a job with the company. He produced the Johnny Cash sessions and was the first guy at the label to hear Jerry Lee Lewis. He was also the sharp thinker who turned the tapes on for the infamous Million Dollar Quartet jam session. At Sun he wrote Ballad Of A Teenage Queen and Guess Things Happen That Way for Cash and It'll Be Me and Fools Like Me for the Killer. The first of his two own Sun 45s (Ten Years/Your Lover Boy) even got a UK release. After a drunken argument with Phillips he was fired and following a quick spell as a label owner (Summer Records) moved to Nashville where he came under the guidance of Chet Atkins at RCA. He formed his first publishing company, Jack Music Inc, in 1959 and two years later teamed up with Bill Hall to form the successful Hall-Clement Publishing Company. He worked the early '60s in Texas (Beaumont and Houston) where he produced the massive hit, Patches for former Sun artist, Dickey Lee. In 1965 he moved back to Nashville and discovered Charley Pride who he nurtured into an unlikely international star. In 1970 he opened his own much-in-demand studio and eight years later cut his debut album, All I Want To Do Is Live for Elektra/Asylum Records. One of the biggest projects of recent times that he had an involvement in was when U2 asked him to record them at Sun Studios for their Rattle & Hum album. Clement summed up his time at Sun when he declared that they were all "As nutty as squirrels". Amen to that.