“IF WE DON’T GET OUT OF LOS ANGELES, I’M GOING TO GO CRAZY.” SUSANNA CLARK TOLD GUY. THEY LEFT FOR NASHVILLE—AND HE TURNED HER WARNING INTO “L.A. FREEWAY.” Around 1970, Guy Clark moved to Los Angeles with Susanna, hoping to turn songwriting into a real career. The city never fit him. Clark found work at the Dopyera brothers’ Dobro factory and spent his off-hours trying publishers. He later remembered the yellow air, the traffic and the feeling that Los Angeles was something to endure rather than belong to. He stayed only eight months to a year. In 1971, Clark and Susanna left California for Nashville, where he had been offered a staff-writing job. Not long after the move, he turned the departure into “L.A. Freeway.” The song was built from the small debris of leaving: dishes, newspapers, a landlord, old food, concrete — the ordinary things that become vivid only when someone has decided not to come back. Clark did not record it first. Jerry Jeff Walker put “L.A. Freeway” on his self-titled 1972 album. His version reached the Billboard Hot 100 in 1973 and carried Clark’s name into the Texas progressive-country world before Clark had released an album of his own. Clark finally recorded the song for his 1975 debut, Old No. 1. By then, “L.A. Freeway” had already become part of the language surrounding the restless Texas writers moving between Nashville, Austin and the road. Clark’s version stripped the song back to the voice, guitar and details that had made the escape believable in the first place. Los Angeles had not given Guy Clark the career he went there looking for. Leaving it gave him one of the songs that would define the career he eventually built.

“Scroll down to the end of the article to listen to music.”

“IF WE DON’T GET OUT OF LOS ANGELES, I’M GOING TO GO CRAZY,” SUSANNA CLARK TOLD GUY. THEY LEFT FOR NASHVILLE — AND HE TURNED THE WARNING INTO “L.A. FREEWAY.”

Guy Clark went to Los Angeles hoping the city might open a door.

Around 1970, he and Susanna moved there while he tried to turn songwriting into something more than a private calling. On paper, Los Angeles looked like a place where music careers could begin. In real life, it never fit him.

Clark found work at the Dopyera brothers’ Dobro factory and spent his off-hours trying publishers.

But the city wore on him.

He later remembered the yellow air, the traffic, the concrete, and the feeling that Los Angeles was something to endure rather than a place to belong.

Susanna said what both of them already knew.

If they did not get out, she was going to go crazy.

The Escape Became The Song

In 1971, Guy and Susanna left California for Nashville.

Clark had been offered a staff-writing job there, and the move gave them a way out of the city that had never felt like home. Los Angeles had not given him the career he had imagined. It had given him frustration, restlessness, and enough discomfort to turn leaving into memory almost immediately.

Not long after the move, Clark wrote “L.A. Freeway.”

The song did not treat escape like a grand western exit.

It found drama in the mess left behind.

Dishes.

Newspapers.

A landlord.

Old food.

Concrete.

Those details mattered because that is how leaving often feels in real life. Not cinematic. Not heroic. Just a room being emptied, a life being packed, and a place becoming past tense before the door has fully closed.

Jerry Jeff Walker Carried It First

Clark did not record “L.A. Freeway” first.

Jerry Jeff Walker put it on his self-titled 1972 album, and his version reached the Billboard Hot 100 in 1973. That recording helped carry Guy Clark’s name into the Texas progressive-country world before Clark had released an album of his own.

That was important.

Before Clark became known as one of the great Texas songwriters, other voices had to carry his songs into the rooms where listeners were gathering. Jerry Jeff understood the restless feeling in “L.A. Freeway” because it belonged to the same world of writers, drifters, bars, roads, and half-made plans.

The song sounded like motion.

But underneath it was a decision.

A man and a woman leaving a place before it swallowed too much of them.

Clark’s Version Brought It Back To The Room

Guy Clark finally recorded “L.A. Freeway” for his 1975 debut, Old No. 1.

By then, the song had already started becoming part of the vocabulary around the restless Texas writers moving between Nashville, Austin, Los Angeles, and the road. It was not just about one freeway anymore. It was about any place a person had to leave in order to become himself again.

Clark’s version pulled the song closer to its source.

Voice.

Guitar.

Details.

No unnecessary decoration.

He sang it like a man still seeing the apartment, still feeling the grit of the city, still hearing Susanna’s warning somewhere behind the lines.

That restraint made the escape believable.

The song did not need to outrun Los Angeles.

It only needed to get clear of it.

The City Failed Him In The Right Way

Los Angeles did not make Guy Clark a star.

It did not hand him the career he had gone there looking for.

But failure can be useful when a writer knows how to keep the right pieces. Clark took the irritation, the bad air, the traffic, the factory job, the rejected pitches, the homesickness, and the moment Susanna finally said they had to leave.

He did not turn those things into complaint.

He turned them into a map.

“L.A. Freeway” became one of the first clear signs of what made Guy Clark different. He could make ordinary objects carry emotional weight. He could write about leaving without making it vague. He could put the listener inside a room at the exact moment a life was being dismantled.

That was his gift.

He made the small debris speak.

What “L.A. Freeway” Really Leaves Behind

The deepest part of this story is not only that Guy Clark escaped Los Angeles and wrote a song about it.

It is that the wrong city helped reveal the right writer.

A move west.

A Dobro factory job.

Yellow air.

Traffic.

Publishers who did not open the door.

Then Susanna’s warning, a move to Nashville, Jerry Jeff Walker carrying the song first, and Clark later recording it on Old No. 1 with the details still sharp enough to feel lived-in.

Los Angeles did not give Guy Clark the career he wanted.

Leaving it gave him one of the songs that helped define the career he eventually built.

And somewhere inside those dishes, newspapers, concrete, and last looks around the room, “L.A. Freeway” kept the sound of two people choosing departure before the city could turn them into strangers to themselves.

Video

Country Music

For years, the man making sure Willie Nelson got paid was sitting behind the drums. Paul English collected the band’s money, kept its accounts and confronted club owners who tried to change the fee after the final set. Long before Willie became the face of outlaw country, Paul helped keep his touring operation alive with money of his own. They had known each other since the rough Fort Worth club years. When work brought Willie through Houston, Paul sometimes gave him a place to stay. In 1966, after drummer Johnny Bush decided to pursue a singing career, Willie asked Paul for another musician’s telephone number. Paul told him to hire him instead. He had more confidence than experience, but he learned to play the way Willie needed. Willie’s singing rarely sat squarely on the beat; Paul learned to follow the movement of his phrasing rather than hold him inside a rigid arrangement. When Bush left, he also handed over the account books. Paul became drummer, accountant, road manager and investor. The cash he had made outside music helped carry Willie’s struggling band through years when the songs were better known than the man who wrote them. His appearance eventually became part of the show: pointed sideburns, a narrow goatee and a black satin cape lined in red. He looked dangerous because, when necessary, he was. But most nights required less visible work—counting money, settling payroll and making sure the musicians reached the next town. Willie wrote “Me and Paul” from the arrests, missed engagements and worn-down miles they accumulated together. He later said practically every line had happened. When Paul’s wife Carlene died by suicide in 1973, Willie stood beside him and wrote “I Still Can’t Believe You’re Gone.” Their partnership lasted beyond the outlaw years. Paul helped establish Farm Aid and served as its treasurer. After a stroke and a broken hip limited his playing, Willie kept him with the travelling Family as long as his health allowed. Paul died in 2020 after roughly seventy years of friendship. Willie Nelson came to represent a life lived beyond Nashville’s control. But that freedom was never held together by Willie alone. Night after night, the man keeping time behind him was also keeping the books.

Country Music

Hank Williams was buried on January 4, 1953. Two days later, in the same Alabama city, a baby girl named Antha Belle Jett was born carrying a connection to him that would take more than thirty years to establish in court. Her mother was Bobbie Jett, a Nashville secretary who had been involved with Hank during the final year of his life. On October 15, 1952, with Bobbie pregnant, Hank accompanied her to his attorney’s office in Montgomery. There, they signed an agreement covering her living expenses, medical bills and the care of the unborn child. Hank died before any of it could unfold as planned. His mother, Lillie Williams Stone, took in the baby, legally adopted her and renamed her Catherine Yvonne Stone. Then Lillie died. The child became a ward of Alabama, entered another adoptive home and received another name: Cathy Louise Deupree. By the time Cathy was four, she had passed through four families and several identities. The records capable of explaining why had been sealed. At 21, her adoptive parents gave her $2,000 that Lillie Stone had left for her. The money carried a question no one answered clearly: Why had Hank Williams’s mother provided for this particular child? Cathy began searching. Years of adoption records, courthouse files and family leads eventually brought her to attorney Keith Adkinson. In 1984, he uncovered the 1952 agreement signed by Hank and Bobbie. The document had existed since before her birth. It showed that Hank knew about the pregnancy and had taken formal steps to support the child. In 1985, an Alabama court recognized Cathy as Hank Williams’s natural daughter. Further litigation reached state and federal courts before her right to share in the continuing estate was upheld. She adopted a name made from both biological parents: Jett Williams. The legal victory later changed more than her own life. In another case, Jett and Hank Williams Jr.—once opponents in the inheritance dispute—stood together as Hank’s heirs to protect his unreleased Mother’s Best Flour radio performances. A 2006 court ruling placed control of those recordings with them, clearing the way for the historic broadcasts to be released. Hank never heard his daughter’s first cry. Decades later, her name helped decide who could speak for his voice.

Country Music

MARTY ROBBINS DROVE SO FAST AT TALLADEGA THAT NASCAR KNEW SOMETHING WAS WRONG At Talladega on May 7, 1972, Marty Robbins began passing men who normally disappeared far ahead of him. His Dodge had qualified well behind the leaders. Now it was running laps roughly fifteen miles per hour faster than its qualifying speed, carrying the singer of “El Paso” into traffic where Richard Petty and NASCAR’s established professionals made their living. Robbins had not suddenly discovered a better racing line. The carburetor restriction intended to hold down his engine had been defeated. He completed 179 of the Winston 500’s 188 laps before withdrawing. Officials initially wanted to recognize him as Rookie of the Race, but Robbins refused the award and admitted what had been done to the car. His explanation was almost childlike in its honesty: he wanted to know what it felt like to run near the front. Racing was never a publicity appearance for Robbins. He had been driving small cars since the 1950s, moved into modified stock cars at Nashville Speedway and entered his first NASCAR Grand National event in 1966. He scheduled himself late on the Grand Ole Opry so he could come directly from the racetrack. He also understood the distance between being famous and being fast. Robbins could afford equipment and draw attention, but the drivers around him raced every week. Talladega gave him a forbidden taste of their world. Once he had it, he would not accept a trophy built on a car he knew was illegal. He continued racing after heart surgery, eventually making thirty-five starts at NASCAR’s highest level. His best finish was fifth at Michigan in 1974. In November 1982, already a Country Music Hall of Fame member, he entered one final Cup race in Atlanta. He died of heart trouble a month later. On records, Marty Robbins could invent a gunfighter and make listeners believe every mile of the journey. At Talladega, he borrowed speed for an afternoon—and told the officials exactly where it came from.

Related Post

You Missed