W. C. Clark
American blues musician (1939–2024)
Wesley Curley Clark (November 16, 1939 – March 2, 2024) was an American blues musician. He is known as the "Godfather of Austin Blues" for his influence on the Austin, Texas, blues scene since the late 1960s.
Biography
Wesley Curley Clark was born and raised in Austin, Texas, where he sang gospel music in the choir as a young boy. In the early 1950s, at age 14, he learned the guitar, and later experimented with blues and jazz on the bass guitar.
By the early 1960s, he began attracting the attention of Texas blues performers such as Big Joe Turner, Albert Collins and Little Johnny Taylor.
In the late 1960s, he joined the Joe Tex's R&B band and left Austin, where he thought that the R&B scene had died. However, during a tour with the band back in Austin, Clark sat in on bass with younger Austin locals Jimmie Vaughan and Paul Ray at an East Austin club. After the session playing with Vaughan and Ray, Clark changed his mind about Austin.
Clark left Joe Tex two weeks later and moved back to Austin, where he remained to guide and inspire numerous Austin musicians and lay the foundation of the prolific Austin blues and rock scene of the 1970s and beyond. He formed several bands with various names, which included as members Jimmie Vaughan and Angela Strehli.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “W. C. Clark” as american blues musician (1939–2024). Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the people & ideas register because the source frames it as american blues musician (1939–2024). Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 24, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2536666. VIAF identifies the subject as 100393485. The Library of Congress control number is no97057749. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1939 and 2024.
A concise life account rarely captures disputed attribution, private networks or the changing language used to describe a career. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.
- Establishing names and roles
- Building a first chronology
- Locating cited institutions
Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “W. C. Clark”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow W. C. Clark primary sources, W. C. Clark archive and Clark research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “W. C. Clark”?
- Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
- Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “W. C. Clark” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.