Terri Clark has been a member of the Grand Ole Opry for 20 years.
Two decades have also elapsed since she celebrated a quartet of Top 10-selling country albums with her 2004 "Greatest Hits" release.
Perhaps her "Take Two" album, which came out on May 31 and revives some of those greatest hits as duets, can allow them to begin the journey toward achieving a historic country music legacy.
Clark was raised 100 miles from Montana's northern border in Medicine Hat, Alberta. Thus, the idea that her music could reach 2,000 miles south down Interstate 25 and impact Texas natives Cody Johnson and Kelly Clarkson, or swing 2,000 east out Interstates 90 and 94 and touch artists such as Lainey Wilson, Carly Pearce, Ashley McBryde and Lauren Alaina, is impressive. Alongside Paul Brandt and Ben Rector, that sextet of mainstream country stars is represented on Clark's latest album.
If you ever wonder where the inspiration for music like Wilson's "Heart Like a Truck," Pearce and McBryde's "Never Wanted To Be That Girl," Alaina's performance on HARDY's "One Beer," or Johnson's "The Painter" emanates, look no further than the mature folk- and classic country-inspired takes of love and romance familiar to Clark's catalog.
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To wit, a pair of Clark's American country chart-toppers — "Girls Lie Too" (featuring Pearce) and a live take on "You're Easy on the Eyes" (featuring Brandt) — are included in the collection.
Clark maturing into the latest chapter of her career
"The end game of being an artist is determined when you realize that your art has made a difference," says Clark to The Tennessean during an interview in a Music Row office.
"Influencing artists in the same way that other artists influenced me involves seeing artists being inspired by coming-of-age stories."
The album arrives as Clark, 55, has come to terms with her artistic and personal maturity.
She remained in the Top 10 of Canada's country charts through 2011 and still performs regularly. In 2024, she will appear at CMA Fest, as well as a half-dozen summer fairs and festivals. Plus, on Aug. 29, she will headline the Ryman Auditorium for the first time.
This season of her career is highlighted by her "embracing being a big sister and elder stateswoman" of country music and enjoying receiving her metaphorical flowers from artists like McBryde and Wilson. In March 2023, McBryde told Clark she was being inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame.
Also, listen to Clark's catalog and discover songs like 1998's "This Ole Heart." Though never released as a single, the song is from an album with two chart-toppers ("Now That I Found You" and "You're Easy on the Eyes"). Its lyrics include: "If this ole heart / Was built like a truck / These rocky ole roads wouldn't be so rough / And if it ever broke down I'd patch it up / If this ole heart was built like a truck."
'Take Two'
The simplicity of Clark's "hat and T-shirt tomboy" image positively blends with country's familiar cowboy and family stereotypes, allowing for refreshed yet timeless takes on songs.
McBryde's pairing with Clark for 1995's "Better Things To Do" sounds like Clark is introducing her sister as an aspiring country vocalist on the Opry stage. Clark with Johnson for "I Just Wanna Be Mad" gives Johnson's recent performances of "Dear Rodeo" and "Whoever's in New England" with his fellow rodeo rider Reba McEntire a run for their money.
Clark's work with country and western-related male artists like Brandt, Johnson and Rector allows her to impact the revival of Western-inspired country acts in country music's mainstream. She jokes about the power of the stereotypical trademarking of the Resistol or Stetson hat. Still, the number of artists and fans who grew up as 4-H or Future Farmers of America members with her work as the soundtrack to mucking horse stalls, picking ice out of troughs for pigs and watering cowshas remained consistent throughout her career.
Her pairing with Academy of Country Music and Country Music Association Entertainer of the Year Wilson for "Poor Poor Pitiful Me" allows Clark to dive into how the early era of her career dovetailed perfectly, in look and sound, with Garth Brooks being in the midst of an early career era in which he sold over 75 million albums and had 15 No. 1 hits.
"We're two women who can rock, wearing cowboy hats and bell bottoms with iconically branded silhouettes," says Clark.
She feels that artists able to blend Western lifestyles with country music authentically have a timeless place in popular culture.
'Seeds in good soil'
Clark has released nearly as many singles in her career as the years she has spent in Music City.
She is still humbled that her four-decade career has grown from having to tether her guitar case to her wrist before riding a city transit bus to play afternoon sets for elderly tourists at Tootsie's Orchid Lounge to headlining at the Ryman Auditorium in August.
She'll go from walking a Lower Broadway that was comprised of boarded-up buildings, adult bookstores, pawn shops, peep shows and the occasional musical destination to one where Brooks recently opened a six-story, $50 million Friends in Low Places bar directly across the street from where Gruhn Guitars stood until 1993.
As Lower Broadway's evolution expands, moments like Clark's headlining set assume greater importance to Nashville and the permanence of country's traditions.
When asked to discuss the power of being an artist who can bequeath a living legacy driven by "talent, tenacity and work ethic" to her beloved country music, she recalls something that one of her inspirations, fellow Grand Ole Opry cast member Ricky Skaggs, once told her.
"It feels good to drop seeds in good soil."
