Clement’s song muses in Newport

Legendary Nashville producer and songwriter “Cowboy” Jack Clement, chosen last week to be inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame, has some sweet Arkansas memories that inspired him to write at least one song about childhood days in Newport.

Clement, now 82, will be inducted into the nonperformer category in a ceremony later this year alongside fellow inductees Kenny Rogers and Bobby Bare.

For nearly six decades, Clement worked behind the scenes in the studio with the best of the best in country and rockabilly.

He began as the house producer and engineer at Sam Phillips’ Sun Studios in Memphis in the late ’50s, making the early recordings of Jerry Lee Lewis and Johnny Cash, who became his lifelong friend, as did Elvis Presley. At Sun, Clement also engineered and produced the music of Roy Orbison, Carl Perkins and Charlie Rich. He worked with artists ranging from Louis Armstrong to Waylon Jennings.

This is the guy who had the presence of mind to hit “record” that day at Sun Studio when Perkins was recording “Matchbox” with Jerry Lee Lewis on piano, and former Sun artist Presley - then a major star with RCA - dropped by. Cash was there, too, and the four began singing hymns. The recording of their impromptu session is now known as “The Million Dollar Quartet.”

In the 1960s, as a staff producer working with Chet Atkins at RCA in Nashville, Clement saw Jim Reeves have a hit with “I Know One.” Reeves wrote songs for many others, including George Jones, Kris Kristofferson, Charley Pride and Don Williams.

He’s also the guy who arranged those horns in Cash’s “Ring of Fire” and played rhythm guitar on the song.

And in 1988, when U2 came calling, wanting to record in the original Sun studios, Clement collaborated with the band for its album Rattle and Hum. In the early 2000s, he worked alongside T Bone Burnett on the soundtrack for the Cash bio-pic, Walk the Line. This past January, an all-star tribute to him was held at Nashville’s War Memorial Auditorium.

But Clement has seen hard times, too. A 2011 fire at his Nashville home and studio, Cowboy Arms Hotel & Recording Spa, which has since been rebuilt, consumed many original recordings and memorabilia. He’s battling liver cancer and other health issues.

Although Clement was reared on a farm near Memphis, he has cherished memories of summers and Christmas holidays visiting his grandparents in Newport, which inspired “The Air-Conditioning Song.” The song is about two young girls he never saw but heard singing at night, when windows were wide open.

But the sound of their singing thrilled me as distantly but clearly it rang, though I never saw their faces and I never knew their name. But the gentle breeze brought sweet dreams of sweethearts that I never saw who sang “You Are My Sunshine” in Newport, Arkansas.

To see a 2006 video of Clement visiting his grandparents’ home in Newport, visit http://tinyurl.com/d8hq465.