Mark Bennett: Chronicling life through songs, from Terre Haute to Land of Enchantment

Jul. 16—Lifelong creativity is an artist's dream. It's also rare.

Susan Clark discovered her knack for creating her own music as a kid growing up in the 1960s in Terre Haute. She started playing piano at age 6 and guitar at 12. As a 15-year-old Wiley High School student, Clark got paid 50 bucks for playing two songs in a National Guard Armory show.

"I was kind of hooked, because I thought, 'This is something I can do,'" Clark recalled Monday. Her instincts were correct.

Barely a teenager, she began writing her own songs and performing them — perhaps a musician's most difficult feat. "And I just kept at it," Clark said.

Five decades later, Clark continues to compose, sing, play piano and guitar, record and perform for audiences around Albuquerque, New Mexico, where she lives. She has multiple albums, awards and appearances on notable forums, such as the nationally syndicated public radio program "Art of the Song." Clark was a 1998 winner and five-time-finalist in the prestigious Kerrville Folk Festival, an event whose other past honorees also include Grammy winners Lyle Lovett and Nanci Griffith. Her "Waitin' For the Wind" album was named Best CD of the Year in 2007 by the New Mexico Music Commission.

Fittingly, Clark will be inducted into the Wabash Valley Musicians Hall of Fame, along with 14 fellow musicians at a ceremony, dinner and jam session from noon to 6 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 18 in the Zorah Shrine at 420 N. Seventh St. in Terre Haute. The Hall's Class of 2022 also includes Jon Adams, Randy Andrew, Richard Birdsong, Jeff Cartwright, Wayne Cottrell, Billy Goodrich, Robert Mason, Mike McLeish, Scott Mercer, Phil Morgan, Todd Raley, Don Reed, Mike Rolle and Tony Shuman.

Hall board member Mark Wright remembers Clark's musical gifts well. They were classmates at Sarah Scott Junior High School and fellow graduates of Wiley High School's final class in 1971.

"She's written a ton of songs. She's got a beautiful voice. She plays guitar and piano extremely well," Wright said. "She's got a lot of talent."

Kay Bohannon started singing with Clark when both were Sarah Scott seventh-graders. They sang pop hits, as well as Clark's originals. "For my 13-year-old money, her songs were right in the pocket of the kind of music we were loving on the radio and on records," Bohannon (now Kay Holley) said Wednesday from Urbana, Ill. "She knocked me out."

Regulars of the former Bacchi's coffeehouse on Wabash Avenue in downtown Terre Haute and the old Village Inn pizza parlor likely recall Clark's performances with a folk trio Stillwater that included her former husband, Randy Clark, and Bohannon, a combo that later became the group Whole Wheat. They released a vinyl album of original folk music, with a twist of progressive and psychedelic rock, called "All the Balloons" in 1977. "All of us were able to live on what we made doing music, which was a thrill," Bohannon said.

Clark wrote and recorded two songs that included on "Cornucopious," a 1983 album of assorted Terre Haute performers. That LP included her single "Sail Away," which received airplay on local radio.

Her music didn't stop a year later, when she and Randy moved out West. In fact, it got more prolific.

They settled first in Colorado, playing the local club circuit with a country band. Their recording of Susan's song "Mama's Rocking Chair" earned airplay on Pueblo, Colo., radio stations. She and Randy eventually relocated to Albuquerque, New Mexico, recorded an album of her originals and continued performing with the Band of Enchantment, releasing its own album, "Southwestern Tracks," backed by Nashville studio musicians. More recordings and performances continued, including with the band The Buckerettes.

Susan and Randy are no longer married but remain friends, she said, and still produce music together in his Albuquerque studio. Her albums — accessible on Spotify online streaming — include "Take Me Home" (1999) featuring her reminiscent song "Indiana Weather," "Waitin' For the Wind" (2006) and "Sunlight of the Soul" (2013). Clark's latest album, "Reflection," will be released this fall.

"It just kind of chronicles where I am as a 68-year-old person on this planet," said Clark, mother of three and grandmother of four.

Early tracks from "Reflection" find Clark doing just that with a mix of genres. She misses close connections on "Lonely Longing," a marimba-infused, Southwestern-style song; cleans out the bad and reaches out for joy on "When I Get Home," an uptempo classic country number; and wonders about a love gone afar on the slow jazz ballad "I'll Be Watching Out For You."

"For me, [songwriting] is just kind of a form of expression," Clark said. "I've always written songs about what I'm going through. So they've reflected those challenges."

Her subjects have expanded from love songs, to music written for her kids and now losses of loved ones. For the past three decades, Clark's performed for Alzheimer's and dementia patients, and recently expanded those outings to include military veterans with PTSD. "So my music has shifted from an entertainment to a service mode," she said.

Since 2009, her songs and performances have included expressions of her faith, including singing and playing at New Thought churches in New Mexico. The music is "not necessarily religious, but spiritual," Clark said.

One thing remains constant, though — her desire to captivate listeners.

"People are still enjoying what I do, and I'll keep doing it as long as I can," she said. "And, it's still how I pay my bills."

Mark Bennett can be reached at 812-231-4377 or mark.bennett@tribstar.com.