The Joy of Discovering Joy Clark

Since I bought my Peavey JF1 EXP (aka Cherrie King) I've been doing a ton of research into semi-hollow guitar players. I'm looking for ideas on how to get the best out of Cherrie. What effects, what amps, what types of songs sound best with a semi-hollow. While my intentions are blues and rock, I'm also open to finding new ways to help express Cherrie's voice. I'm well aware of Freddie King, B.B. King, Warren Haynes, Larry Carlton, and Trini Lopez, but during one search the Google image results showed a new face that piqued my interest. A woman holding a blueburst D'Angelico semi-hollow, with a radiant presence by the name of Joy Clark. I let it sit in my mind for a couple of days, by which I mean I kind of forgot, before I went searching for some of her live performances on youtube.

What I found was the Crescent City Blues & BBQ Festival 2022. I settled in and watched, mostly hoping to see if I could capture a glimpse of what pedals she was using. First off, she was using a cherry red Epiphone with P90s that sounded really good. Her pedalboard seemed to be split into a few tiny ones, none of which I could tell exactly what they were. Her amp looks like a Fender tube amp, which also sounded good. What I didn't expect though was for her performance to completely enrapture me. Her energy, her smile, her voice, her playing style, her tone, everything about this performance made me forget what I had originally set out to do. I have to admit two of her songs: Watching You Sleep and Good Thing, had me in tears throughout.

My musical tastes are broad, but I never thought I would become so caught up in a performance. Joy Clark is more than just a singer-songwriter, she's a performance artist. I'm grateful her music came into my life. Just a simple internet search for semi-hollow guitar players became far more meaningful than I expected. I still don't know what pedals she uses, but I don't really care because it's more about her playing style, her energy and her presence to me now. And her garsh dang enchanting smile! Most of her set was acoustic, but she did start off with her Epiphone and brought it back toward the end. The search to find out how she made that Epiphone sing was abandoned the second she started singing. From then on, she had me in the palm of her hand, hanging on every word, reliving my own pain through her words. In a cathartic way that is. This was the joy of discovering Joy Clark.