Country guitarist, `Hee Haw` host Roy Clark dead at 85
(Artdaily.org)

Country music star Roy Clark, who was the host of long-running US television variety show `Hee Haw,` died Thursday of complications from pneumonia at his Oklahoma home, his publicist said. He was 85. Clark, a guitar virtuoso who became an ambassador for country music at home and abroad, was a Grammy winner and a member of the Grand Ole Opry, the premiere showcase for the genre in Nashville. In 1976, he toured the Soviet Union -- all venues were sold out. `Folks there said we wouldn`t realize in our lifetime the good we`d accomplished, just because of our pickin` around,` Clark once said, according to a statement released by his publicist. He was elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2009 and won seven Country Music Association (CMA) awards during his decades-long career. `My first CMA memory is sitting