Photo by Senor McGuire, via Guy Clark on FacebookGuy Clark, the Texas-born country artist behind “LA Freeway” and “Desperados Waiting for a Train,” has died after a long battle with illness, Nashville paper The Tennessean reported this morning. The news was confirmed on Clark's Facebook page. Clark was 74.Born in Monacans, Texas in 1941, Clark started his career in the early 60s in Houston, where he befriended fellow troubadour Townes Van Zandt. He moved to Los Angeles in the early 70s to dabble in professional songwriting but found the city to be too hectic and ugly. It did, though, leave him with “LA Freeway,” a track that would become a hit after Jerry Jeff Walker recorded a version of the song. Clark’s own recording of the song remains affecting, his tired voice meandering through the chorus: “If I can just get off of this LA freeway/ Without getting killed or caught / I’d be down that road in a cloud of smoke/ For some land that I ain't bought.”It was Jerry Jeff Walker that turned Clark’s next track into a hit too, his version of “Desperados Waiting on a Train” settling in the country charts on its release in 1973. The track was covered by a range of artists from then on, including Tom Rush and Rita Coolidge. But Clark’s own prose-poetry lyricism and effortlessly intricate guitar playing went well beyond his two biggest hits. From his debut LP Old No. 1 in 1975, he established a distinctive country sensibility and remained prolific well into his later years. Clark’s last album, 2013’s My Favorite Picture of You, was a tribute to his wife of 40 years, Susanna Clark, who had died the year before. The record won the Grammy for Best Folk Album in 2014.Follow Alex Robert Ross on Twitter.