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" It&amp;#039;s one thing for country superstar Keith Urban to play the Grammys and get upstaged. It&amp;#039;s another when the talent in question \u2014 a lanky guitar player with a face obscured by a hard-loved fedora that hardly flinches when he makes short of a face-melting solo \u2014 has been heartily endorsed by the likes of The Rolling Stones and Eric Clapton. Gary Clark Jr. is that Texan with a guitar, and he&amp;#039;s the first person some of the biggest names in rock and roll think of when they want an impresario to show up (and sometimes show them up) to turn their set into something truly memorable. So why isn&amp;#039;t he a household name yet?      Before their tour at the close of 2012 celebrating their 50th, The Rolling Stones played gargantuan spectaculars, one in London, one in Brooklyn, one in New Jersey. Special guests were inevitable at such high-profile events with equally elevated price tags. Tickets went for $800 a pop, though they offered the chance to watch Mick Jagger romp around in a gorilla suit while Florence Welch and Mary J. Blige took turns ripping their vocal chords to shreds with the earth-shattering &amp;quot;Gimme Shelter&amp;quot; solos in London and New York, respectively. But it was Gary Clark Jr. who matched Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood lick for lick throughout &amp;quot;Going Down&amp;quot; that night in Brooklyn.      The 29-year-old from Austin is no stranger to shouldering substantial endorsements from rock royalty: Clapton invited Clark to perform at his Crossroads Guitar Festival in 2010, a move that lit the match to Clark&amp;#039;s career and his relationship with Warner, who would then put out his debut record, Blak and Blu. Clark would return to Clapton&amp;#039;s Crossroads again in December 2013, and would take home the Grammy for Best Traditional R&amp;amp;amp;B performance two months later.       This week, Clark begins a two-month bout of touring that kicks off with a few weeks on the road supporting Kings of Leon and concludes with select dates opening for Dave Matthews Band. The tours, with built-in fan bases that shell out each and every time the brooding Southern boys or jovial college rock gods roll through town, are set to draw thousands, and propel Clark that much faster to the fame and recognition he deserves. Whether he&amp;#039;ll outdo the headliners isn&amp;#039;t really a presumption at this point but a guarantee, and yet the question remains as to why the authenticity and superlative skills have him stuck in the position of second fiddle. There&amp;#039;s a rapt audience eagerly awaiting a time when the spotlight will be all his, and that time, when the guitar heroes and his mentors he&amp;#039;s met will fill the front row instead of the marquee above him, is fast approaching. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/entertainment/music/a27248/gary-clark-jr-rock-god/>