Old No. 1

Old No. 1 was produced by Neil Wilburn at RCA Studio B in Nashville, with Ray Butts as engineer and Pat Carter as associate producer. All ten songs are Clark's. Mike Leech played bass, the drummers were Jerry Kroon, Larrie Londin and Jerry Carrigan, and the guitarists included Chip Young, Reggie Young, Steve Gibson and Dick Feller. Hal Rugg played dobro and pedal steel, Johnny Gimble played fiddle, Mickey Raphael played harmonica, and the backing singers included Rodney Crowell, Emmylou Harris, Steve Earle and Sammi Smith. The cover painting is by Susanna Clark.

The album reached number 41 on the Billboard country albums chart in 1975. "Rita Ballou" was the single, in March 1976. AllMusic gave it five stars, and Robert Christgau's Record Guide in 1981 gave it a B+. Sugar Hill reissued it on CD, and Camden paired it with Texas Cookin' in 2001.