Lee Clayton
b. 29 October 1942, Russelville, Alabama, USA. Clayton moved to Oak Ridge, Tennessee when aged four. His father encouraged his musical abilities and, when aged only 10, he played steel guitar on radio. Clayton's background is told in his song Industry, a Bruce Springsteen-styled diatribe. Between 1966 and 1969 and after a short-lived marriage, he flew jet fighters in the US Air Force, which is described in his song Old Number Nine. Clayton moved to Nashville, determined to make his name as a songwriter. The ‘outlaw’ scene was in its infancy and Clayton's song, Ladies Love Outlaws, was a US country hit for Waylon Jennings and later recorded by the The Everly Brothers. His 1973 LEE CLAYTON, is regarded as a classic of ‘outlaw country’. Jennings and Willie Nelson have both recorded his erotic love song, If You Can Touch Her At All. Clayton, however, went broke trying to establish his own band and then followed a nomadic existence. Eventually, he developed a more strident, electric sound, employing the Irish guitarist Philip Donnolly, to record dark albums full of disillusionment for Capitol Records. The melancholy A Little Cocaine is about the downfall of a friend, and his own drug habits made him unreliable. In the '80s Clayton wrote two books and one stage-play, LITTLE BOY BLUE, all autobiographical. He returned to recording with a fine album recorded live in Oslo, ANOTHER NIGHT, but the songs were familiar. Bono of U2 was reported to have said, ‘There's only one country singer who has influenced me and he's an unknown feller called Lee Clayton.’