Clayton Love
b. 15 November 1927, Mattson, Mississippi, USA. Raised from the age of 12 in Clarksdale, Love studied trombone and band theory in high school, and learned to play the piano while in the army. Returning to Vicksburg, he formed his band, The Shufflers, with schoolfriends Jesse Flowers and Henry Reed, and played the area's nightspots. His first cousin, Earl Reed, had recorded for Trumpet, and recommended Love's group to owner Lillian McMurry. The band first recorded in Jackson, Mississippi. on 3 May 1951, but the titles, Susie and Shufflin With Love’, were re-recorded on 10 June and released on Trumpet 138. The following year, in Chicago, he recorded a single for Aladdin. Back in Clarksdale, Love joined up with Ike Turner with whom he recorded for Modern in 1954, and, as a member of Turner's Kings Of Rhythm, for Federal in April 1957 and reissued in 1991. Despite the band's full gig sheet, Love quit to become a teacher in the St. Louis public school system. After retiring at the end of the '80s, in April 1990 he recorded, in company with Johnnie Johnson and Jimmy Vaughan, ROCKIN’ EIGHTY-EIGHTS, his four songs including a remake of The Big Question, first recorded for Federal.