b. March 3, 1933 / New Bedford, MA

d. March 30, 1967 / N/A

Singer / Songwriter

PAUL CLAYTON: 

Born on March 3, 1933, in the whaling port of New 'Bedford, Massachusetts, Paul Clayton developed his interest in folk music as a result of his familial sailing heritage.

From the sea shanties and whaling songs which he learned from his grandfather, Clayton went on to collect and record folk songs of every nature which he found in his travels throughout the United States, in Canada, Cuba, and various European countries.

Both his parents played instruments, and they encouraged their son to take an interest in music. Clayton played the guitar before he was in his teens, and as a high school sophomore wrote, produced, and performed on a fifteen-minute hometown radio program. He attended the University of Virginia, studying with folklorist Professor Arthur Kyle Davis, and started collecting Southern Appalachian ballads. His education was often disrupted by travels to Europe and Great Britain, and he made appearances on a BBC-TV series about folk music. After

completion of his undergraduate work at the University of Virginia, he became a popular performer at concerts and festivals, and by the mid-fifties had begun a recording career which was to bring him representation on six commercial record labels, in the Archive of Folk Song, the Flanders Ballad Collection at Middlebury College, Vermont, and in the BBC's private recording files.

Clayton collected extensively in the South, and during the fifties he made a collecting tour with Liam Clancy, who spent time in Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina gathering instrumentals, ballads, blues, and gospel music. During the fifties and sixties Clayton's reputation as a young professional folksinger spread nationally and internationally, and he became part of the Greenwich Village scene during the folk boom. He was among the first to perform at Cerde's Monday night hoots, a showcase which boasted appearances by such notables as Bob Dylan, Dave Van Ronk, Len Chandler, Judy Collins, Tom Paxton, Jack Elliott, and Arlo Guthrie.

During the early sixties a controversy arose regarding Dylan's use of a tune that had been collected by Clayton on one of his trips to Appalachia. The melody of Dylan's "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right" is based on Clayton's discovery, "Who'll Buy Your Chickens When I'm Gone"; and although the tune is legally in the public domain, many felt that Clayton deserved some measure of credit for its usage. Possibly by way of compensation, Dylan invited Clayton to accompany him on a cross-country, expenses-paid tour in 1964, but whether or not he was paid by Dylan is not known. Although it is denied by Dylan, his friends claim that he composed "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" as a symbolic termination of his close relationship with Paul Clayton.

Clayton recorded eight discs for Folkways; Whaling and Sailing Songs from the Days of Moby Dick (Tradition 1005), reissued by Everest Records; and several LPs on other labels such as Riverside, Elektra, Monument, and Stinson.

After a history of a problem with pills, Paul Clayton took his life on March 30, 1967, and his death brought to light the fine tension between artistic creativity and insanity.

PAUL CLAYTON: 

Singer, guitarist, dulcimer player, author, folk music collector. Born New Bedford, Massachusetts, March 3, 1933.

As befits a descendent of New England sailing families, Paul Clayton helped preserve much of the heritage of whaling songs and sea chanteys from this region. But his lengthy list of recordings showed his range from New England ballads to folk songs of every type and description. Many of these songs were the results of collecting expeditions to far-flung parts of the U.S. and Canada.

Clayton early received encouragement in his music interests from his parents who both played instruments. His father strummed the banjo and his mother was a pianist. The folk music bug hit him early and he was listening to records by many artists before he was in his teens. When he was 11, he got his first guitar and soon could play many of the classic folk songs on it.

His early school years were varied, for his family moved to several different parts of the country, including New Hampshire and Florida. When he was ready for high school, though, they were once more settled in New Bedford. When he was a high school Sophomore, he was skilled enough to gain his own folk music program on a hometown station. He was given a 15-minute weekly program that he wrote, produced, and performed himself starting in April, 1948.

He continued his deep interest in folk music after he was graduated from New Bedford High. He attended the University of Virginia next, which gave him the opportunity to collect new material from the southern hill country . . .

When he finished college, he was set for a career in folk music. His performances at concerts and festivals quickly won critical attention for him and, in 1954, he turned out the first of hundreds of recordings. Through the 1950s and ‘60s he was represented on many LP labels, including Stinson, Riverside, Tradition, Elektra, Folkways and Monument . . .

During the 1950s and ‘60s, Clayton performed in most of the U.S. east of the Mississippi and in many parts of Canada and Europe. He was featured on radio shows in many foreign countries, including appearances on the BBC. His contributions included folk song material for the American Archive of Folk Song and the Helen Flanders Ballad Collection, Middlebury, Vermont.

 -- from “Encyclopedia of Folk, Country and Western Music” by Stambler and Landon. 
New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1969. And thanks to Pete Curry for providing the transcription.