Lee Clayton

Lee Clayton (born October 29, 1942 in Russellville , Alabama ) is an American musician and songwriter . Stylistically, he is located in the area between rock and country music .

Life

Clayton was born in Alabama in 1942 and grew up in Oak Ridge , Tennessee . He began playing harmonica and guitar at the age of seven and pedal steel guitar at the age of nine . After graduating from the United States Air Force , he moved to Nashville in 1969 and began a career as a songwriter. In 1972 he wrote Ladies Love Outlaws for Waylon Jennings . 1973 released his first album Lee Clayton , with which Clayton was dissatisfied. In addition, he continued to compose songs for other musicians, such as B. Lone Wolf for Jerry Jeff Walker or If You Could Touch Her at All for Willie Nelson .

In 1978 the album Border Affair came on the market, which was well received by critics, but flopped with buyers. In 1979 his most successful LP Naked Child was released (in this production Klaus Voormann was also involved as bassist), whose most famous piece I Ride Alone was performed in a style that was very reminiscent of Bob Dylan . A critic of the Berlin city magazine tip wrote " Clayton sounds like Dylan should sound if he wanted to sound like Dylan ". In 1979 Clayton went on a world tour, which also brought him to Germany in 1980, where a 30-minute TV special was created on January 9, 1980 in the Markthalle Hamburg at the WDR Rockpalast .

In 1981 he released The Dream Goes On , which was his last album for a long time. In the 1980s he brought out two autobiographical books. In 1990 a new live CD was released, entitled Another Night , which was recorded in Oslo . In 2010 Clayton released eight new songs on various download platforms, including We the People . In February 2013 the e-book The Streets Of Nashville: The Little Book , a collection of lyrics, poems and texts by Clayton, was published.

Discography

• 1973: Lee Clayton
• 1978: Border Affair
• 1979: Naked Child
• 1981: The Dream Goes On
• 1990: Another Night
• 1994: Spirit of The Twilight
• 2002: The Essential 1978-1981
• 2003: Naked Child / Border Affair (as single CD)
• 2008: The Capitol Years (the albums Border Affair, Naked Child and The Dream Goes On remastered on a double CD)
• 2014: Live at Rockpalast (1980) (CD + DVD)

literature

• Christian Graf, Uwe Wohlschläger: Rock Music Lexicon . Overseas: America, Australia, the Caribbean . Taurus Press Verlag popular music-literature, Hamburg, 1982. ISBN 3922542050
• Erlewine, Michael u. a .: All Music Guide to Country. San Francisco, California: Miller Freeman Books, 1997, pp. 90f

Web links

• Lee Clayton at Allmusic (English)