Bill
Clifton: America's Bluegras Ambassador to the World by Bill C.
Malone (University of Illinois Press, 2016, 184 pages, $19.75/995) is
a scholarly, yet readable, biography of bluegrass and country music
singer, collector, and entrepreneur Bill Clifton, whose long and
productive career in the United States and around the World spread
bluegrass, country, and folk music throughout Europe and to Japan
during a long career that extended from the late forties through the
early 21st century.
If you're a jammer or a singer of
traditional bluegrass, mountain, or country music, Bill Clifton's
life work of preserving and popularizing the roots of American rural
music is familiar to you. You probably have used his songbook to
learn songs and listened to his many recordings in one format or
another. His long and productive career contributed volumes to the
public awareness of country, mountain, and bluegrass music. Malone
points out that when Clifton was first hearing country music, in the
late forties and early fifties, radio didn't yet differentiate
between its styles and formats. Thus he heard a range from Gene Autry
through the early recorded country singers, to Bill Monroe, the
Carter Family, and, probably, Jimmy Rodgers.
Clifton, born William August Marburg in
1931, was the son of a prominent and wealthy Baltimore family. His
father was an investment banker and his mother was a member of a
socially prominent Baltimore family. Clifton's youth seems to have
been a concerted effort throughout adolescence to reject values and
lifestyle of his family in order to follow his own inclinations to
play country and old time music. An aborted and dangerous sojourn in
Mexico ending in a serious automobile accident presents a fine
example. He enjoyed a charmed life of wealth and comfort throughout
the depression. Clifton enrolled at St. Paul's School in Concord, NH,
but was expelled before graduating. His parents sent him to an
exclusive school which alternated locations between the Adirondack
Mountains and Florida. Similarly, his college career was spotty. He
attended the University of Virginia, but appears not to have
graduated, although his enlistment in the Marines during the Korean
War did much to fuel his fascination with travel to foreign climes.
Bill Clifton
Clifton, however, was early attracted
to country music and made much of his life's work around recording
and collecting country and mountain music in an era when the lines
between country, mountain, and bluegrass music were not so clearly
drawn. For instance, early programs at places like Sunset Park in
West Grove, PA and New River Ranch in Rising Sun, MD featured country
music stars like Hank Williams, Roy Acuff and (later) Johnny Cash
beside the early bluegrass greats Bill Monroe, Flatt & Scruggs,
the Stanley Brothers, Jimmy Martin, and Jim & Jesse McReynolds.
These venues drew a mixture of audience from local farmers, factory
workers, folkies, hippies, and others, creating a unique cultural and
social mixture to which Clifton was drawn, first as a fan and later
as a performer and band leader. He is credited with the second one day
bluegrass festival, held at Luray, VA in 1961.
Malone points out that Clifton's
commitment to country music (hillbilly) probably came from a mixture
of conviction that the music represented the expression of authentic
blue collar naturalism and a romantic sense of the uncluttered life
of country existence. Clifton traveled widely the U.S, becoming a
staple on the local radio broadcasts that were a feature of bluegrass
music in the mountain regions and nearby cities in the forties and
fifties, while meeting lots of important bluegrass early lights.
Particularly important to him were developing and long-lasting
relationships with Woody Guthrie and A.P. Carter. He brought the
sensibility of a museum curator to his song collecting and, later,
publishing efforts. Since Malone's writing characteristically, and
with scholarly thoroughness, lists the call letters of as many radio
stations as he can verify, as well as the naming members of many, or
even most, of the bands Clifton picked up to accompany him at
festivals or join him on short tours, the text often devolves into
what seems to be a series of lists. Since this is both a legitimate
approach for scholars and mother's milk for many people who take a
curatorial view of performances, the approach is appropriate and
useful. For the general reader, however, it sometimes makes reading
of the book something of a chore. Nevertheless, the book is very
enlightening regarding the career of an important figure in the
popularization and spreading of a more urbane and less localized
bluegrass music.
Regarding the early recordings in
Clifton's career, Malone comments, “Like most bluegrass musicians,
Bill could easily write and sing about cabin homes he had never
inhabited, country churches he had never attended, and dead mothers
to whom he had never been related.” On listening to his voice in
his recordings (many of which are available on Spotify), I was
intrigued by his clear, unaccented voice, which avoided trying to
achieve a “country” accent while presenting the songs
straightforwardly with clarity and genuine emotion. Clifton,
throughout most of his life, preferred the old songs and continued to
sing them. Later in his performing career, he allowed his repertoire
to become more expansive.
Bill Clifton in Later Years
Clifton moved to England in 1963 to
pursue old time, country and bluegrass full time. During this time,
Clifton traveled and performed widely himself while introducing
important folk and bluegrass artists like Doc Watson, Bill Monroe,
and the Stanley Brothers to England. He promoted tours by Mike Seeger
and the New Lost City Ramblers. His background, use of language, and
social ease made it possible for him to move easily through British
society while his knowledge of American roots music helped make
valuable connections to England. He also spent three years as a
project director for the Peace Corps in the Philippines. Later he
made several trips to Japan and brought Japanese bands to the U.S.
Clifton became a major force in helping to internationalize old time,
old country, and bluegrass music.
Bill C. Malone
Bill C. Malone is a noted scholar,
popular writer, and broadcaster. His doctoral dissertation was turned
into Country Music, USA, the
first academic study of country music. He
is retired from Tulane University and currently lives in Madison, WI
where he hosts a weekly country music show on public radio.
As Bill
Clifton: America's Bluegrass Ambassador to the World by Bill C.
Malone (University of Illinois Press, 2016, 184 pages, $19.75/995)
progresses through Clifton's travels and his problems with money, a
picture emerges of Bill Clifton as torn between his family and social
obligations as the son of an important banking and brokerage family
in Baltimore, MD and a somewhat conflicted itinerant musician and
even counter culture personality who preferred staying on the road,
playing music and helping people make connections. It cost him wives,
and relationships with some of his children. Similarly, his
scholarly work in collecting and performing old time bluegrass,
country, and folk music were somewhat at odds with a sensibility open
to a wide range and variety of musical styles and content. Thus, he
emerges as a complex and conflicted person. Nevertheless, his
importance in helping keep old time and early bluegrass alive and
acting as an ambassador abroad in spreading the music worldwide is
incontrovertible. Late in his career, Clifton was awarded a
Distinguished Achievement Award by IBMA in 1992 and inducted in the
International Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame in 2008. I bought the book
as a digital download from Amazon.com
and read it on my Kindle app.
