Paul Clayton

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For the English football (soccer) player, see Paul Clayton (footballer)

For the Coronation Street character, see Paul Clayton (Coronation Street)

Paul Clayton (March 3, 1931 - March 30, 1967) was born Paul Clayton Worthington in New Bedford, Massachusetts. Paul was an American folksinger and folksong collector, notable for being part of the Greenwich Village folk scene from the 1950s until his death in 1967. His song "Gotta Travel On" was a folk staple, covered and charted (1959) by country singer Billy Grammer.

1 Work
2 References by other artists
- 2.1 Alleged plagiarism
3 Sexuality
4 Suicide
5 References
6 External links

[edit] Work

Clayton helped Arthur Kyle Davis, Jr., who published Folk-Songs of Virginia: A Descriptive Index and Classification to collect more folk music from this region and tape copies of the earlier aluminum disk recordings for preservation. He assisted Davis in publishing More Traditional Ballads of Virginia in 1960^[1]. Clayton also recorded music for the archives of the Flanders Ballad Collection, Middlebury College, the BBC collection, and the Archive of American Folksong at the Library of Congress during the 1950s. Clayton was part of a bluegrass group called the Dixie Mountain Boys with banjoist Johnny Clark and folksingers Bill Clifton and Dave Sadler. They signed a contract with Blue Ridge Records and appeared on the Wheeling Jamboree radio barn dance program.

[edit] References by other artists

It is alleged that Joni Mitchell's "Blue" and Bob Dylan's "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" are about Clayton, though Dylan has denied this.^[2] Dylan made a guest appearance at a 1961 Clayton concert at the Showboat Lounge in Washington.^[1]

[edit] Alleged plagiarism

In "Hoot! A 25-Year History of the Greenwich Village Music Scene", author Robbie Woliver described how Clayton's "Who's Gonna Buy Your Ribbons When I'm Gone" morphed into Dylan's "Don't Think Twice":

“

I (Barry Kornfeld) was with Paul one day, and Dylan wanders by and says, 'Hey, man, that's a great song. I'm going to use that song.' And he wrote a far better song, a much more interesting song -- "Don't Think Twice.

”

Dylan's and Clayton's publishing companies sued each other over this plagiarism, and it was revealed that Clayton's song was similar to another entitled "Who's Gonna Buy Your Chickens When I'm Gone", which was in the public domain. So, in effect, everything that Dylan took was actually public domain. According to Woliver, the lawsuits did not affect the friendship of the songwriters.

[edit] Sexuality

Woliver's book cites sources, such as Kornfeld, who believed that Clayton was gay, "which was something he could not live with... Paul had a tremendous crush on Dylan. I believe that "It Ain't Me, Babe" was written for Paul Clayton." Anthony Scaduto is also quoted in the book in describing the Dylan-Clayton relationship, "Bobby worshipped Pablo Clayton artistically," one of the folksingers from those days recalls. "And Pablo became absolutely fixated on Bobby. Bobby could talk about nothing else but Woody Guthrie, and Pablo could talk about nothing else but Bobby Dylan."^[2]