{"id":756,"date":"2017-05-18T09:55:41","date_gmt":"2017-05-18T16:55:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pnwfolklore.org\/wp-nwhoot\/?p=756"},"modified":"2017-07-26T16:37:04","modified_gmt":"2017-07-26T23:37:04","slug":"paul-clayton-unsung-hero-of-the-early-folksong-revival-by-stewart-hendrickson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/pnwfolklore.org\/wp-nwhoot\/index.php\/2017\/05\/18\/paul-clayton-unsung-hero-of-the-early-folksong-revival-by-stewart-hendrickson\/","title":{"rendered":"Paul Clayton \u2013 Unsung Hero of the Early Folksong Revival, by Stewart Hendrickson"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Paul Clayton, 1953, Paul Clayton Estate<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There is one name that is not well known in the history of the folksong revival beginning in the late 1940s and 1950s. Paul Clayton was a folk music scholar, a collector and field recorder of traditional folksongs primarily from Appalachia and New England, and America\u2019s most-recorded young folksinger \u2013 some 17 albums between 1954 and 1961<\/a>, mostly traditional folk songs and later commercial recordings<\/a> \u2013 bringing hundreds of obscure folk ballads and songs into the American folk music scene. He was a mentor to David Van Ronk, Bob Dylan, and other emerging folksingers of that era, but became eclipsed in the emerging commercial folk scene of the 1960s. He was a genius with many talents, but also many demons that led to his tragic death in 1967 at the age of 36.<\/p>\n

Paul Clayton Worthington was born on March 31, 1931, in the whaling town of New Bedford, MA. He grew up hearing songs of the seaman\u2019s life from his grandfather, Paul Hardy, a whaler\u2019s outfitter. From his grandmother, Elizabeth Hardy, he learned songs from Prince Edward Island. As a teenager he began researching old songs when he came upon a collection of original manuscripts of seafaring songs at the New Bedford Whaling Museum. Unencumbered by instruments he sang these songs with the free rhythm of an unaccompanied singer; this led to his odd wayward conversational vocal style, different from that of most other folksingers.<\/p>\n

At age eleven Paul was given his first guitar, and in high school he hosted a weekly series of folk programs on New Bedford\u2019s local radio station and later on WBSM. He wrote his own material and sang live music on his program, which was later expanded from a few minutes to one hour per week. The folksong bug had bitten and his folksinging career had begun.<\/p>\n

After graduating from New Bedford High School in 1949 he went to the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. There he discovered the university\u2019s Alderman Library with its vast collection of folklore and songs. He was taken under the wing of Professor Arthur Kyle Davis, a foremost folklorist and ballad scholar of the time. There he helped work on Davis\u2019s book \u201cFolk Songs of Virginia,\u201d and later helped produce \u201cMore Traditional Ballads of Virginia\u201d from his research in the archives of the Virginia Folklore Society. He also began extensive excursions into the Appalachian mountains collecting songs from many traditional folk artists, including Etta Baker and Hobart Smith. His home base was a remote, primitive log cabin in western Albemarle County known as Brown\u2019s Cove. Paul\u2019s neighbor in the Cove was Marybird McAllister, a traditional singer and banjo player. Some of his best discoveries from her were \u201cGeorgie,\u201d \u201cWill the Weaver,\u201d \u201cPoor Ol\u2019 Tuckyhoe,\u201d \u201cRichmond,\u201d and\u00a0 \u201cAcross the Blue Mountains.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the summer of 1951, following his junior year, Paul went to Europe \u201con his thumb.\u201d He integrated himself into the London folk circles among performers such as A. L. Lloyd, Patrick Galvin, Hamish Henderson, and Ewan MacColl. He also interacted with visiting American folksingers including Jean Ritchie, Burl Ives, Peggy Seeger and Guy Carawan. He collected songs, hosted radio shows, and recorded his family songs for posterity in the BBC archives. On the continent he traveled to Paris, through France to Spain \u201cwith guitar and pack on his back\u201d collecting songs and playing along the way.<\/p>\n

Back at the University of Virginia Paul completed work for a masters degree in English and American Folklore. From his youth in New Bedford through his time in Charlottesville, VA, he experienced homosexual tendencies, but these were kept tightly under wraps since at that time being gay was not something one would want to openly acknowledge. Later, and particularly\u00a0 in Europe, he became more active in gay communities, although many of his close friends still did not realize he was gay.<\/p>\n

By 1953 Paul was frequenting the Greenwich Village scene in New York trying to solidify a base for his folk music career. With his plain voice and guitar he was no match for the emerging young folksingers in the Village who would later make it big. His friend Rey Barry characterized him as a \u201cvery faithful performer<\/em>,\u201d but lacking an adorned style to pull a large audience. \u201cThere were a lot of people around in those days, like Ed McCurdy, who were doing a wonderful job of popularizing folk music with more richly orchestrated [backing] and catchier ways of putting over a tune. Paul was doing it pretty straight \u2026 and there\u2019s nothing very sexy about that kind of music. You needed to be someone who was into the folk music scene to appreciate what he was doing. If you were just someone who was there to be entertained by a singer on stage, Paul was not entertaining<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Paul\u2019s first album came out on Stinson Records in Greenwich Village around 1954.\u00a0 \u201cWhaling Songs and Ballads,\u201d was drawn from his Grandfather\u2019s songs and co-produced with the New Bedford Whaling Museum. Most of the songs were not wide known, perhaps only to those who knew whaling songs. The only other Stinson record was \u201cWaters Of Tyne – English North Country Songs & Ballads.\u201d This led to a series of recordings on Folkways including
\nBay State Ballads<\/a>, Folk Songs & Ballads of Virginia<\/a>,
\n