Paul Clayton (folksinger) - Folklorist

Folklorist

After graduating in 1949, Clayton attended the University of Virginia, where hoped to gain a better grounding in musical scholarship. One of his professors was Arthur Kyle Davis, Jr., an eminent folklorist. Davis took three students under his wing, including Clayton, encouraging them to transcribe songs, write commentary and tape the university's collection of deteriorating aluminum recordings. In 1950, Paul's unusual musical background caught the attention of Helen Hartness Flanders, the wife of U.S. Senator Ralph E. Flanders of Vermont and an internationally-recognized folk music authority. Flanders showed up at Paul's house one day with a tape recorder while he was home from college, and she recorded 11 of his songs. The roles had reversed. Now Clayton was the one being collected.

That same year he discovered a new instrument, the Appalachian dulcimer. Seeking out traditional players in North Carolina, Kentucky and Virginia, he learned a variety of styles, becoming more proficient on dulcimer than he was on guitar. Through the knowledge he had gathered on the instrument, he collaborated on a booklet, The Appalachian Dulcimer, writing authoritatively on the subject. Meanwhile, he scoured the countryside for traditional players and songs. To help finance his field trips, he performed at colleges, schools, bars and coffeehouses along the way. Around this time, Paul began using his father's name as his stage name.

Another side of Clayton's personality emerged during college. The university had an almost entirely male student body, and a gay subculture had existed there for many years. Because of the times and the university's conservative traditions, it all remained closeted. Free of his home ties, however, Clayton had an active if private romantic life and sought liaisons whenever and wherever he could.

Clayton continued to assist in editing Davis's book More Traditional Ballads of Virginia (published 1960). He reported his research in a quarterly journal, Southern Folklore, and for a time planned a book of his own, also on traditional Virginian songs, though the work never materialized.