JD Clayton
Bio
JD Clayton, new on the scene by industry standards but with over 100 shows under his belt in the last year alone, is one of the hardest working men in music. His sound, and where he chooses to make it—Arkansas, the most western of the southern states—is a bridge between the southern rock on which he was raised, and the truth telling tradition from the 70s era of country music that he most favors.
As a result, the songs on his thrilling new album Blue Sky Sundays, feel both lived in and completely free. Like any great songwriter, Clayton is both leader and follower, telling his own story but reveling in how it unfolds in live time and relates to listeners individually. “The album is about clarity. It’s about leaving the things that let us down behind,” Clayton says. “It’s about love and family and joy. It took me about four months of being sober to have a clear enough head to process this. I think I finally understand that piece of the puzzle at least.”
In order for us to understand the beauty and joy of Blue Sky Sundays, you have to step back a bit, to long before the arrival of his 2023 breakthrough, Long Way From Home, and way back to Fort Smith, Arkansas, where Clayton’s musical journey began.
Clayton’s hometown, which rests on the banks of the Arkansas River and peers into the farmlands of Eastern Oklahoma, is known for its true grit. It’s a town where the new south meets the old west. Clayton’s father worked in real estate before becoming a pastor, when JD — the eldest of three children — was beginning high school.
Clayton was already well-indoctrinated into music by then; his grandfather played banjo in a bluegrass band and taught Clayton some rudimentary chords. His father could pick a few chords too. “He would sit there trying to learn Jack Johnson songs from a guitar tab book while ‘In Between Dreams’ played from a junky CD/Cassette player,” Clayton remembers. His father gave him a guitar when he was eight years old, though it would be a few years before it took.
The church provided a powerful training ground for Clayton’s music, too. With his multi-instrumental skills, including drums and piano, he was a natural to become a musical leader, playing and eventually singing during the services. In high school, he and a friend auditioned to sing for their graduation ceremony, which proved to be its own pivotal moment. It’s these memories that he felt most deeply when recording the aforementioned Long Way Home.
“I wrote Long Way From Home isolated in Nashville, with my wife but far from the rest of our family in Fort Smith, Arkansas. I finally recorded it in April of 2021, and it didn’t find its way into the right hands until halfway through 2022. Then, I started touring. The album came out in 2023,” Clayton explains. By the time it was finally released, the songwriter was itching to write new songs, to capture the energy he and his band had begun to harness during those 2022 and 2023 shows.
When it came time to record the new album, Clayton had a few touchstones he wanted to hit so that Blue Sky Sundays could be an accurate reflection of his vision. Most notably, using his touring band in the studio and self producing. “Why would I not want to share and enjoy the experience of recording the entire album with them,”says Clayton. He and his bandmates recorded each song in four or five takes, together; everyone could see each other as the tape rolled. Whichever take Clayton thought was best was kept, informing the next song and the next. Mistakes weren’t frowned upon but incorporated in fresh ways. Live sensibilities in the recorded context, an old school approach from a new school artist. The final product was handed off to Vance Powell to mix for final touches, and the result is an artist-led record tracked with a road-tested band, tied together by a master. Cohesive yet loose in all the right places.
If anything, Blue Sky Sundays is the answer to the question he asked himself in Long Way From Home. Fans who have been along for the ride will immediately recognize this to be true. And for those new to the party: welcome. Blue Sky Sundays is the culmination of a few years living in Nashville, chasing the dream of making a living by making music in what he thought to be the correct, the industry way. To then, with a new perspective, deciding to return the family home to Arkansas, basing the tour operation from home. Leaving home to return again is a familiar trope in many a great story but for Clayton, it’s personal.
This story inspires “High Hopes & Low Expectations,” the album’s penultimate track and first single which was written with Nashville songwriting stalwart Kendell Marvel. It begins with Clayton singing of finding his golden ticket over beautiful piano chords and guitar parts that wrap themselves around each other beneath the melody.
There’ll be good days and bad days,
but Ol’ Man River keeps on rollin’
These are words of wisdom from an artist who has seen both— and really, it’s a song to himself with endless applications for the individual listener.
I rode the backs of my wildest dreams
Life didn’t always work out right
But you can bet I’ll sure sleep good tonight.
“It makes me think of leaving Arkansas for Nashville to make it in music,” he explains. “I am still learning to live everyday with high hopes and low expectations.”
After all that’s all JD Clayton asks of this life, to chase his dreams with ones he loves, to write great songs, and sleep well at night. And he does.
