Have fiddle, will travel

Nashville based musician Jake Clayton will be playing Encampment's Music in the Park on Aug. 3. Recently, the Saratoga Sun sat down for an interview with Clayton

For many people, there are pivotal moments that happen in their lives. These moments are so important in how one's life moves forward and the path they take that the date is forever in their memory. When it comes to Jake Clayton, that date is Aug. 7, 1997. It was on that date that an 11-year-old boy from Mexico, Mo. saw the broadcast for Garth Brooks Live in Central Park.

"I remember watching Garth Brooks Live in Central Park and seeing his fiddle player, Jimmy Mattingly, just absolutely blow my mind as a kid and I was 11 and it took another couple of years for me to keep telling my parents 'Hey, I want a fiddle. I want a fiddle.` My parents had recorded this Garth concert on VHS tape and we'd watch it back all the time," said Clayton.

After two years of pleading, Clayton's parents told him they would take his grandfather's fiddle out of storage.

"They were like 'Ok, well, grandpa had a fiddle and it's in the storage shed. We'll get that one fixed up and see how you do and from there we can go.' So, that happened and that fiddle of my grandpa's is amazing and I still play it to this day. It's my main fiddle," Clayton said.

Clayton would eventually become the fiddle player for Tanya Tucker, though his path to that career wasn't what one would call straightforward. Before he played for her, he played for the Oak Ridge Boys along with another country music artist, Jimmy Wayne. Long before that, however, was TNT and the Dynamite Cowboys.

"This particular band I was in, they were called TNT and the Dynamite Cowboys and TNT was a husband and wife; Tim and Tammy," said Clayton. "We were the house band at this place called Nashville North in Taylorville, Ill. and it was a place where you'd go, it was a theater, you'd see national acts and we were the house band that would open up for all these national acts."

By the time Clayton was playing for the Dynamite Cowboys, he could play around 20 instruments. This was due, in part, to being a part of bands who wanted to play certain songs, but didn't have the right instrument.

"Every band I was in, I got sick and tired of artists wanting to do songs and the band leaders being like 'We can't do "Eastbound and Down" by Jerry Reed because we don't have a banjo.' So, I'd hear that or I'd hear 'We can't do "Harper Valley PTA" because we don't have a dobro' or just something like that," Clayton said. "So, finally, I told the person who was running the show, I'm like 'Look, you can rent these instruments for, like, $25 a day. I'll figure something out. Bring a banjo next Saturday before the show. Bring it at rehearsal and give me a couple hours with it and I'll figure out "Eastbound and Down"' not realizing that I wouldn't just be able to learn 'Eastbound and Down' and then put the banjo away."

It wasn't enough for Clayton to just learn one song, or a couple songs, on the instrument. He had to learn the instrument in its entirety.

"Every time some artist wanted to do a song and they'd go 'Well, we don't have a mandolin,' 'Okay, well, bring a mandolin next week' and then the weirdest stuff started happening," said Clayton.

As he began playing expanding his knowledge of how to play these instruments, people began bringing instruments to give him after shows he played.

"People would just give me the instruments. So, like, somebody would, all of a sudden, go 'Here's a brand new mandolin' or 'I built you a dobro,'" Clayton said. "This dobro I played for many years; it's beautiful, it's blue, it's a one-of-a-kind dobro, but it was built by a furniture maker. A lot of the instruments that I had in the beginning, and still use a lot of them to this day, are just gifts from people. I've only bought, like, three instruments and I have a whole bunch."

During his time playing for TNT and the Dynamite Cowboys, Clayton would be seen by managers for the national acts that came to North Nashville to play.

"There's countless numbers of artists in Nashville, but there's a little less amount of managers. So, sometimes, artists will share managers. I would see the same manager three or four times in a year at this place and they would catch little bits and pieces of the show," said Clayton. "One show they'd (say) 'Great job, fiddle player' and the next time they'd come back, be like 'Man, great job playing the dobro. I thought you were the fiddle player before?' and I was like, 'Well, I kind of do multiple things.'"

Eventually, when artists would need someone to play the fiddle or the dobro, the managers would think of Clayton. This was how Clayton wound up playing both fiddle and the pedal steel guitar for the Oak Ridge Boys and playing for Wayne. It was during a concert for both Wayne and another artist, Dusty Drake. Drake just so happened to share a drummer with Tucker.

"Dusty's drummer was Tanya's drummer and Tanya had a show that night, so Dusty's drummer couldn't be there. So, Dusty's fill-in drummer saw me, saw something that he liked and when the drummer for Tanya asked 'Hey, how'd the show go?' all he could talk about was me. So, the next time Tanya's drummer, who was also Tanya's band leader, when he needed a fiddle player he just called me," Clayton said. "That's how I went from Oak Ridge Boys to Jimmy Wayne to Tanya Tucker."

How does the fiddle player for country music royalty end up in the Platte Valley? 

"So, how I came up to playing here ... I got into studio work and I started playing on a bunch of different albums and when I started playing on a bunch of different albums and started playing all these instruments, I realized that I could make albums myself. So, on top of playing on people's albums ... that lead me into pursuing my original passion in music which was being a solo artist, not just playing for other people," said Clayton.

The time in the studio culminated in Clayton's first album, "Barnyard Stomp." It was with that album that Clayton began touring for himself and eventually led to his second album, "By the Light of the Moon." The tour for that album brought Clayton out West and into the Colorado area. As it turns out, Margaret Weber, owner of the Bear Trap Cafe and Bar in Riverside, is the person who gave Clayton his first gig in the Valley.

"A friend of mine, his brother had been up here working one summer as a lumberjack or something and worked for Margaret, and knew that she had a bar and that they probably wouldn't mind having some entertainment if they just gave us some gas money, pass the hat," Clayton said. "So, we stopped in at Margaret's and did a show and at the show was the original person that I met who did Tane' Lybrook's job over at Brush Creek (Ranch)."

Lybrook is currently the Director of Event Management at the luxury resort. 

"She was there and saw us play and she invited us over to come to Brush Creek to play a show over there. Then, they saw one show there and booked us to do a bunch of other stuff for Brush Creek and it's just feathered out from there," said Clayton.

Since his initial gig at the Bear Trap and playing for Brush Creek Ranch, Clayton has returned year after year to the Platte Valley. One of his consistent shows has been the Town of Encampment's Music in the Park every August.

"I've been doing that, I think this will be my fourth year if not my fifth year and Encampment always helps to get me back up here," Clayton said. "I can't say 'thank you' enough to Encampment because that show particularly allows me to do Brush Creek, Duke's, Margaret's, any other place we end up playing. Any of those places, they would not be possible without Encampment, They have really stepped in and put a big one down to help out."

Clayton admitted that it does help that he has fallen in love with the area.

"If you look back over my social media pages, I've been to Japan, Norway, Amsterdam. We go all over the place. Nobody gets more attention on my social media pages than the Platte Valley and the Snowy Range. People on my pages are like 'Okay, it's beautiful. We get it. We see it all the time. Go somewhere else,'"said Clayton. "I'm like 'I don't want to go anywhere else.' Everytime I do a show I say the same thing, 'Do you all realize how beautiful it is here' and at least five or six people go 'shhhhh.'"

Along with the natural beauty of the area that continually keeps Clayton returning, he said that the people in the Valley are also a big reason for his annual visit.

"The people seem to get my music here more than anywhere else, so I'm very thankful that they, Encampment and Brush Creek, continue to call me to come out here to play," Clayton said. "This is the prettiest place that we've ever got to be. We've been to Norway, Amsterdam. Japan's beautiful. All of them have their own special place, but I feel at home more in the Rockies than I do anywhere else. You just feel that deep connection here."

To stay up-to-date with Clayton, people can follow the artist on Facebook, www.facebook.com/thejakeclayton, Instagram, @thejakeclayton, and Twitter, @thejakeclayton. 

Clayton will be returning to play Encampment's Music in the Park at 6 p.m. on Aug. 3 at Grandview Park.