Clay Walker Biography and Discussion

Clay Walker Biography and Discussion of Clay Walker and His Musical Development and Style Today, country music is a multi-billion dollar industry, and has actually surpassed rock and roll and pop music as the best-selling music genre in the United States (Carr, Cash, McDill et al., 1998). One of the recording stars responsible for this explosion in popularity of country music is Clay Walker. This paper provides a biography of Walker, a discussion of his musical development and his musical style and style changes.

A summary of the research is provided in the conclusion. Biography of the Artist. Walker was born on August 19, 1969 (Clay Walker, 2005) and was raised on a farm in Beaumont, Texas, the hometown of George Jones (Erlewine, 2005). According to Erlewine, Walker came to country music at an early age when his father presented him with a guitar when he was only 9 years old.

Following his graduation from high school (where he "haunted the practice rooms of the music department teaching himself to play the piano"), Walker pursued a full-time musical career by playing concerts across the United States and Canada (Clay's Story, 2005, p. 2). "For over three years," Erlewine says, "he toured and went to school, taking courses about the music business. During this time, he acted as his own manager" (p. 3). Walker's real break came when he took a job as the house singer at a club in Beaumont, Texas.

During one of his performances, a producer by the name of James Stroud heard Walker and offered to work with him. According to Erlewine: "Stroud helped Walker secure a contract with Giant Records, and the pair began working on the vocalist's debut album" (p. 4). This contract with Giant Records was quickly translated into Giant Success by Walker and his new producer. Discussion of Musical Development. According to Erlewine (2005), "With his first two singles reaching number one upon their release, Clay Walker immediately established himself as a commercial success.

Unlike most of his new country contemporaries of the mid-'90s, he was able to sustain that success over a couple of years, racking up no less than five number one singles in the first three years of his career" (p. 1). In August 1993, the single "What's It to You" was released and skyrocketed to the top of the charts; later that year, Walker released "Live Until I Die" which enjoyed comparable success on the charts.

Both of these hit songs were featured on Walker's debut album, "Clay Walker," released in the fall of 1993. In early 1994, "Where Do I Fit in the Picture," another single from Walker's debut album, reached number 11 on the Top 40 charts; however, "White Palace" was a commercial failure and did not even reach the Top 40.

Nevertheless, this failure did not apparently phase the artist's confidence or ability and Walker's "Dreaming With My Eyes Open" was well received and became his third number one hit in 1994, driving his debut record to platinum-level sales (Erlewine, 2005). While "If I Could Make a Living" did not enjoy these same levels of sales, it was still highly popular and was the number one title track.

In early 1995, Walker enjoyed a number two single with "Who Needs You Baby," followed by the release in late 1995 of his third album, "Hypnotize the Moon. These works were followed by "Self-Portrait" in 1996 (Erlewine, 2005). In 1996, Walker also announced that he suffered from multiple sclerosis (Clay Walker, 2005). According to "Clay's Story" (2005), "Clay has kept touring and recording steadily since he was diagnosed. He is well-known for his high-energy concerts and performance style.

Knowing that others with MS have not been so lucky led him to the decision to form the Band Against MSSM Foundation, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to making information about living with MS available and providing funding for research" (p. 4). Clearly undaunted by this diagnosis, Walker went on to record and release "Rumor Has It" in 1997, and a "Greatest Hits" collection in 1998.

Not content to rest on his laurels, Walker went right back to work and recorded another album, "Live, Laugh, Love," which was released in 1999, followed by "Say No More" in 2001 (Erlewine, 2005). According to the biographers at Country Music Television (2005), "When Giant Records shuttered in 2001, Walker released a Christmas album on Warner Bros. In 2002 and 'A Few Questions' on RCA in 2003" (p. 2).

As a country music composer and singer, Walker's musical style has experienced little fundamental change over the years but has rather remained faithful to the genre; these issues are discussed further below. Discussion of Musical Style and Style Changes. As a country music singer, Walker may have his musical style confused with that of other country and western singers and composers, but country music is actually a distinct genre unto itself. In his book, All That Glitters: Country Music in America, George H.

Lewis (1993) reports that the term "country music" first entered the popular lexicon in the 1960s, a few years after the Country Music Association (CMA) was established. "Folklorist Bill Ivey, Director of the CMA's Country Music Foundation," he writes, "has pointed out that in 1968 the first edition of Bill C. Malone's Country Music USA established 'country music' as the term describing an entire musical tradition (as opposed to, for example, 'country and western'), and..

clearly placed bluegrass, western swing and cowboy music as subsets within that large tradition -- relationships that were by no means accepted in the late 1960s" (p. 151). As a result, Lewis says the term "country music" was created by this branch of the popular music industry during the 1950s and became popularly accepted within just a few years by both music consumers and scholars alike.

This genre has some general techniques that are consistently employed to define the musical style such as themes and stereotypical portrayals, and Walker has clearly used these techniques to good advantage; however, this artist has also used some elements from classical music that might even surprise him.

According to Rhetorical Figures in Sound (2004), an antimetabole is a: "Figure of emphasis in which the words in one phrase or clause are replicated, exactly or closely, in reverse grammatical order in the next phrase or clause; an inverted order of repeated words in adjacent phrases or clauses (A-B, B-A)" (p. 1).

A common example of an antimetabole is the late Carl Sagan's observation that: "The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence." In her essay, "The Delight of Words: The Elizabethan Sonneteers and American Country Lyricists" (2000), Jill Jones suggests that country music lyricists may not be aware of all of the classical, rhetorical names they employ today, but they nonetheless use these devices skillfully and frequently in composing their lyrics. For example, in his song, "If I Could Make a Living," Walker uses this musical style from Elizabethan songwriters.

"I'm sure few country music writers know the word 'antimetabole,'" Jones says, "but they certainly use the device. Clay Walker sings that if he could make a living out of loving his lady, 'I'd be doing what I love and loving what I do'" (p. 63). Finally, while Walker may use sophisticated musicality devices in his country compositions, in the majority of his recordings and in his music video renditions of his songs, he relies primarily on traditional elements from country music, including the stereotypical portrayals.