Sonny Clay

Happy Birthday, Sonny Clay 1899-1973...Born in Texas, he moved to Phoenix, Arizona when he was 8 and it was there he got his start playing piano and drums in local venues as a teenager. In 1917 he headed down to Mexico where he played with Jelly Roll Morton, heading back up to Los Angeles in 1921 where he joined Kid Ory's Original Creole Jazz band.

In 1923 he formed his own band and became the house band at the Plantation Club, playing and recording  under the name Sonny Clay's Plantation Orchestra. The band also played regularly on radio which gave them more exposure and gave Clay a chance to polish his own compositions during the 4 years they played there.

What the band is most notable for, though, is introducing jazz to Australia. In 1928 Sonny Clay took his band to tour Australia with a vaudeville troupe named "Sonny Clay and the Colored Idea." The female singer in the group was Ivie Anderson who would  later go on to join Duke Ellington's orchestra. The group took Australia by storm, the citizens having never seen a show of it's kind live. The excitement also spilled over into what happened off stage and reports of drinking, drug taking and cavorting with local white women resulted in a police raid and deportation. Clay was not there and was not involved in any of the behavior that caused the former Australian Prime Minister, Billy
Hughes, to call them the "scum of America" and note that they would have gotten a lynching in their native South for the same antics. Australia's Federal Cabinet barred the entry of all "colored" artists after that and it wasn't until twenty six years later in 1954, that Louis Armstrong & His All-Stars broke the ban.

When Clay returned he formed a new band called "The Dixie Serenaders" which recorded and played in the Los Angeles area for a few years before breaking up in 1930. He performed as a solo artist up until WW2 when he joined the army and lead a band in the Special Services Division. After the war he continued to play solo, calling it quits in the late 40's to go to work for the Post Office. In the late 50's, interest in his work forced him return to performing solo club gigs. He made his last recording in 1960.

 Sonny Clay and the Colored Idea with Ivie Anderson arrives in Australia, 1928