Clinton Gregory

Born on March 1, 1966, in Martinville, Virginia, Clinton Gregory rose to prominence as a singer, fiddler, and guitarist who achieved success across both country and bluegrass. From an early age he was immersed in music because his father, Willie Gregory, a gifted fiddler descended from a long line of musicians, actively encouraged his son to pursue the same path. Gregory took up the violin at five and, within a year, proved skilled enough to appear at bluegrass festivals. At twelve the family moved to Nashville, Tennessee, after Willie secured a position at the Grand Ole Opry. While continuing his musical development in Music City, Gregory earned recognition on his own and worked regularly as a sideman and session player alongside major country artists of the era. His debut solo album, Music 'n Me, arrived in 1990 on the independent Step One Records label. Although that release received favorable notice, the 1991 follow-up If It Weren't for Country Music I'd Go Crazy marked his commercial breakthrough; its title track reached number 26 on the country singles chart, and three additional tracks from the album also received airplay as singles.

The 1992 album Freeborn Man yielded Gregory's highest-charting single, "Play, Ruby, Play," which climbed to number 25 on the country survey, while another cut, "Who Needs It," peaked at number 29. By then he was sharing bills with Willie Nelson, Garth Brooks, Marty Stuart, Pam Tillis, and Hank Williams, Jr., and he performed often at the Grand Ole Opry. In February 1992 he appeared on the Opry stage with his father, who passed away two months later. After the 1993 album Master of Illusion fell short of commercial expectations, Gregory departed Step One for Polydor. His Polydor debut, the self-titled Clinton Gregory, achieved only modest sales in 1995, and a series of professional and personal setbacks ensued. For most of the next decade he remained largely absent from industry attention. In 2005 Neil Young brought him back into music by inviting him to contribute to the album Prairie Wind and to perform with the band featured in the documentary Neil Young: Heart of Gold. Following that collaboration Gregory resumed performing and songwriting, and in 2012 he issued Too Much Ain't Enough on the independent Melody Roundup label—his first album in seventeen years. Critics and listeners responded positively, and a second project, the bluegrass-oriented The Roots of My Raising, followed in 2013.