A self-described “song carrier,” Bill Clifton traveled all over the globe sharing American songs and a unique musical style wherever he went. Bill C. Malone, professor emeritus of history at Tulane University, has laboriously chronicled the events of Clifton’s life, events that read almost like legend --- not surprising for a troubadour who once declared himself simply “a wanderer.”

The backstory of Clifton’s life is intriguing. Born William Marburg, he was the heir of an affluent Baltimore banker who fully expected his son to follow in his footsteps. But that dream dissolved early on, beginning perhaps when Clifton was expelled from the same prep school that his father had successfully attended. And though he would fulfill some of his family’s expectations, graduating from college and serving in the US Marine Corps, his business acumen, when tested over the years, proved highly questionable. By his late teens, though, he cemented his love of songs, songs known at the time by the pejorative term “hillbilly.”

"[Malone] has balanced his justifiable respect for Clifton with his scholarly intent, ferreting out the flaws and foibles of Clifton’s career and personal life."

With various bands and expert musicians over many years, Clifton sang and played guitar, bringing that instrument into solo prominence. He recorded copiously, popularizing and preserving old parlor favorites like “Blue Ridge Mountain Blues,” “Old Pal of Yesterday” and “Mary Dear.” His repertoire was, as they say, country before there was any such thing as country music, bluegrass despite the somewhat narrow definition of that genre, and undeniably American folk. His entrepreneurial bent came into play with the creation of a bluegrass festival in Luray, Virginia --- not the first ever, but a strong precursor for the expansion of such events.

In the 1960s, Clifton took his wife and five children to England where he aligned himself with leading lights of the folk revival and started a well-received band, the Echo Mountain Boys. In his guise as promoter, he helped bring noted American musicians to the UK. But money problems plagued him; the family did a three-year stint with the newly conceived Peace Corps in the Philippines, a strange interlude that resulted in further financial difficulties. A return to England found the folkies grown hidebound, less open to hearing any folk music not produced by authentic “folk,” which Clifton was not. He eventually migrated back to the US. His love of the old “story songs” never left him, and he continued to disseminate them into the new century.

Malone, whose previous works (DON’T GET ABOVE YOUR RAISIN’, COUNTRY MUSIC, U.S.A.) have garnered considerable praise among fans of music and Americana, states that this is not an “authorized” biography. He has balanced his justifiable respect for Clifton with his scholarly intent, ferreting out the flaws and foibles of Clifton’s career and personal life. One thing Malone makes clear: Clifton did not imitate others or put on a rural persona to which he could not lay claim. He presented the songs he cared about in an unvarnished style and kept a patch of the American musical tradition vibrant when it easily could have faded away. As Malone accurately observes, “We all are beneficiaries of his lifetime of devotion to the music he loved.”