Born in 1961 and raised in Paterson, New Jersey, in a household where the family went to church on Sundays to sing gospel, with his mother playing records of the Five Blind Boys of Alabama and Mahalia Jackson and his father exchanging them for BB King or Howlin Wolf records, the blues was in the air daily. His father Clarence and uncle Fletchy both played the guitar, and young Clarence, at just four years old, soon sat alongside them with his own guitar.
By the age of 12, he was already a perfect blues guitarist. The family moved to Scranton, Pennsylvania, where he befriended Motown, Bluegrass, Country, and the Philly Sound, expanding his musical spectrum.
After graduating from school, in 1979, he moved back to New Jersey. He started working in a recording studio and quickly established himself as a sought-after sideman in numerous bands. As a guitarist in Greg Palmer's Top-40 band, he supported acts like the Four Tops and Spinners and toured the USA almost continuously for six years.
There followed bands, tours, parties, and crashes. To save himself, he returned to Scranton, took a steady job as a truck/excavator/crane driver, which he held for 17 years, and would sit in his car on weekends after work to drive to Manhattan late at night to play the blues in the numerous clubs. He also regularly went to the Baptist church to sing and play the organ.
In 1989, he formed his own Scranton Blues Band, which became the West Third Street Blues Band and was supposed to record the material for "Nature Of The Beast." The album was re-released in the mid-'90s by the prestigious label Evidence Records with a new cover. The CD went gold, was nominated for two Blues Grammys, generated a flurry of calls to management, and led to engagements for major tours.
Clarence almost disappeared for nearly ten years, only to receive an offer from the owner of Severn Records for a comeback album. "Just Between Us" was promptly awarded a Blues Music Award for Best Soul-Blues Album.
In 2021, the album "Surrender" was released on Sallie Bengston's Nola Blues Records. The successful album can be understood as a highly emotional soul journey. Three tracks on the album are live recordings from his wildest phase, a time when cocaine gangs and daily murders haunted Pennsylvania.
"Surrender" was nominated for Best Contemporary Blues Album at the Blues Blast Awards.
In the live show, he is supported by Neal Black and his band. Highly praised by his critics, including being titled by Rolling Stone Magazine as "The Master of High Voltage Texas Boogie," he performed with numerous blues/rock legends on stage and in the studio, including Chuck Berry, Jimmy Dawkins, Popa Chubby, Elliott Murphy, Jennifer Batten (Michael Jackson), John Sebastian (Doors), Gerardo Velez (Jimi Hendrix), Harvey Brooks (Bob Dylan), Jon Paris (Johnny Winter), Alabama Slim, Archie Lee Hooker, and Billy Price (Roy Buchanan).
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