Clarence Kelly

A lot of folks over the years left these pretty green hills to cross the Ohio River in search of a better life regardless of what might lay ahead, because in many cases it had to be better’n here. My pursuit of hearing these many stories of life from the pickers and artists of my part of the foothills took me to Fairborn, Ohio, to the home of Clarence Kelly, a picker from Spaw’s Creek, over in the Caney region of Morgan County, Kentucky

Clarence Kelly, like many young men reared in this ancient mountain range we call the foothills of Kentucky has lineage tied to the lowlands of Scotland. He was a free-range kid who claimed the hills, trees and streams as his playground and was raised up during a time when it was common for a 10- or 11-year-old kid to kill a squirrel or rabbit and bring it home for supper.

“Money was damn near nonexistent for us,” Kelly explains as he returns to the Caney/Spaw’s Creek area and the remote austere life he lived with his father Santford Kelly.

Santford was a noted old-time musician and man of the hills some might refer to as a mystic, maybe as well known for his herbalist skills as his fiddling. The fiddle songs of Santford Kelly were archived at the University of Kentucky, Western Kentucky University and Morehead State University at the Kentucky Center for Traditional Music.

“Hobart would bring Ricky to where my Daddy would be playing, and he picked up on Daddy’s style and still does some of that type of playing today,” he said, referring to legendary Ricky Skaggs and his father, also out of the same area.

Read this entire story about Clarence Kelly on Tony's official website:

Bone-cutting Truth-revealing Music is Clarence Kelly’s Unique Calling Card