KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (WATE) — The national theme for Black History Month this year is “African Americans and the Arts.” 2019 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Commemorative Commission Arts Award winner Brian Clay reflected on his path to making music a thriving career.
“I’m a lifelong musician. So, I’m an entertainer. I’m a creative,” said Clay.
The gift of music came easy to him. As a child, he took lessons and fell in love with the piano. For Clay, the idea of creating music is like an equation for the creative soul.
“I think if I was looking at it from a mathematics point of view, that numbers just bounce around the page and come alive. It’s not just figuring out the formula, but actually creating the formula in a way that I can hear something in my head,” he said. “And then from the point that I hear it in my head to the point where it’s recorded and produced and everybody else can listen, that whole process is just amazing.”
His talent is a celebration of Black music.
“I could do Beethoven and Bach and Hanon and all that stuff. But I had an amazing piano teacher early on that would say, “okay, if you get through the Beethoven stuff, I’ve got Billy Joel over here. I’ve got Lionel Richie here.’ So, I got it early kind of both sides. But it’s the jazz, it’s freedom. Jazz is an improvisational music by nature. It’s a Black art form. It’s African American people in this country, a century ago, even more, creating music that was free. And that’s what draws me to jazz,” Clay said.