Inspired by popular rock and blues groups such as The Allman Brothers, The Jimi Hendrix Experience, and John Lee Hooker, Clay first picked up the guitar at age 16. A year later his burgeoning interest in jazz was furthered when El Paso, Texas-based guitar master Curt Warren was hired to teach a semester at his high school. Although Curt had his hands full with a class of beginning guitar players, he would often take time before class to show Clay a chord progression or scale fingering. When Curt left El Paso to rejoin the Navy, he told the young guitar enthusiast to “learn to read and learn solos off of records.”