Clay, the Man and His Music

I have shown some of my favorite pictures of the man being the humanitarian, educator, and loving person that he is. Someone pointed me to a great video which I hadn't seen before. It happens to use a beautiful song, sung by a great voice -- no, not Clay this time, even though I also include a version by him. This first one though is Josh Groban. The song is The Prayer. The song, wonderfully enough, was written by a man, David Foster, who means so much to both these guys and who has shown that he in turn loves these young men as well. How fitting to hear each of them sing his beautiful song.

Josh's version, with a Clay montage of his humanitarian activities, whether as a Unicef Ambassador, the head man for BAF, a volunteer for other charities, a man graciously granting a wish to a very sick young boy whose wish was to sing with Clay on stage, to making sure children had fun at a skating event, even if they themselves couldn't skate.

Clay and Quiana -- while the video itself is not the best quality (it was a sneak ha ha), the sound is good. They performed this at Clay's BAF Fundraiser in March 2007. Sounds beautiful for a live version with no band or orchestra performing, just a couple of great singers and a piano.

It also made me think of other things and connections with David, and what a great inspiration he is, with not only his songs, but with his mentoring of young people in the business. With Clay it almost seems to have become a surrogate father-son relationship. Clay has appeared numerous places and times with David, from David's own benefit, to other occurrences in Canada in CA.

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The friendship, yet mutual respect shown between the men, has been very touching - they compliment each other so well in their thoughts, cares, actions, even the personalities, as witnessed when seeing them together at David's charity event in 2006, when Clay was a guest judge and performer. They were funny together during the judging, they were funny and spectacular together during the performance, and they came together for a special offer to raise money, that pulled a cool million based on private performances of them together, which Clay offered to do on the spur of the moment during the auction. Their banter goes together as well as the music.

One of my favorite moments between them was the performance of Unchained Melody which was spectacular. But even more fun was what occurred after that. It was amazing to hear Clay be able to "jump into a song" on the spur of the moment and go right to it. It was also great fun to see someone of David's caliber be so excited over a young singer.

Perhaps one of the best things ever to come from this relationship is the beautiful song they wrote together. Undoubtedly one of the prettiest songs I have ever heard -- the music is gorgeous, the words are so moving, and of course, the performances, both recorded and live, have been absolutely stunning. Thank you David for inspiring and mentoring Clay, and for being a great friend, above and beyond the call of just being a fellow artist. From the funny guy on stage, Clay's goofy banter, he still constantly praises others -- and then changes into the man that has a voice beyond compare. The way his voice works with that lonesome cello is just breathtaking.

Another classic beauty of David's music and Clay's voice is the ever gorgeous My Grown Up Christmas List. Instead of the frequent female versions, that end up practically screaming in parts of it, the way Clay sings it almost makes you feel the true prayer aspect of the song.

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Thanks for the reminders of this great music combination of a great writer and wonderful singers, and the inspiration it caused to want to honor these people, go to Chexxxy's blog http://www.chexxyspearls.blogspot.com/ and to her original inspiration of her post -- the Fresh Bread Weblog http://freshbread.typepad.com/fresh_bread/2007/10/clay-aiken---ex.html#comments

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