THE GRADE A by CLIFTON WHITE

The bayou country of Eastern Texas and Western Louisiana has delivered its fair share of black musical legends, and Clifton White stakes his place in the zone's musical middle class. His first break came playing guitar for Sam Cooke on the S.A.R. label in 1962, remaining on board through Cooke's 1964 death. White's debut solo single appeared on Goldband's Anla subsidiary in 1968. Following White's third Anla 45, he took his business hyper-local, recording at Lowland Studio, owned by Mickey Rouse in Port Neches, Texas. Backed by the Royal Knights, White cut the original "The Grade A" and an instrumental reworking of Eddie Floyd's "I've Never Loved A Girl" as "Ain't No Love." After the record was issued on Lowland's in-house PMRC label, White turned to zydeco as his genre of choice. After more than 30 years spent assembling pick-up groups for live performance and working at a Texaco service station, Clifton White passed in 1997.