Cass Clayton

Cass Clayton's music is a non-denominational experiment with soul, funk, rock, blues and singer-songwriter influences. On her new album, Play Nice, she spins 12 tales that flirt with different styles but are all held together by a distinctly blue common thread. Clayton's songwriting collaboration with Taylor Scott pulls together disparate influences but ties it all up in a framework that would seem as at home in Muscle Shoals or on Beale Street as it would on Michigan Avenue or Sunset Boulevard - and that's no accident.

"Because we're not on a label, no one's telling us what to do. It gives us the freedom to let the song go where it goes; it's more non-denominational in terms of genre. I get billed as a blues singer a lot, but the stories I'm telling, and the way they're told, don't fit into one genre. It's almost a problem sometimes when people ask me to define it. I really don't have any way of describing it other than 'good music.' The more we grow as a band, the more we learn to let the music take itself where it wants to go."

While Clayton's roots might be in the blues, the way she plays soul, jazz, funk, and Americana into her hand, she's dealing from both sides of a loaded deck.