Press reviews

Nagold Zeitung

"Technically brilliant, rythmically perfect, stylistically pure and emotionally colourful ..."

Jazzclub Biberach

"To the risk of damage to hands and feet, Clayton pounded his piano. The packed public were after two and a half hours totally exhausted. With his improvisation and entertaining qualities of a Cab Calloway, he lured his audience and kidnapped them, releasing them to long applause."

Zeitlupe Buxtehude

"The Brauhaus never had music of this class ... There are no words that can describe how the musicians and audience came so close together."

Oberschwäbisches Volksblatt

"Steve "BIG MAN" Clayton promises "Blues with a feeling and storming Boogie Woogie" before the concert. For the guests he gave more: first class music and entertainment, producing goose bumps on the slow blues and making you sweat on the storming boogie woogie."

Tobias Wagner

"Steve "Big Man" Clayton - the man who dances on the keys.

Some people consider a boogie woogie pianist to be something like an animal trainer: Someone who tames the piano instead of wild animals. Viewed from this perspective, Steve "BIG MAN" Clayton is a very humane "animal trainer". Rugged, but nimble and with a lot of feeling. Purposeful, but full of surprises.His blues and boogie woogie has matured into a cultivated form of this primal, foot-stomping, seething barroom music. The "BIG MAN" can do the business - and he really lets it roll! The Man has been playing in the big leagues for over 20 years, and where others have already slipped into a routine, he still repeatedly manages to come up with something new. His boogie is full of elements from different musical directions: jazz, cajun, barrelhouse, soul and rock'n'roll. And he thrives on it! He does not play one role, the "BIG MAN" takes many directions in his musical improvisations. Blues are the unwavering foundation, as solid as the beat of his right foot, which Clayton uses to propel himself through his repertoire, a repertoire that includes hard driving numbers like "Gotta lotta Lovin In Me", tender tunes dripping with irony like "Strange Life I'm Living", and slow songs giving you goose-bumps like "Lay Your Love On Me". There are a lot of familiar sounds, at first striking listeners as something they have heard somewhere before. But Clayton does not linger here, resting on this initial impression. It is listening to him very closely: his solos are soulfood for the ears, and the harmonic framework of his own compositions leaves the usual blues progressions far behind. Anyone who the Man from the island leads into his musical jungle for the first time is not allowed to leave very soon. First he captures you with condensed bass lines which he writes on the piano with his left hand as he moves along. This is then electrified with a few loose riffs with his right hand. And then the freight train really gets going. Casting a glance at the audience to make sure everyone has a window seat when the boogie train leaves the station, Steve "BIG MAN" Clayton lets it rip, in the engineer's seat at the front of the locomotive. And then he moves up to the mike and sings into the headwind ..."