"What I did is I wound up exposing myself to the Bible, and it says there that 'His Word does not return void,'" James declares. "Once you get it in you, it only does good things."
And remarkably, it was in the Bible that James found a comfort and direction for his life that filled the void left by his dad's absence. "At the times when I felt the most without a father, I was drawn to the wisdom of the Proverbs," he reveals. "Not only did it give me guidance for life, it comforted me—it felt like big arms around me. That was God, being my dad, filling that need."

James desperately needed a Father's input on his young life as he found himself bearing the responsibility of providing for his family at only 14 years old. The family made a second move, this time to Missouri, where James began the first of a menagerie of unusual jobs. They were the kind of work available to a hard-working teen who had yet to finish high school, but were necessary to keep food on the table for his mother, brother and sister.

His career actually began at 13, when he built pool cues in a nearby factory, then continued at a dairy farm where he milked cows. Next on the resume came busboy for a local restaurant, followed by a two-year stint as a chimney sweep. It was during that time when, in romantic irony, he met and married his wife, Ashley. Before too long, the couple welcomed the first of their two children, Grace, into the world, and the boy without a dad now became a father himself.

It was in the midst of working hard to simply survive that James first began to write songs. On an $80 guitar he bought at a second-hand store, James started working out his theological and relational struggles in verse and melody. "When I was 14, I put my first four chords together, and that was my first song," he laughs. Though he grinningly discounts his earliest efforts as "really cheesy-bad," he rapidly became a proficient songsmith.

More songs followed, and James began playing with a blues band after moving his new family, which now included baby Judah, to a nearby town where he worked in yet another unusual trade—a turkey factory. "The job paid alright, but it was really strenuous," James recalls. The job required moving four to five thousand live birds a day, weighing an average of 25-30 pounds each, from a truck to the processing line. "It was like going from being a 135-pound kid to playing on a football team," says James, who put on nearly 50 pounds of muscle in the four years he worked there.

Meanwhile, this blue-collar worker began to draw attention from music industry executives with his honest, passionate music and impressive guitar skills. First, James' pastor asked him to join the worship team at the Clay's church, and it was there that pioneer Christian rocker Mylon LeFevre first heard James and urged him to make a demo.

"I was working at the factory, and all my money went toward bills," James tells. "We didn't have any money to record a demo. But my wife and I prayed, and we felt like God was telling us to get ready to make a CD. So we went ahead and booked studio time and planned a party where people could pre-buy the CDs to raise the money." The party was a financial success, and in addition, members of the Clay's church donated funds, including one generous friend who underwrote the entire studio cost of the demo.

James self-dubs his own music as "unique," a fitting description considering the wealth of experience and unusual influences that color this 22-year-old's eclectic first release. Stylistically diverse, James Clay fuses the energy of acoustic rock and a lifetime's worth of stories with James' rugged, passionate voice and undeniable guitar talent.

Relying on the grace his daughter is named after, James Clay has already climbed a long road to reach the beginning of his music career with Friday Records. With each step, he has gained hard-won wisdom and a unique perspective on life and faith that will not only continue to shape his music, but will help him grow ever closer to the Father who has faithfully guided him this far.