Born on February 14, 1945 in Cochran, Georgia, Reid found his way to Miami, where his heroes included James Brown and deejay/singer King Coleman. Buddy Killen’s Dial label in Nashville picked up Clarence’s ’65 single “I Refuse To Give Up,” first out on the short-lived Reid label (New York’s Wand Records also issued it). After another single on Dial, Clarence laid down “Cadillac Annie” and “Tired Blood” for Willie Clarke and Johnny Pearsall’s Deep City imprint, all three sharing writers’ credit, which was then picked up by Phil-LA of Soul.Of course, Reid is better known now under the alias of Blowfly. His amusingly filthy parodies of soul songs first surfaced in 1970 with Weird World of Blowfly on the Weird World imprint and persist to this day. Blowfly’s naughty output has proven influential to a raft of rappers.
