Tom Clay

Biography & Overview

Tom Clay (born Thomas Clague; August 20, 1929 – November 22, 1995) was an American radio personality and disc jockey. Clay was born in New York, and in the 1950s he was popular in the Detroit area on WJBK-AM both as a DJ, and for his on-air comic characterizations; he became a local celebrity. In the early 1950s Clay, using the pseudonym "Guy King", "The Clay" or "The magnificent Tom" worked for WWOL-AM/FM in Buffalo, New York; on July 3, 1955, he conducted a stunt in which he played "Rock Around the Clock" by Bill Haley & His Comets repeatedly from atop a billboard in Buffalo's Shelton Square, an incident that led to his firing and arrest (Danny Neaverth later repeated Clay's stunt but did not suffer the same consequences). In the mid-1950s he moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, and was equally popular. He was caught up in the payola scandal of the late 1950s, and admitted to having accepted thousands of dollars for playing certain records.