Clifford "Cliff" Davies was a British drummer, songwriter and producer.
Career
IF
After receiving tuition from pipe band drummer Jock Cree, and playing local gigs in the Aldershot area, in the early 70s he went on to join the Roy Young Band then the second incarnation of British jazz-rock band If from 1972 to 1975. He played on four albums by the band and contributed many of their songs.
Following If's break-up, Davies joined US hard rock guitarist Ted Nugent from 1975 to 1982 as drummer, producer, co-producer and even an occasional vocalist of all Nugent's recordings over those years, in collaboration with Lew Futterman, who had also produced If. In 1975, Nugent dropped The Amboy Dukes name and the band became The Ted Nugent Band. The other members didn't want to be considered a backing band and one of the conditions of Derek St. Holmes joining them, was it would be treated like a collective band. So, they toured as The Ted Nugent Band and, in 1975, after replacing Staffield with Cliff Davies on drums, they went into the studio to do their first album, which at the time was unnamed, for Epic Records. Cliff was instrumental in organizing and producing the album, which later went multi-platinum. He was never given full credit for producing this album. At this point, David Krebs of Leber & Krebs Management, convinced Nugent to drop "Band" from the title and just call it "Ted Nugent". This was a total surprise to the rest of the group and it was the beginning of the end. The nucleus of Rob Grange, Derek St. Holmes, and Cliff Davies for songwriting, as well as arranging, was forever broken. In 1978, three years later and with four platinum albums titled Ted Nugent, Free-for-All, Cat Scratch Fever and Double Live Gonzo!, Grange and St. Holmes moved on to form St. Paradise, because Nugent did not want a "band concept". Their last concert together, as the original line-up, was Cal Jam 2 on March 18, 1978. In the 1980s, he worked for Next City Productions, also owned by Futterman, in New York City recording with Grand Funk Railroad among others. Since the late 1990s he lived in Atlanta teaching piano and drums. He was also instrumental in founding the Rock and Roll Remembers Foundation with storyteller Michael Robert Krikorian.
Death
Clifford Davies was found dead in his home in Atlanta on 13 April 2008. He died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Reed Beaver, the owner of Equametric Studio where Davies was employed as chief engineer, reported that Davies called him the night before his body was found and was "extremely distraught" over medical bills.
Discography
With If
Waterfall
Double Diamond - also released in Germany as This is If
