“Grounded” was a good thing for Jordan Clayton.

“I made bad grades in school so I was grounded all the time,” said Clayton, 18. “I refused to do school work, basically. I thought it was pointless. I knew that I would never do anything with most of it. There’s no point in me learning how to draw a perfect hexagon.”

He was grounded “27 weeks every year — the second nine weeks to the fourth nine weeks of school” elementary through high school.

While stuck at home, Clayton taught himself to play his dad’s guitar. He also taught himself to play harmonica, mandolin, drums and piano.

He wrote his first song, “You Never Left Me Anything but Alone,” when he was 14. “It was depressing and it sucked.”

His buddy, Chase Hairston, who was in bands, read the lyrics and, with another friend, booked a show for Clayton at McAlister’s in Olive Branch. Clayton quickly wrote three more originals. “I had to sing in front of people. I’d never really sang out loud ’cause I was always at my house.”

He was nervous at first. “When I get nervous I talk a lot. I had a little squeaky freshman voice that cracked.”

Six months later, he again performed at McAlister’s. He then began playing somewhere every other weekend and, about two years ago, began playing gigs every weekend.

Clayton, currently recording a CD, has written 50 originals. “There’s a good bit of symbolism and life lessons. It’s like singing to myself. But I guess they are about girls.

“It sounds lame, but for every girl I’ve dated there’s either a color or a tree or a bird. I’ll put that into my songs, but nobody really knows it’s there. It’s just kind of for me.”

His first song was about a girl whose symbol was the color purple. “It’s my favorite color. It’s a pretty color. That was her favorite color, too.”

“Hold on to You”, his most popular song, is about a red girl. “She scared me,” he said.

Asked what color he’d choose for himself, Clayton, now a student at Memphis College of Art, said, “I never thought about it. I’d probably be black ’cause that’s every color mixed into one.”

Listen Up spotlights area performers. Michael Donahue can be reached at 529-2797.

Jordan Clayton

Performance at 6 p.m. Friday at Starbucks, 987 West Poplar Ave. in Collierville. No cover charge.