The Claude King Story

Claude is a South African, born in Cape Town, to a racially mixed family. Although born Claudeville Trevor Gombard, he uses the stage name of Claude King.  This name was given to him when he was a child performer. He decided to keep it, for the sake of continuity.

 

He is by South African terms a “Coloured”, since his father was German and his mother is of Indian descent. This made things rather difficult growing up under an Apartheid regime, when people of color were oppressed by that government.

 

But he did not let that get in his way in following his dream: he wanted to be educated, and  one of  the best musicians the world has ever seen.

 

Claude Gombard—CEO of  Claude King Media

At the tender age of 7 he started playing drums in his brother Andrew’s band. He excelled at this so much, that he began to make waves by performing with his brother’s band and eventually appeared in the local newspapers regularly, under the favorite title of The world’s youngest professional drummer.

 

At age 10 he was given his first serious gig, performing in a famous South African musical called African Jazz & Variety. Invariably, his performance always “stole the show”.

 

Always wanting to become better, greater at his art, he progressed into guitar-playing, singing and songwriting. In the latter he felt he had found his niche, since he was so good at it.

 

Today Claude is an accomplished lead and backing singer, composer, songwriter, plays the flute, keyboards, bass guitar, lead electric & acoustic guitars, drums, percussion & saxophone.

 

Totally committed to his art and a hard worker, he thinks nothing of putting in a 25-hour straight shift when deadlines have to be met. He also personally does the sound-engineering in his seriously equipped recording studio. All of the above have combined to turn Claude into one of the most accomplished and capable Music Producers in South Africa, able to be compared to the best in the world.