Life is going really well these days for Cledus T. Judd.
His career is on the upswing — again. The nationally successful comedian who lives in Chesapeake, Ohio, has a new video on CMT. Another video is in the works, and the calls for appearances are coming in on top of a prominent local radio position.
It hasn't always been this way.
Judd has rolled through many peaks and many deep valleys. There were the highs that come with wealth and big-time celebrity success. There were also many struggles and many dark days. He's kept moving forward through it all and, like life often does, it has turned for the really good again.
"Don't give up," Judd said. "There are 10,000 more failures in my life than there have been successes. But I can promise you those 10,000 failures do not define me whatsoever. My failures are a part of me...those failures have allowed me to sit here."
Judd is originally from Georgia. His birth name is Barry Poole. His early years involved a very troubled childhood with lots of trauma.
"Normalcy was not in the cards for me," Judd said. "I'd get some peace at my grandparents' house and my mom would show up, dad would show up, be fighting there. It was pretty traumatizing as a kid. I'm a lot better than I was but a lot of anxiety. ...for years I couldn't even stay in my house by myself. Difficult for me to sleep without the lights on."
He said comedy was a mechanism for escape. The name Cledus T. Judd is a name that pretty much came to him by chance on the road.
"I was doing a show...working with Alan Jackson or someone....and they said 'man your real name ain't real funny,'" Judd said. "So I was like, 'What do you have in mind?' And a friend of mine blurted out 'Cledus T. Judd' and the rest is history. So I walked out on stage. I'd been Barry Poole backstage and Cledus three minutes later. It stuck. Now my mom even calls me Cledus when she's (mad)."
Judd has labored many long hours over decades to build a truly stellar career by any account. He has been to the very top of the celebrity mountain in the country music world. The name Cledus T. Judd in many circles of America is well-known because his comedy is, without question, funny. A mainstay of the career is parodies of major country music hits in which the hit's thread is slightly modified to touch on the realities of rural life. There was "I love this Bar" turned into "I love Nascar." There was "My Cellmate Thinks I'm Sexy," "Bake Me a Country Ham" and "Goodbye Squirrel." He knows what it is like to have a gold record on his wall and to tour with the biggest of the big in country music.
He said he has enjoyed every moment of the fame.
"Some people get on the jukebox in Waffle House then they go hide on the bus so nobody sees them," Judd said. "Not me."
There's been lots of lows, too. The fame came.
Then it went.
"Being a former hairdresser, barber, drug addict, to selling 2 or 3 million records, touring, riding in cars with Keith Urban and Blake Shelton and Toby Keith, standing on stage in front of 20,000 and making money like I'd never seen before," Judd said. "Next thing you know everything changes. It just does."
Cledus Judd reflects on his life in and out of the entertainment industry during an interview on Sept. 20. KEVIN GOLDY | THE DAILY INDEPENDENT
He said he struggled with substance abuse for years and at one point considered killing himself, spending six hours on a bridge in Florida debating whether to go or not.
"I was running pretty hard back then," Judd said. "A lot of drugs. A lot of entitlement that is unwarranted with success. I've had money in the bank and been suicidal and I've been broker than hell and the happiest I've ever been."
Some events in his life eventually caused him to change course on this winding journey to both stability and peace. One was being a parent. His ex-wife is from here and his daughter and family are here. These connections to the Tri-State brought Judd here and what is now his permanent home.
"It is a friendly community. I'll never leave," he said. "The school systems are great. The crime is minimal. The peacefulness is great...I've never had a community accept me like this one has. The people I associate with here, they are so much more than just acquaintances. They are friends."
Judd said the decision to turn to faith changed everything, as well, allowing him to let go of the personal demons.
"Right before I went into the water....it was pop, pop, and every bad thing that ever happened to me, the negative, the money, the women the drugs and the abuse... all these things were going off at one time," Judd said, adding "then all of the sudden it just all stopped. And it just quit and I said, 'You know what? I'm just going to leave all that in the water.' I jumped in the Baptism pool and came out the other side."
Judd's new video (Weight's Goin) Up Down Up Down" is on CMT and features Judd referencing the "Ohio Kentucky West Virginia line."
"I love my chicken fried, taters piled up high, scoop of cole slaw on the side about Joe Diffy wide," Judd sings. "Don't bother me at all watching my cholesterol going up down up down..."
The new video brings smiles to those who watch it.
Judd is smiling, too, these days, with his work demands -- and life -- going up again.
"My manager said we are going to try and make you re-famous," he said.
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