Clemmon Evans Raymond was born on 6 February 1895 in New Iberia LA.  At the time of the 1900 Census he and his younger brother Southern were living with their grand-parents, Roy and Margaret Chambers.  In 1910 he was still living with this grandmother, but she was now Margaret Larkins, wife of Travers Larkins.  By 1915 he had moved to New Orleans and was working as a presser, according to the City Directory of that year. At the time of the World War I draft he was a porter for the Jewel Tea Co.  His claim to be exempt because his aunt depended on him was unsuccessful since his gravestone says he was ‘Mus 3 Cl. HQ Co. 801 Pioneer Inf. in World War I.’  The 1920 Census found him in Los Angeles working as a labourer, but in the Voter Registrations for 1920 and 1922 he was described as a ‘Musician’.  By 1926 he was living in Oakland and Voter Registrations place him there and in Berkeley until 1944, consistently describing him as  a Musician.  I cannot locate him in the 1940 Census, but when he registered for the World War II draft in April 1942 he was working at the Naval Supply dept.  In the 1950 Census, still in Berkeley, he was a storekeeper at a US Army base.
The earliest evidence of his musical activity in the Bay Area is at a dance in February 1926 with music by Clem Raymond’s Syncopated Jazz Orchestra.  An announcement of a dance in the Contra Costa Gazette 14 January 1927 said that ‘Clem Raymond’s Syncopators, formerly of the Paradise Gardens ball room in Oakland have been engaged for the evening.’  On 26 January 1927 the San Francisco Chronicle advertised “Clem Raymonds Colored Band” at the Balconades Ballroom in San Francisco.  Those two venues were to be regular hosts of Raymond’s band through 1927.  In February there was a jazz competition in the Golden Gate ballroom in which the bands of Wade Whaley, Eddie Liggins and Clem Raymond competed = the former came out the winner.  A different side of Raymond’s band was experienced at a Mardi Gras pageant in March - the report in the Oakland Tribune of 6 March referred to ‘the soft strains of Clem Raymond’s orchestra, which all during the evening rendered some very refined and classical music.’  In the same month Clem Raymond’s Dixie Jazz Band was broadcasting on KGO.  In 1930 he was a member of the board of Local 648 (Oakland) (San Francisco Examiner 25 December 1930).  Newspapers reveal little activity in the 1930s - the band was then usually known as Clem Raymond’s Black Peppers - but he presumably continued in music since the California Eagle 24 January 1946 said that ‘Before his retirement, Mr. Raymond was the top ranking orchestra leader of the east bay area.’  In the late fifties he was involved in the Dixieland revival and made some recordings.  He died on 13 April 1964.