J C Clements is an American folk songwriter and educator whose music carries two great American traditions: the mountain music of Eastern Kentucky and the Chicago blues circuit that shaped her as a young artist. For J C, music and learning have always been the same act.

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Writing explicitly in the lineage of Hazel Dickens, she makes songs with teeth, accountability, and the dignity of people whose lives are real. In her early twenties she was a regular monthly opener at Buddy Guy's Legends in Chicago and was mentored by the legendary Lonnie Mack. The blues taught her what a song can carry. The Appalachian music she grew up hearing in her mother's home of Hazard, Kentucky, where music was testimony rather than entertainment, taught her what a song can say.

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Her upcoming single Don't Pick a Fight with the Pope, due July 2026, was co-written with folk and labor legend Si Kahn, whose songs have been recorded by Pete Seeger, Dolly Parton, and Hazel and Alice. The collaboration continues into a full album with Si Kahn and Chris Dollar of the Henhouse Prowlers, slated for January 2027.

J C Clements writes songs for people who were told a story about themselves that turned out not to be true.