Virtually nothing is known about Clifford Adams other than those bare facts which can be gleaned from the cover of the original sheet music. That is to say that his Ink Splotch Rag was published by A Hospe Co. in Omaha, Nebraska (so perhaps suggesting his Midwestern origins) and that Adams dedicated this piece to his friend C.F. Huffman. This in turn implies that Clifford Adams is a real name and not a pseudonym, an oft used device in the ragtime era. He also gets a mention in Jasen & Jones That American Rag as being a co-composer together with a certain Harry G. Robinson of Hanky Pank (1914).
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