Algeria Junius "June" Clark was born on March 24, 1900 in Long Branch, New Jersey and played piano as a child. He went on to learn bugle and trumpet, playing in local brass bands. Taking a job as a porter in New Orleans, he played in a musical revue called S. H. Dudley's Black Sensations, alongside James P. Johnson.

Clark and Johnson parted from the show to play on their own, landing in Toledo, Ohio and playing with Jimmy Harrison in the late 1910s. By 1920 Clark relocated to Philadelphia performing with Josephine Stevens…