Career
His 1975 recording Plenty Good Eaton is also considered a classic in the funk music genre. Eaton has played on notable recording sessions with nearly all genres – jazz with John Klemmer, Ike Cole and Bunky Green, Rhythm & Blues with The Dells and Bobby Rush, popular with Minnie Riperton, Jerry Butler and Rotary Connection, big band music with George Benson, Henry Mancini, Frank Sinatra, Joe Williams, Billy Eckstein, Sarah Vaughan, Ella Fitzgerald. Eaton was dubbed “the Count’s Bassist” during his seventeen-year stint and over ten recordings with the Count Basie Orchestra.
Eaton has also performed with Nancy Wilson, Peggy Lee, Mimi Hines, Sammy Davis, Junior., Julie London, Bobby Troupe, Brook Benton, Lou Rawls, Nipsey Russell, Morgana King, Gloria Lynne, Herbie Hancock, the Magic City Jazz Orchestra, Ray Reach and Friends, The Platters (original), The Temptations, and The Miracles.
In 1974, he began performing and touring with his own group, Cleve Eaton and Company, and in 2004 his group became Cleve Eaton and the Alabama All Stars. According to the May 7–14, 2009 issue of the Birmingham Weekly, a free weekly paper, Eaton was diagnosed with oral cancer in 2009.
In January 2011, his official website reported that he is cancer free.