The Trenier twins, Claude and Clifford, were born in Mobile, Alabama, on July 14, 1919, the third and fourth childen brought into this vale of jive by Denny and Olivia Trenier, whose spawn eventually numbered ten. It was a musical family. Denny Trenier, in between ejaculations, played the baritone horn with the Excelsior Band, one of the legendary marching and funerary brass groups in the deep South; Olivia played piano; and their children took to the rhythm at a tender age.

In the fall of 1939, Claude and Clifford went north to Alabama State College, in Montgomery. Ostensibly, the twins were pursuing the study of education, preparing for careers in teaching.