Chris Clark
(Christine Elizabeth Clark) was born in Santa Cruz, CA, on 1 Feb 1946.
She is a six-foot platinum blonde, blue-eyed soul singer often referred
to as 'The White Negress' and was one of the first white artists to sign
for Motown.
She started her career as a professional singer aged only 13 and at 16
left home, acquired a manager and was on the road singing in clubs. Some
record companies were showing interest but after hearing the burgeoning
Motown Sound she told her manager that she wouldn't audition for anyone
else until Berry Gordy had heard her and there she spent the next
eighteen years.
Before we go on let's put one myth to bed as 45Cat lists her first
single as "My Sugar Baby" under the name Connie Clark. It has been
claimed for years that a Frank Wilson song "My Sugar Baby", rejected by
Jobete/Motown that was recorded on Herman Griffith's South L.A. Joker
label in Sep 1965, is Chris Clark. Chris herself has refuted this when
asked stating that she only ever recorded for Motown. Some then say it was an opera singer Connie Haines possibly
because, when asked, Chris said it was a band singer from the 40s. Connie
Haines recorded one single for Motown in March 1966, a cover of Mary
Wells' "What's Easy For Two Is Hard For One", and her voice sounds
nothing like Connie Clark (whoever she may be) nor Chris Clark. When
Frank Wilson was asked all he could recall was it was a session singer
which would sound more plausible to cut a demo for Wilson to shop around
labels. Incidentally, the song was recorded, but unreleased, by Frank
Wilson until Goldmine Soul Supply issued it on a look-a-like Joker
single in 2001. It then featured on the first "Cellarful of Motown!"
compilation in 2002, so I'm not sure how GSS got their hands on it
first.
Her first four singles were on the V.I.P. imprint, where many of
Motown's white singers were consigned to (e.g. R. Dean Taylor, Debbie
Dean, The Underdogs, The Dalton Boys, Rick, Robin & Him, The
Headliners, Richard Anthony to name a few). Her second single was slated
as V.I.P. 25034, her version of Frank Wilson's "Do I Love You (Indeed I
Do)" which suffered the same fate and was never released. There has been
much discussion about this single. It is alleged to have been pressed
only as a single-sided test pressing and it is claimed that only one has
been found, but the test pressing has been bootlegged and was offered up
for auction by
Pat Brady after
John Manship
had refused to auction it. So her second, actual, single was "Love Gone
Bad" (mistitled on one of two promos as "Love Gone Mad") which became
her only charting single, released in Jul, charting for two weeks in Oct
reaching #41 R&B and #105 Hot 100. The final single on V.I.P. was "I
Want To Go Back There Again" in Feb 1966. Clark them switched to the
main Motown label in Sep 1967 where she released two singles, "From Head
To Toe" followed by "Whisper You Love Me Boy" in Feb 1968.
She recorded two albums for Motown, "Soul Sounds" in 1967 and "CC Rides
Again on an imprint set up especially for her, Weed, which is the only
release on that imprint. "Soul Sounds" has been reissued twice on CD, by
Universal in 2009 with one additional track "Do Right Baby Do Right
(Alternate Stereo Mix)" and prior to that in 1997 by Belgian label
Marginal with an additional 8 tracks (4 from "CC Rides Again", 3 B sides
and "Do I Love You (Indeed I Do)". Only one compilation seems to be
available which looks like it is her complete Motown catalogue of 50
tracks including both albums, three non album singles and 25 previously
unreleased tracks but curiously it doesn't include "Do I Love You
(Indeed I Do)".
During the early 1970s, she was an executive with Motown's Film and
Television Production Division in L.A. She co-wrote the screenplay for
the 1972 movie "Lady Sings the Blues", based on the life of Billie
Holiday who was played by Diana Ross, for which she earned an Academy
Award (Oscar) nomination. In 1975 she was the Creative Assistant on the
movie "Mahogany" and served as Head of Creative Affairs for Motown from
1981 to 1989.
Clark currently lives in Santa Rosa, CA and continues to work as a
screenwriter, fine art photographer and singer.
In 2011 she released a single "Dream Or Cry" and in 2016 she recorded a song "The Ghosts of San Francisco" for a movie "When the World Came to San
Francisco". The video for the song (below) won the Mixed Genre Jazz Film
Award at the New York Jazz Film Festival in Nov 2016.
In Oct 2021 Chris Clark performed in the UK at Detroit A-Go-Go in Cleethorpes. Here's her account of her experience.
Album Discography
1967 - Soul Sounds [Motown #MS 664]
1969 - CC Rides Again [Weed #WS-801]
Compilations
2005 - The Motown collection [Motown #981 956-4]
Singles Discography
1965-12 - Do Right Baby Do Right / Don't Be Too Long [V.I.P
#25031]
1966-04 - Do I Love You [V.I.P #25034]
1966-07 - Love's Gone Bad / Put Yourself In My Place [V.I.P
#25038]
1967-02 - I Want To Go Back There Again / I Love You [V.I.P. #25041]
1967-09 - From Head To Toe / The Beginning Of The End [Motown #M1114]
1968-02 - Whisper You Love Me Boy / The Beginning Of The End [Motown
#M1121]
2011 - Dream Or Cry [Reel Music #PCS 72014]
2016 - The Ghosts of San Francisco
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For me, here is the feminine blue-eyed soul top. Motown understood this!!! The superb compilation "The Motown Collection" represents all his achievements well, although "Do I Love You (Indeed I Do)" is indeed missing but easy to find.
ReplyDeleteYves