CHRIS CLARK

Christine Elizabeth Clark was born in Santa Cruz, California, on February 1, 1946. Early on, she experimented with different styles—including rock and roll, folk, and what she called “hippie music.” She eventually found her voice in Rhythm and Blues.

After a series of failed auditions, Clark told her agent that she would not audition again unless it was for Motown. She did, in fact, try out for the label’s Hal Davis in California, after which Clark flew to Detroit to sing for Motown’s founder, Berry Gordy, Jr. Gordy was unconvinced until Clark performed an a cappella rendition of the Etta James hit, “All I Could Do Was Cry.”

Gordy himself produced her debut single, “Do Right Baby, Do Right” / “Put Yourself In My Place.” It came out on Motown’s V.I.P. subsidiary. Her follow-up, “Love’s Gone Bad,” was produced by the company’s legendary triumvirate, Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier, and Eddie Holland. The single reached #41 on Billboard magazine’s R&B chart in the fall of 1966, her biggest hit.

Clark’s third and final V.I.P. single, “I Want To Go Back There Again,” made Billboard’s “Bubbling Under the Hot 100” pop chart. Her subsequent releases were on the Motown label itself. This included the 1967 LP, Soul Sounds. The year 1969 saw Clark’s second album, CC Rides Again, on the rock label, Weed.

Clark subsequently turned her focus to movie and TV production. In 1972, Berry Gordy asked her and producer Suzanne de Passe to work on the screenplay of Lady Sings the Blues, based on the life of singer Billie Holiday. The film, starring Diana Ross, earned multiple award nominations. Clark and de Passe won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay, which led to Clark’s promotion to Vice President of Motown’s film division. In 1975, she served as creative consultant on Mahogany, which also starred Diana Ross.

Clark worked as Head of Creative Affairs at Motown from 1981-89. In 1982, she married the Oscar-winning screenwriter and novelist Ernest Tidyman. He died two years later of complications from a perforated ulcer.

In 1997, the Belgian reissue label Marginal put out a CD on Clark. It featured the original Soul Sounds album, along with five songs from CC Rides Again and three unreleased tracks. In 2005, Universal Music released a double CD on Clark, The Motown Collection. The 50-track anthology included both of her albums and a number of unissued Motown recordings. In 2009, the US-based label, Reel Music, came out with a CD reissue of Soul Sounds. Three years later, the same label put out Clark’s “Dream or Cry,” a three-track single of new material.

In 2015, Clark performed the song “The Ghosts of San Francisco” for the movie, When the World Came to San Francisco. The song’s music video won the “Mixed Genre Jazz Film Award” at the New York Jazz Festival in November 2016. When last I heard, Clark lived in Santa Rosa, California, and was still working as a singer, screenwriter, and fine art photographer.

Chris Clark stood out at Motown as a six-foot platinum blonde with baby blue eyes.

Charted singles:

“Love’s Gone Bad” (1966) R&B #41, Pop #105
“I Want To Go Back There Again” (1966) Pop #114