The Clark Sisters have been singing for as long as they can remember, with music as natural a part of their lives as the air they breathed. With a compelling, commanding fusion of styles as diverse as blues, jazz, R&B and classical, sisters Jacky, Twinkie, Karen and Dorinda created a sound that was new, fresh and entirely their own.
With a blend that can come only in the blood, they have stood for the better part of their lives as a bridge between hallowed tradition and bold innovation. On Live – One Last Time, their newest release and first album together in over twelve years, they offer a virtual treasure trove of both.
Truly a landmark work, the live recording comprises both new material and an absolutely stunning, medley of Clark Sisters classics that leaves the listener literally breathless by is final fade. Produced by Donald Lawrence, another of Gospel's great, enduring talents, the project is an epic undertaking of unprecedented scope which succeeds—boldly and brilliantly—at every turn.
The sisters exude joy and exuberance on "Livin'," a rollicking R&B joyride, written by Lawrence expressly for the Clarks, and featuring a pitch-perfect, trademark ensemble vocal. Reflecting on the No.1, multi-format smash, "You Brought the Sunshine," which, in 1981, sent the Clarks soaring into one of the most fabled careers in Gospel music, Jacky Clark-Chisholm recalls the night in early 2006 when she first heard "Livin'.'
"The first time that Donald played 'Livin' for us, we felt exactly like we did the first time that Twinkie played 'You Brought the Sunshine' for the rest of us," she says. "We were blown away! It's such a happy song, and we just could not stop singing it! It's us, plain and simple. When we look back—and all around us today—we are proud, and so grateful, to God and so many wonderful people, and happy to be living the life He's given us. And Donald wrote a song for us that just perfectly expresses that."
"Blessed and Highly Favored," written by and featuring Karen, is a breathtaking, high-wire walk of a performance, which—of even greater significance—cements her place as one the great songwriters of her era.
"Karen has always been such a phenomenal singer," Jacky says of her sister, "and she has grown into an equally amazing writer. More and more, it just seems whenever she opens her mouth, a story—and the sentiments of her heart...all in the perfect words—come pouring out. We have been just that: blessed and highly favored. She's putting the Clark Sisters' life to words and music."
With virtually unlimited range, dazzling dynamics, and multi-textured runs, riffs, and scats having long been hallmarks of their singular vocal style—the "Clark Sisters Sound" has given inspiration to countless great singers of today. With over a million album-sales to their collective credit, that select circle includes both Gospel and mainstream R&B and pop stars, including Mariah Carey, Mary Mary, Kim Burrell, Kelly Price, Missy Elliott, Trin-i-tee 5:7, Virtue, and Faith Evans, to name but a few (Evans, in the late '90s, crediting the Clark Sisters as one of the "great musical inspirations" of her life," dueted on a cut from Karen's hugely successful, debut solo album).
The sisters, born between 1951 and '60, all showed prodigious musical talent from early childhood, and were raised under the careful musical and moral tutelage of their pastor father, and renowned mother, Dr. Mattie Moss Clark. Dr. Clark, (1925-1994), from the early 1960s to '90s, was the president of the National Music Department (cq) of the seven-million-member Church of God in Christ (COGIC), the largest African-American, Pentecostal denomination in the United States. A celebrated songwriter, vocalist, pianist and arranger, and widely known as a demanding taskmaster, Dr. Clark often used her talented "in-house" vocal ensemble to test-run new material and arrangements on which she was working.
