The Soul Sounds of CC
A TALE OF DELIGHT AND DISBELIEF, ONE SUNDAY NIGHT
“All we could remember in our blown minds was that Chris was and is beautiful, talented, soulful, too much, talented, and just The Ultimate! Raving on like this is unfair to those who couldn’t be at the Saville Theatre that night, but with this newsletter is a consolation. You’ll find a list of our imports, and contained therein are details of our import copies of Chris’ Motown album.”
The night in question was Sunday, November 26, 1967. Evidently, the 19-year-old reviewer was bewitched by the star at the Saville, although not too distracted to promote “our imports” of the album concerned. Elsewhere in the write-up, he called her “Motown’s most promising solo female star ever,” just as several weeks earlier, he had made the same claim in a “Special Report” about the singer.
It’s time to confess.
Complete with song title typo (fixed on release)
Chris Clark put me under her spell from the moment of first hearing. Then, in October 1967, EMI Records reported that it was to ship “From Head To Toe” as her second Tamla Motown single release in the U.K., while adding that she was going to perform at the Saville a few weeks later. All this I duly wrote up for the Clifton Record Shop’s weekly newsletter, distributed to customers of our Motown mail-order service. About “From Head To Toe,” we declared “RUSH RELEASE THIS WEEK!!!!” while overloading the news with capital letters and exclamation marks.
I was familiar with the Saville from November 1966, when the Four Tops blew off the roof of the Brian Epstein-owned theatre on London’s Shaftesbury Avenue. My pal Martin Needs had driven me the 120 miles from Bristol to see the Tops’ triumph, just as he did for Chris Clark’s turn at one of the “Sundays at the Saville” concert series the following November. Martin’s Renault 4 was efficient, if not fast; the route was mostly via the A4, since the English section of the M4 motorway had not yet been completed.
It was a round-trip that Sunday of ‘67. Both Martin and I had to be at our respective jobs on Monday, although my duties would have included writing up the joys of the previous night for the record shop’s newsletter. That is, when I wasn’t doing what my boss expected: selling copies of The Sound of Music soundtrack or Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band to our customers in Clifton.
“We were introduced to Chris’ backing group first…Bobby Taylor and the Vancouvers, who proceeded to knock us dead with socko versions of ‘All I Need,’ ‘Soul Man’ and ‘(I Wanna) Testify.’ The group had come over specially to back Chris, and are likely to back Miss Gladys Knight and the Pips on their forthcoming tour. They’ve already cut a number of tracks in Detroit, and a single should be coming soon…look out for the name…they really are terrific!”
‘MAMA’ KNOWS, GENE LIKES
Fifty-two years on, the late Bobby Taylor is remembered more for his advocacy of the Jackson 5 than for his group’s own recordings, although “Does Your Mama Know About Me” has stood time’s test quite well. During the course of 1967, he and the Vancouvers cut several tracks with Clark, including versions of songs which had been previously released on her as 45s, namely “Do Right Baby Do Right” and “I Want To Go Back There Again.” Perhaps these were rehearsals for future live shows together. Certainly, the Saville audience knew nothing of Taylor’s group prior to the show; it wasn’t until 1968 that “Does Your Mama Know About Me” was issued, and even then, not in the U.K. as a single.
Since the Vancouvers were Motown newcomers, perhaps that was why seasoned arranger/bandleader Gene Kee was at the Saville, to ensure everything ran smoothly. He was introduced by name that night, as I wrote. “In fact, Gene had only been home to the States for a couple of weeks after touring Britain (which Gene likes) with Stevie Wonder, before returning to this country for Chris’ visit.”
Soul, and suntan, in London (photo: EMI/Universal)
“And then Miss Talent, Chris Clark, came on stage, keeping us in suspense no longer. Looking beautiful and standing six feet tall, she swung into ‘Love’s Gone Bad’….and when we say swung, swung we mean! It didn’t seem quite real, hearing the voice we only knew on disc, weaving in and out of lyrics with so much soul that it was just not describe-able. ‘I Want To Go Back There Again’ followed, and those of our readers who bought our import copies of that single wouldn’t believe it could sound better! But it did. And so did ‘From Head To Toe’ and ‘Do Right Baby Do Right’ and her great versions of Etta James’ ‘All I Could Do Was Cry’ and the Beatles’ ‘Got To Get You Into My Life.’ But all too soon it was over.”
What I did not share with newsletter readers at the time was a non-musical observation. Here was this stunning six-footer in glasses, her blond mane swept back by a light-purple hairband, which matched the colour of her stylish dress. This dress was short, the trend of the time, but evidently worn in London shorter than when she was at home in America – because the suntan of her legs stopped at least a couple of inches below the hem of the outfit. It was an image almost as memorable as the music she sang at the Saville. (Hey, give me a break, I was a teenager then.)
November 26, 1967 had one more delight to offer. On Shaftesbury Avenue, a few hundred yards from the theatre, was a public house, where your correspondent stopped after Clark’s performance. (Research tells me that the rest of the concert featured Felice Taylor and Eddie Floyd, but I have absolutely no memory of that. CC was all I cared about, it seems.) Who should be in the pub – with no apparent interest in Taylor or Floyd, either – but Motown’s then-vice president of sales, Barney Ales? I knew of him through news reports and photographs in Billboard and Cash Box, to which we subscribed at the Clifton Record Shop; this was the first time we met. If anyone had predicted then that Barney and I would one day work together on a book about Motown, can you imagine the look of disbelief on my face? Or his, for that matter.
REPORTING TO THE BOSS
Almost 50 years on, Ales recalled that visit quite well. He travelled to London from Detroit with Gordon Prince, a key member of his promotion team; Clark was accompanied by her mother, Alice. “Her mother was as tall as Chris,” Ales added. “She was the chaperone. We might have put Chris at the Europa [Hotel]. Bobby Taylor was at the Mostyn.” He also remembered having to call Berry Gordy every night, to report on the trip’s progress. In addition to the Saville, Clark performed at a couple of nightclubs, Blaises and the Flamingo, while EMI Records arranged a “welcome” gig at its Manchester Square headquarters.
The singer’s unimpeachable Soul Sounds album had been available in the U.S. since August 1967 – hence, the Clifton Record Shop’s imported copies (44 shillings apiece, post free) – and she had been promoting it prodigiously, including a live set at Motown’s first national sales convention, held in Detroit at the end of that month. In the U.K., however, Soul Sounds was not released until the following February. While Clark was in London, EMI’s marketing efforts were confined to a single, “From Head To Toe,” which did not reach the charts.
An intriguing, armed ride…
Soon enough, Clark’s career narrative was to change, as most diehard Motown fans know. The intriguing, if misguided, CC Rides Again album on Weed Records; the Oscar nomination for her scriptwriting role with Lady Sings The Blues; the subsequent appointment as Motown Industries’ vice president of creative development; her exit from the company in 1982. Not to mention her appearance in Berry Gordy’s 1994 autobiography: “It was Chris, more than anyone else, who made me realise that there were many facets to a relationship,” he wrote. “There were definitely different levels to the one she and I had.”
Clark’s relationship with Britain was renewed 38 years after the Saville Sunday by The Chris Clark Collection, initiated and produced with determination by Paul Nixon. It was a wondrous, two-CD assembly of Soul Sounds, CC Rides Again and 25 previously-unissued Motown tracks. Later that same year, she played U.K. concert dates, opening for the Temptations and the Four Tops as the result of a suggestion by Gordy that she should actively promote the new compilation.
CC continues to perform for her British admirers, including appearances at London’s Jazz Café in 2009 and at the Northern Soul Survivors Weekender this past September in Skegness, as detailed here by one of our loyal mail-order customers at the Clifton Record Shop all those decades ago, Sharon Davis, who may even remember the closing paragraph of the newsletter in that first week of December 1967.
“All we can say in conclusion is that if you don’t want to remain permanently at a stratospheric level after hearing the LP, don’t buy it. If you do, and do buy it, you’ll realise that Chris Clark is so talented that one day she will receive the recognition that she deserves as the Best Female Singer within Motown…for she is!”
Music notes: CC was accustomed to spending time inside Studio A at Hitsville, but much of that recording work did not emerge until recently. Streaming services today offer The Chris Clark Collection, mentioned above. There are also 20+ Clark tracks across the various Motown Unreleased digital packages, with sessions produced by Brian Holland and Lamont Dozier, Ivy Jo Hunter, Clarence Paul, Marc Gordon and Hal Davis, Mickey Gentile, Frank Wilson and, of course, Mr. Gordy. Among them is Hunter’s 1967 production of “All I Could Do Was Cry,” the song which Clark had performed at her audition for the Motown founder years earlier; also from ’67 is “All In The Promise Of Tomorrow,” a melancholy piece co-written and produced by Marvin Gaye. There’s more on YouTube, of course, including Clark’s stint at last month’s Detroit A-Go-Go. You might also want to investigate “The Ghosts Of San Francisco,” an evocative, jazzy ballad she recorded in 2015 for a documentary film, When The World Came To San Francisco.