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Posts tagged as “Karen Clark Sheard”

Happy 60th Birthday, Karen Clark-Sheard!

Happy 60th Birthday, Karen Clark-Sheard!

By goodblacknews on November 15, 2020

by Jeff Meier (FB: Jeff.Meier.90)

Today, Good Black News celebrates the milestone 60th birthday of gospel music icon Karen Clark-Sheard, famous as the youngest member of the legendary Clark Sisters, as well as for her dynamic solo recordings.

Amidst the craziness of the coronavirus pandemic, lockdowns and quarantines, 2020 has nevertheless been a milestone year for Karen and her sisters, as they issued the acclaimed The Return in March, their first group release in over a decade.

Following the album drop was the April broadcast of The Clark Sisters: First Ladies of Gospel, a Lifetime movie about their lives that was seen by millions of people across numerous airings in its first few weeks, becoming Lifetime’s highest original rated movie in 4 years – and one of the top cable telecasts of the year across all cable channels.

We wrote about the movie and the history of The Clark Sisters, at that time: (https://goodblacknews.org/2020/04/11/bringing-the-sunshine-gbn-offers-clark-sisters-playlist-to-celebrate-lifetime-biopic-airing-tonight-listen/).

After 25 years recording with her sisters (since she was just an early teenager) as the group’s dedicated soprano, a break in the sisters’ group activities allowed Karen to release her debut solo album, appropriately titled Finally Karen in 1998.

She stepped out solo in a big way – on a major label (Island Records), with multiple producers and a guest appearance from Faith Evans.  The results – a gospel bestseller that was nominated for a Grammy and won a Lady of Soul Award.

The album also included a duet with her daughter, Kierra ‘Kiki’ Sheard, ultimately kicking off the successful recording career for yet another generation of the Clark gospel dynasty (The Clark Sisters themselves are the daughters of gospel choir pioneer Dr. Mattie Moss Clark.)

Not long after the release and promotion of her first album, Clark-Sheard was hit with a major health crisis, when complications from a minor operation put her in a coma for multiple weeks.

Bringing The Sunshine: GBN Offers Clark Sisters Playlist to Celebrate Lifetime Biopic Airing Tonight (LISTEN)

Bringing The Sunshine: GBN Offers Clark Sisters Playlist to Celebrate Lifetime Biopic Airing Tonight (LISTEN)

By goodblacknews on April 11, 2020

by Jeff Meier (FB: Jeff.Meier.90)

Of course, it would take a superstar group of powerful Black women to sell and make a movie about The Clark Sisters, the pioneering Detroit siblings who are now in their fifth decade of rocking the gospel music world.

Tonight’s “The Clark Sisters: First Ladies of Gospel” (airing on Lifetime at 8PM) comes from executive producers Queen Latifah, Mary J. Blige and Missy Elliott, co-executive producer Holly Davis Carter, writer Camille Tucker and director Christine Swanson.

I had my own Clark Sisters experience while working as an executive at TV One back in 2007-08, where The Clark Sisters were the subjects of one of the very first episodes of network’s successful biography series “UnSung,” a show I developed and initially oversaw.

At the time, I generally knew enough about The Clark Sisters to recognize their breakthroughs in transforming the gospel music sound – and I felt that the world had not generally afforded them enough credit for that. But I didn’t know much else about their personal story and ended up fascinated by the conflicts and struggle, and of course, all the music.  It’s not a surprise to me that producer Carter said she’s been trying to make this movie for 15 years – it is a worthy story to tell.

In honor of this movie accomplishment, Good Black News offers a career-spanning Spotify playlist below to allow you to keep enjoying the patented Clark Sister Sound all weekend long.

The Clark Sisters Playlist was crafted to include most of the key hits from The Clark Sisters – as well as highlights from the solo careers of Karen Clark Sheard, Dorinda Clark-Cole, Twinkie Clark, and even from next generation Clark family gospel superstar Kierra Sheard (who plays her mom Karen in the movie). For good measure, there’s also a rare solo track from Jacky Clark-Chisholm (a duet with movie exec producer Blige), and a coda from Dr. Mattie Moss Clark herself.

Jacky, Denise, Elbernita (Twinkie), Dorinda, and Karen were the five daughters of Mattie Moss Clark, a pioneering gospel music figure herself, who while raising her daughters also served as a minister of music for the Church of God In Christ, first at the local level in Michigan, but eventually at the national level.