Twinkie Clark to turn 70 with a concert befitting Detroit gospel royalty
Despite her long, phenomenal run of success and prestigious accolades, Detroit gospel star Twinkie Clark has never been big on self-congratulations.
"I never do anything in my name," she says. "I've always gone to other people's events."
But Clark was tickled about this time one year ago as she quietly marked her 69th birthday with some friends and family at a small restaurant.
"I had invited 20 or 25 people, and they showed up and just loved and loved on me," she says, recalling with a laugh: "I thought, 'Whew, I need to do this more.'"
That's why this Friday, Clark will celebrate her 70th birthday with a grand event at Dearborn's Ford Community & Performing Arts Center inside the 1,200-capacity Michael A. Guido Theater.
It'll be an event befitting a trailblazing musical Detroiter as songs from her extensive catalog are performed by singers, musicians and an orchestra in a night of gospel music with a classical twist. All will be led by musical director Damien Sneed, a longtime Clark protege and collaborator with her flagship family group, the Clark Sisters.
In a Detroit gospel world packed with heavy hitters, Clark is a standout who helped invent the modern sound — a multifaceted and influential musician, singer and songwriter responsible for some of the genre's most notable work in the past half-century.
"Her grasp and mastery of different styles and genres is vast," says Sneed, who has worked closely with Clark for nearly 25 years. "She's one a kind."
Sneed ticked off the traits that make Clark so impressive: her extensive vocal range and improvisational skills, a lyrical prowess he calls "extremely profound and inspirational," and her virtuoso talent at the keyboard, specifically the Hammond B-3 organ — which led her to become one of just four women inducted to date into the Hammond Hall of Fame .
"She pulls from a well that never runs dry," Sneed says.
It all started young, under the watch of her famed mother, the late gospel pioneer Dr. Mattie Moss Clark, a Church of God in Christ organist who introduced her daughter to the keyboard early.
"My mom was my greatest influence," Clark says. "She'd say: 'You've got to work at this. You don't do it overnight.' After so many years, I began to learn on my own and started blending different styles into my playing. She would say: 'Don't be too worldly now. You lose the spirit when you put too much in there.' But I started playing in her choir."
In her 20s, as her mother's health declined, Clark took over organist duties entirely, showcasing an extraordinary ability at the instrument. The elder Clark soon helped Twinkie and her sisters land a record deal, where they got a first taste of what would eventually become vast recording experience, with Twinkie emerging as the prime musical engine.
"That's when I felt like I had arrived," she says of that formative period in the 1970s. "I realized I was a little more polished and able to do it without (my mom)."
With their lively stage presence and a distinctive vocal style heavily influenced by fellow Detroiter Aretha Franklin, the Clark Sisters broke big in the early 1980s, thanks largely to a pair of Twinkie-penned hits: the raw and electric "Is My Living in Vain" alongside the bright and bounding "You Brought the Sunshine (Into My Life)."
Clark's songwriting and vocal arrangements were fresh and exciting, steeped in the R&B and jazz influences her mother had once fretted about. "You Brought the Sunshine," stimulated by the work of Stevie Wonder, was a new sort of gospel style, and the single promptly found mainstream success on the dance and R&B charts.
"We weren't expecting to cross over and be played on secular stations," Clark says. "(Wonder's 1980 hit) 'Master Blaster,' with that reggae style, inspired me — I thought I should try that with gospel. It got played in the bars and clubs, and we got criticized for it by people in the church: 'That music is not of God.' It didn't sound like gospel."
But the song's crossover success ultimately acted as musical testimony heard well beyond the walls of a sanctuary.
"The church calls it 'worldly' when you sing music that doesn't mention gospel or Jesus," says Clark. "But as time went along, people started receiving it, even some of the church folks who had criticized us. The song had touched people who didn't listen to gospel music, and we were able to bring them to the church."
Clark remained prolific, writing for her sibling group and eventually embarking on a still-thriving solo career, which included the recent gospel hit "In Him There Is No Sorrow" with Donald Lawrence and Yolanda Adams.
In April 2020, in the thick of the pandemic quarantine with millions watching at home, Lifetime premiered the much-awaited biopic "The Clark Sisters: First Ladies of Gospel," with Christina Bell playing Twinkie in the onscreen story of her and sisters Denise, Dorinda, Jacky and Karen and their rise to musical heights.
The movie, still available for streaming, was an instant hit and activated a renewed interest in the Clark Sisters and the body of musical work spearheaded by Twinkie. Four years later, the group was honored with the Grammy's lifetime achievement award, an honor the sisters had already landed at gospel music's Stellar Awards.
Clark is a modest personality who seems inclined to play down her own towering influence — a legacy that reaches well beyond gospel and plays a role in the careers of everyone from Mary J. Blige to Beyoncé.
But she'll certainly be getting her flowers at Friday night's birthday concert in Dearborn, said Sneed, who joined Clark in April when she was honored at Harvard University .
"Every artist loves her and has been influenced by Twinkie," he said. "And everybody is looking forward to celebrating her."
Contact Detroit Free Press music writer Brian McCollum: 313-223-4450 or 'Twinkie' Clark's 70th Birthday Celebration
With the Clark Sisters, Kim Burrell, Kierra Sheard-Kelly, Damien Sneed, Bettye Nelson and more.
Michael A. Guido Theater, Ford Community & Performing Arts Center
$50-$125
