00:30Hi, I'm Cori Murray, Entertainment Director at Essence, and when the Clark Sisters' First Lady of Gospel aired on Easter weekend, as most of the nation was sheltering in place, it shined a light on the lives of a family of Black church women whose complex lives gave rise to transcendent art.
00:50Well, today, much like the Clark Sisters, we wanted to dive a little deeper into the beauty of that film to learn more about what made this movie so beautiful and why it resonated across music genres, gospel lovers, across people who go to church regularly.
01:10We really wanted to look at the beauty and expertise of the Clark Sisters.
01:15So today, we have some beautiful people with us.
01:17We have actress Anjanew Ellis, who played Dr. Maddie Moss Clark in the film.
01:23We have Imani Wilson, who is an independent scholar.
01:26We have Ashanti Crawley, an associate professor of religious studies and African-American studies at the University of Virginia.
01:33We have Danielle Thomas, a faith and spirituality writer, and, of course, myself again.
01:40So welcome, you all.
01:43Now that we're gathered today, as we're gathered here today, I actually want to open up by asking you, what were each of your first moments with the Clark Sisters?
01:53When was the Clark Sisters introduced to you?
01:56We can start with you, Anjanew.
01:58Okay.
02:00Okay.
02:01When I was growing up in Mississippi, I grew up in the Baptist church, and my best friend, her name was Tracy Grady.
02:14Hello, Tracy Grady, if you're listening.
02:16She grew up in the Kojic Church, St. James Church of God in Christ on Gradyville Road.
02:22And so Tracy would go to these legendary workshops that Maddie Moss Clark would conduct all around the world.
02:30And she would come back and she would just tell us these epic stories about Dr. Maddie Moss Clark.
02:37So I had an image in my mind of who Dr. Maddie was before I even heard the Clark Sisters, before I even heard their music.
02:46So she figured in my mind as this legend, in the same way Cinderella did, you know, as a kid.
02:54Yeah.
02:55Danielle, how about you?
02:57I grew up church, so like for me, my experience with the Clark Sisters is inseparable from my experience of being a Black church woman.
03:07I can't pinpoint the first recollection because it's just always been there.
03:13They've always been part of my worship experience, a part of my liturgy.
03:17Maybe my most memorable, like, pinpoint might be that rough side of the mountain infomercial that used to come on all the time during my long job.
03:28I remember that.
03:30I remember that.
03:31I remember having a trap on there.
03:33I think it was you brought the sun shower going that way.
03:35And so it was just like, oh, I always like to remember.
03:38But they have just been in, like, completely inseparable part of my experience in there.
03:47And I've always been there with them.
03:50Ashawn?
03:53I, like Danielle, can't pinpoint the first time I was aware of the Clark Sisters.
03:58I grew up on Kojic.
03:59And so they were always, like, in the sort of ether of the way we talked about the music of our churches and always talking about the conferences that people would go to in the summertime, UNAC at the time, which is now Auxiliaries and Ministry, which is called AIM.
04:16I can remember the first album of the Clark Sisters that I purchased.
04:20It was a tape, cassette tape.
04:22It was their Conquerors album.
04:24And I love that album so much.
04:26Conquerors is a great song.
04:29Computers rule the world, but God is still in control is one of my favorite songs.
04:34That very early on, from my own recollection, the Clark Sisters were always doing music that was pushing the sort of limits of what we could do, even when I was, like, a very, like, young teenager, 13, 14 years old.
04:50And so we were always talking about the Clark Sisters.
04:53And there was always conversation about, is their music too secular?
04:56Is their music pushing too far?
04:58Why did they have this rapper in their music?
05:01But it was always a part of how are they honoring their tradition while also trying to push the music forward?
05:07And so that's the first cassette tape I remember.
05:09And always just listening to them sing, play the Hammond organ, are things that we always talked about.
05:17Imani?
05:18Oh, they used up all of mine.
05:20Mine includes The Friends and Conqueror on cassette tape and Rough Side of the Mountain Volume 1, which I ordered.
05:29I did order it.
05:31I have a copy.
05:32So that was the best part of that commercial.
05:35And because it was the best song, and I remember growing up in New York, them playing it on WBLS, you just had to stay in the car long enough.
05:43It will come back on.
05:44But my first in my hand Clark Sister object was also the Conqueror cassette, which Antoine Bryant, who had a locker in my hallway and was Pentecostal, at school gave me on Christmas, the last day before Christmas break, when I was in, I guess that's eighth grade, maybe.
06:05And I still have that cassette, but I keep it where I can put my hand on it.
06:11Amen, amen.
06:13Imani, we're going to stay with you because you are an independent scholar.
06:16And while the Clark Sisters work dates back to the 1970s, that biopic introduced new audience of multiple generations to the Clark Sisters sound and their story.
06:25Please share with us some of your learnings from studying the Clark Sisters over the years.
06:30I guess my biggest takeaway is that it's probably folly to determine how far their influence extends.
06:44It goes beyond what you can see, much like roots of a tree rather than a tree.
06:51I think we often talk about music in terms of a tree.
Comments