Clark-Cole, Dorinda 1957–

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Dorinda Clark-Cole 1957–

Gospel songwriter, vocalist, minister, church administrator

With a gospel music pedigree that was second to none, Dorinda Clark-Cole surprised almost no one when she emerged as a gospel star in 2002 with the debut album Dorinda Clark-Cole. As the daughter of Elbert Clark, a minister in the Church of God in Christ (COGIC), and Mattie Moss Clark, the Detroit composer and choir director who did much to shape the sound of the African-American gospel choir as it is heard today, Clark-Cole began her musical career when she became a member of the Clark Sisters, a group that revolutionized gospel with its enthusiastic vocal acrobatics. Clark-Cole emerged as an individual artist whose music drew on her busy life and Christian ministry. She also carried forward the educational mission that had been such an important part of her mother's career.

Clark-Cole was born Dorinda Grace Clark in Detroit in October of 1957. Besides her mother's musical activities, she was exposed to gospel music in conjunction with the preaching of her father. Clark-Cole and her sisters, Karen, Twinkie (Elbernita), Jacky, and Denise, grew up immersed in music and faith. “We were always a close-knit family,” she stated in her Web site biography, “and my sisters and I were not only raised in church, we were trained by our parents to take responsibility for entire parts of the service if the situation required.” She made her singing debut at age five. When asked by GospelFlava when she was saved, Clark-Cole replied, “Well growing up in the church, it seemed we got saved every time they held service!” The first album she bought was one by a woman who became one of her major vocal influences: gospel star Shirley Caesar.

Gained Fame in Sister Act

The quintet of siblings grew into the Clark Sisters, who recorded their first album, Bringing It Back Home, in 1971. From the start, the sisters went beyond the rhythmically charged choral music pioneered by their mother to create a style all their own. Twinkie Clark emerged as the leader of the group, but each sister expressed religious enthusiasm through a set of vocal ornaments of her own. When Clark-Cole joined the group in the 1980s, she brought a distinctively raspy texture and jazz inflections to the Clark Sisters' sound, contrasting attractively with the soaring sopranos of the other sisters. The Clark Sisters influenced a host of secular vocalists, including Whitney Houston, with their virtuosic singing and crossover style experiments in hits such as “You Brought the Sunshine (Into My Life),” “Name It Claim It,” and “Is My Living in Vain?”

Clark-Cole had a distinctive “Dorinda shuffle” on stage to go with her jazzy voice, but she was never the star of the Clark Sisters act. She threw herself into a variety of other church-related activities, becoming an ordained COGIC minister and evangelist and taking a post as an administrator and instructor at the Clark Conservatory of Music in Detroit, founded by her mother in 1979. She married Greg Cole, a church elder. When Denise Clark left the group to concentrate on raising a family and Twinkie began to diverge into a solo career in the late 1980s, Clark-Cole, Jacky, and Karen continued performing as a trio, appearing in several gospel musicals. Their concert itinerary took them as far as South Africa, where they became the first American gospel act to perform, and Clark-Cole's ministry also took her abroad to England, France, Germany, Korea, and Japan. The trio also appeared on the first recording of Handel's Messiah: A Soulful Celebration (1992), an award-winning gospel adaptation of the popular holiday classic.

Shaken by the loss of her mother to diabetes in 1994, Clark-Cole decided not only to maintain but also to further her mission of gospel music education. Besides continuing her work at the Clark Conservatory of Music (now located in Ferndale, Michigan, near Detroit), she founded Lifeline Productions in 1999 and became the organization's chief executive officer. Lifeline's mission is to produce the Singers and Musicians Conference, an annual series of workshops, performances, and worship services designed to hone the talents of aspiring gospel stars.

Released Debut Album

Karen Clark-Sheard released her first solo album in the 1990s, and Clark-Cole began making moves toward a solo career of her own. She recorded some material with the Alaska Mass Choir that later appeared on an album on the JDI label, but her formal debut, Dorinda Clark-Cole, appeared in 2002 after she was signed to the Gospocentric label. Praising the album's “jazzy edges and a high rasp burnish,” GospelFlava noted that “Clark-Cole is as easy with hip hop jams as she is with traditional church stomps. Her vocal flair in front of a mass choir is unparalleled.”

Buyers agreed with the positive evaluation, sending Dorinda Clark-Cole to the gospel-chart top five. The album won, among other honors, two Stellar awards (including one for Female Vocalist of the Year), the Soul Train Lady of Soul Award, and a BMI Christian Music Award. It was not only Clark-Cole's voice that drew gospel fans but also her songwriting; she composed or cocomposed six of the album's twelve numbers, and she had a convincing way of drawing on her own life experiences in songs such as “I'm Still Here.” This song describes an episode in which Clark-Cole contemplated suicide after becoming involved in a period of COGIC internal strife.

After the release of her debut, national appearances such as one at the 2004 Super Bowl in Houston and on various television programs, including the Tonight Show with Jay Leno, showcased a performer who could compete with contemporary gospel stars such as Yolanda Adams in her command of contemporary fashions while still keeping in touch with deep church roots. Clark-Cole became a celebrity spokesmodel for the Donna Vinci designer clothing line. She kept in shape and gave herself energy for her varied tasks by running a mile every day.

At a Glance …

Born Dorinda Grace Clark in October of 1957 in Detroit, MI; daughter of Elbert Clark and Mattie Moss Clark; married Greg Cole; two children.

Career: Gospel singer; joined Clark Sisters, mid-1980s; Church of God in Christ, Ecclesiastical Southwest Jurisdiction No. 1, ordained minister; Church of God in Christ, International Music Department, vice president; Lifeline Productions, founder and chief executive officer, 1999—.

Selected awards: Two Stellar awards; Soul Train Lady of Soul Award; BMI Christian Music Award, 2002; Mt. Carmel Theological Seminary, honorary doctorate.

Addresses: Office—Harvestime Ministries, 19161 Schaefer Hwy., Suite 204, Detroit, MI 48235.

Distributed Roses to Audience

Clark-Cole also shared stages with gospel luminaries such as Kirk Franklin, and her energy in performance was displayed on her second album, Live from Houston: The Rose of Gospel (2005). While many African-American gospel performances blur the boundary between song and speech, Clark-Cole's Houston performance was unusual in that it included a passage of out-and-out preaching. The “Rose of Gospel” label came from Clark-Cole's practice of handing out roses to individuals who attended her concerts. "It's just a personal touch from me to the person that I hand the rose, just to encourage them…. I can't feel what they're going through, but I want to minister to them one-on-one and that rose lets them know that they can make it.

That God will do everything that He has promised,” she explained to DetroitGospel.com.

By the end of 2007, Clark-Cole's career was firing on all cylinders. Remaining active in church affairs, she served as president of the COGIC's First Ecclesiastical Southwest Jurisdiction No. 1 and as vice president of the church's International Music Department. She continued to coordinate her annual Singers and Musicians Conference and worked as an administrator at the Greater Emmanuel Institutional COGIC, pastored by her brother-in-law, Superintendent J. Drew Sheard. She reunited with her sisters for two Clark Sisters releases, Live: One Last Time (2007) and Encore (2008), and released her third CD, Yesterday, in 2007.