Bordering on Perfect

Reckoning with Monday.  I can’t remember the gym.  I believe I went alone and it was an upper body day.  I can’t remember the lunch though it was likely the day that I opted to pop open the plastic box of tofu and create a salad.  The cans of tuna were all gone.  I’d like to think the dinner was memorable. But it may well have been that I was home by myself that day and chopped up the leftover lamb chops in the fridge and threw em’ in a bowl with some kale, as everyone else had other plans and were coming home late.  I don’t remember precisely when the kids came home or if I was able to stop work long enough to do more than ask, “so how was your day?”  I do recall Alice Clark though.

As has been the case for many months now, it was the wonderful D.J. Trouble on WFMU, who helped me to stumble upon Ms. Clark.  Brooklyn born, with sad eyes and an immediately plausible voice I stopped what I was doing and listened, savoring what it was she had to say.  How many times has a song told you that someone is broken hearted?  How many times can you hear someone sing about missing another person?  Listening to her sing “I Keep It Hid” the tale seemed genuine and fresh.  http://www.allmusic.com/album/alice-clark-mw0000335469

I went to Youtube and was thrilled to discover that each song of hers was better than the last.  She only recorded some fifteen songs during the epochal period of 1968 to 1972.  The mixes are dreamy, bordering on perfect, with a house band I suspect that shifted from Redd Foxx strut to downhearted shuffle like light through clouds on a windy day.  Oddly it sounded a bit British as this was the arch so many heroes had tried to achieve from The Small Faces, to the Jam.

And somehow the world never took notice.  I don’t see how it could be.  She never had any commercial success and after her last recordings in ’72, she faded in obscurity.  An article or two I read suggested that she was never heard from again.  My goodness but that isn’t fair.  Words like “injustice” come to mind.  I did my part and wrote to my musical chums and told em’ all that they needed to check out Alice Clark.  Certainly, the web is now aware of her.  I hope she’s out there somewhere enjoying a bit of late life afterglow recognition for these piercing expressions of youthful earnestness.  I need an Alice Clark tee shirt.



Monday, 09/04/17