Cortelia Clark was an African American

African American

African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...

 blues

Blues

Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...

 singer and guitarist, known for his performances on the streets of Nashville. He won a Grammy for Best Folk Recording

Grammy Award for Best Ethnic or Traditional Folk Recording

The Grammy Award for Best Ethnic or Traditional Folk Recording was awarded from 1960 to 1986. During this time the award had several minor name changes:*From 1960 to 1961 the award was known as Best Performance - Folk...

 in 1967

Grammy Awards of 1967

The 9th Grammy Awards were held March 2, 1967. They recognized accomplishments of musicians for the year 1966. The 9th Grammy Awards is notable for not presenting the Grammy Award for Best New Artist.-Award winners:*Record of the Year...

, for the album Blues In The Street, his only recording.

Life and recordings

Clark lost his sight after an operation in the mid-1950s, and began playing and singing blues songs on street corners in Nashville. He also sold shopping bags, on 5th Avenue between Church and Union Streets, among other locations. Around 1964, Mike Weesner, a student at Peabody College

Peabody College

Peabody College of Education and Human Development was founded in 1875 when the University of Nashville, located in Nashville, Tennessee, split into two separate educational institutions...

, made a demo tape of Clark at Globe Studio. This came to the attention of Bob Ferguson

Bob Ferguson (music)

Robert Bruce "Bob" Ferguson Sr was an American songwriter, record producer who was instrumental in establishing Nashville, Tennessee as a center of country music; movie producer, and Choctaw Indian historian. Ferguson wrote the bestselling songs "On the Wings of a Dove" and "The Carroll County...

 and Chet Atkins

Chet Atkins

Chester Burton Atkins , known as Chet Atkins, was an American guitarist and record producer who, along with Owen Bradley, created the smoother country music style known as the Nashville sound, which expanded country's appeal to adult pop music fans as well.Atkins's picking style, inspired by Merle...

 of RCA

RCA

RCA Corporation, founded as the Radio Corporation of America, was an American electronics company in existence from 1919 to 1986. The RCA trademark is currently owned by the French conglomerate Technicolor SA through RCA Trademark Management S.A., a company owned by Technicolor...

 Nashville. Felton Jarvis

Felton Jarvis

Felton Jarvis, , produced most of Elvis Presley's recordings from 1966-1977.He also released several singles in the late 1950s and early 1960s...

, Elvis Presley's producer, was enlisted to produce the album. In December 1965, Weesner and Jarvis persuaded RCA to record Clark on the sidewalk, complete with prominently featured (but overdubbed) street noises and interactions with city dwellers. Clark performed both original songs and variations of familiar pop, country and blues tunes, including the Everly Brothers' hit "Bye Bye Love", Blind Boy Fuller

Blind Boy Fuller

Blind Boy Fuller was an American blues guitarist and vocalist. He was one of the most popular of the recorded Piedmont blues artists with rural Black Americans, a group that also included Blind Blake, Josh White, and Buddy Moss.-Life and career:Fulton Allen was born in Wadesboro, North Carolina,...

's "Truckin' My Blues Away", and "Walk Right In

Walk Right In

Walk Right In is the title of a country blues song written by musician Gus Cannon and originally recorded by Cannon's Jug Stompers in 1929, released on Victor Records, catalogue 38611. It was reissued on album in 1959 as a track on The Country Blues....

" as popularised by the Rooftop Singers.

Despite the record selling fewer than 1,000 copies, Jarvis submitted it to the Recording Academy

National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences

The National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences, Inc., known variously as The Recording Academy or NARAS, is a U.S. organization of musicians, producers, recording engineers and other recording professionals dedicated to improving the quality of life and cultural condition for music and its...

 in the Folk category for 1966 record releases, which it went on to win ahead of other nominees including Ravi Shankar

Ravi Shankar

Ravi Shankar , often referred to by the title Pandit, is an Indian musician and composer who plays the plucked string instrument sitar. He has been described as the best known contemporary Indian musician by Hans Neuhoff in Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart.Shankar was born in Varanasi and spent...

, Peter, Paul and Mary

Peter, Paul and Mary

Peter, Paul and Mary were an American folk-singing trio whose nearly 50-year career began with their rise to become a paradigm for 1960s folk music. The trio was composed of Peter Yarrow, Paul Stookey and Mary Travers...

 and Pete Seeger

Pete Seeger

Peter "Pete" Seeger is an American folk singer and was an iconic figure in the mid-twentieth century American folk music revival. A fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s, he also had a string of hit records during the early 1950s as a member of The Weavers, most notably their recording of Lead...

. However, the success had little impact on Clark, who continued to perform on the streets and was never recorded again. He died in 1969 in a house fire, after his kerosene heater exploded.

Tributes

In 1973 singer/songwriter Mickey Newbury

Mickey Newbury

Mickey Newbury was an American songwriter, a critically acclaimed recording artist, and a member of the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame.-Biography:...

 wrote and recorded a song, "Cortelia Clark", based on his knowledge of the real Clark, on the album Heaven Help the Child

Heaven Help the Child

Heaven Help The Child is the 1973 album by Country singer-songwriter Mickey Newbury. The album was Newbury's third consecutive release recorded at Cinderella Studios...

. A live version was issued on Newbury's 1988 album In a New Age. Newbury said: "In Nashville...there was an old man there I used to go in and listen to all the time...he was really a great old guy.... I was in San Francisco... I got back home, picked up all of newspapers and went inside, started reading through them. Found out he had burned to death in his trailer while I was gone. I don't know how much it will mean ever to him, but this is a song I wrote about him." The song has subsequently been recorded by other artists including the Kingston Trio, and Josh White Jr., who released a 2000 album of the same title.

Discography

• Blues In The Street, RCA R172587, July 1966 - re-issued, Collector's Choice Music, 2004