Cortelia Clark

Clark was born around 1906 in Chicago. Others state that he lost his sight after an operation in the mid-1950s. Around 1964, Mike Weesner, a student at Peabody College, made a demo tape of Clark at Globe Studio. This came to the attention of Bob Ferguson and Chet Atkins of RCA Nashville. Felton Jarvis, 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. which it won (other nominees included Ravi Shankar; Peter, Paul and Mary; and Pete Seeger). 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 in Nashville, after his kerosene heater exploded. ==Tributes==

In 1973 the singer-songwriter Mickey Newbury wrote and recorded a song, "Cortelia Clark", based on his knowledge of the real Clark, on the album Heaven Help the Child. 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 an album of the same title in 2000. ==Discography==

• Blues in the Street, RCA R172587, July 1966; reissued by Collector's Choice Music, 2004 ==References==