TV One has this incredible series called Unsung about old school music groups and artists whose careers experienced premature endings. It?s pretty good stuff, but not too revelatory to The Smaaawt One (a pet name given me by one of my oldest buddies). It just so happens that most of the acts have always been counted among my favorites ? except one.

I never really knew a whole lot about The Clark Sisters. I was a child of hippies in the 70?s who wasn?t really raised in church in the 80?s. To be honest, the first time I ever remember actually going into an Atlanta church for a service with my mother voluntarily was when she got cancer and started bargaining with The Father to spare her a premature smite. She might have been a hippie, but she wasn?t no fool and knew exactly where to appeal when times got tough. I had more than a few friends, though, who were all up in the sanctuary singing at every opportunity they could find back in the day. Choir rehearsal to some in Atlanta was like working out ? they sweat through it daily, for long periods of time, diligently. So, other than listening to them on WCLK?s Sunday gospel show and listening to those friends try to approximate those lush harmonies, I never knew anything about that family, that group, until that show. What I did know was that Xscape did a rousing rendition of one of their most popular songs on their first album that still stands as one of my favorite remakes of all time.

Is My Living In Vain ~ Xscape

When you?re a teen (as a few of them were when they made that album) you tend to think that everyone will live forever. Even if yo silly behind is playing chicken back on a still-undeveloped Kimberly Mill Rd. in ?80-nunnayobusiness Continue Reading…