Interview with Shelly Clark of The Honey Cone - Oct 2020

[Ady Of Newark]

What were you doing aged 6?  Mashelle (Shelly) Clark was already a professional entertainer appearing in the Broadway hit ‘House Of Flowers’ and also touring with Cab Calloway in the Cotton Club Revue.  She secured a recording contract with Columbia records alongside her brother Elia as one half of the Clark Kids just 2 years later.

Spotted by Ike Turner’s assistant, Shelly became an Ikette following an impromtu audition in her own living room and jetted out to join Ike and Tina the following day, however her association was to be cut tragically short after the tour bus she was travelling in became involved in an accident leaving her hospitalised.

Undaunted, Shelley went on to tour with Dusty Springfield, Bill Medley, Little Richard and others before being discovered by Eddie Holland and signed, along with Edna Wright and Carolyn Willis, as his flagship act on his Hot Wax imprint, generating 3 million selling singles in the early 70s.

Here Shelley recounts her life in music and tells us about the various current projects that keep her and husband Verdine so busy: https://www.shinyl.co.uk/shelley-clark-of-the-honey-cone/