Burroughs, Clark (3 March 1930-Present)

Actor, arranger, producer, and tenor who was something of a child prodigy, acting professionally at the age of six in The Weavers, co-starring his dad and mom, a pair of dancers, themselves. At eleven years of age, he was a member of St. Paul’s Episcopal Cathedral Choir, with whom he would remain for about eight years. He made his movie debut at the age of fourteen in God is My Co-Pilot, and co-starred with singing cowboy Gene Autry in Cowtown. Clark joined The Roger Wagner Chorale when he was seventeen years old, which led to more movie work, singing on the soundtrack of Joan of Arc.

He graduated from Powers High School and soon thereafter, enrolled at Loyola University, where he performed in the glee club for a couple of years, and sharpened his acting chops with Hollywood’s Orchard Gables Repertory Theatre Group. After his time at Loyola, he moved on to L.A. City College, where he studied music, and was a member of The Twilighters and The Clef Clan, a pair of vocal ensembles. While rehearsing with The Clef Clan, he was introduced by Tom Mahoney to a singer named Gene Puerling. Tom needed to put together a male singing group for a T.V. program entitled The Alan Young Show, and The Clef Clan plus Gene Puerling seemed to fit the bill. They were billed as The Youngsters.

After this, Clark joined Randy Van Horne’s group, The Encores, which toured for one-and-a-half years, and eventually hooked up with Billy May and his orchestra. Once this monster tour was over, Clark moved back to L.A. and re-united with Gene Puerling to co-found The Hi-Lo’s, along with Bob Morse and Bob Strasen. The Hi-Lo’s began recording in 1953 and stayed together for about a decade,. Meantime, Clark was still getting movie work, singing on the soundtracks of 1955’s Hit the Deck and It’s Always Fair Weather.

In the the mid-‘60s, he worked as a producer and vocal arranger for The Association, perhaps most famously on “Never My Love” and “Windy”. (He also can be heard singing on the latter.) The same year “Windy” was wending its way to #1, Clark worked with a similar group that billed themselves as The Gordian Knot, arranging and producing their eponymous debut and its 1968 follow-up, Tones. Around this time, he and his wife Marilyn briefly tinkered around with a folk-rock act, and he also produced her album, I Feel Pretty.

In 1971, he tried to work similar magic with a group called Gypsy on their album, In the Garden. After these projects, he returned to the studio as a backing vocalist, on albums such as Captain & Tennille’s Song of Joy and Elton John’s Blue Moves, both released in 1976. In 1977, he sang backing vocals on Jack Jones’ The Full Life, and re-united with The Hi-Lo’s for The Monterey Jazz Festival. This reunion led to a pair of new Hi-Lo’s albums, 1978’s Back Again and 1980’s Now. In between, Clark found time to sing background vocals on Bill Hughes’ Dream Master and Frank Sinatra’s 1979 boxed set, Trilogy.

Other albums on which he appears include The Hi-Lo’s albums The Best of the Columbia Years, Clap Yo’ Hands and A Musical Thrill, and the anthologies, A Jazz Portrait of Brian Wilson—Wouldn’t It Be Nice, Musical Wonderland, Singin’ in the Rain, Somewhere Over the Rainbow: The Golden Age of Hollywood Musicals, and That’s Entertainment! The Best of the M-G-M Musicals.

As recently as 2003, Clark was fronting the L.A.-based group, L’arc, and was a Sixteenth Note member of the Society of Singers, Inc. On 6^th April 2006, he appeared in concert with Classic City Jazz at the University of Georgia’s Hodgson School of Music. Recently, he has been working as an arranger again, in tandem with Michele Weir, and has performed with Vocal Flight, voted Best Vocal Jazz Ensemble by Downbeat Magazine.

Here he is singing “We’re Working Our Way Through College” with Johnny Mercer….

Sources:

Burroughs, Clark (3 March 1930-Present)

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