Early Life and Career
Corey Clark was born July 13, 1980 in San Bernardino, California, to Duane and Jan Clark, two singers who met on the road in Nashville, Tennessee in early 1978 while following their own musical aspirations. Duane, an R & B and disco singer who sang in San Bernardino nightclubs and opened for Al Wilson and B. B. King and recorded and performed with the James Last Orchestra and the Hamburg Symphony Orchestra, is of African American, Cherokee, Apache, and Blackfoot descent. Jan Clark, the Hungarian-Ukrainian, Jewish, Irish, French, Cherokee, and Algonquian great granddaughter of a Budapest concert pianist, met Duane in Nashville while she worked nightclubs specializing in R & B and Barbra Streisand. The multiracial nature of the Clarks’ relationship and of Corey’s heritage was a source of racial conflict for the family during the Clarks' early years in Lufkin, Texas, where Corey recalls a story his parents told him about a December 1979 incident in which the couple were driving to church for a Christmas event, with Duane dressed as Santa Claus, when they were pulled over by a white police officer, who smashed one of the car’s tail lights, and told Duane he was being pulled over and arrested for driving with a broken tail light.
Less subtle was the racism at school, where Clark says he and his sister got into fights with schoolmates in the first grade who called them “niggers” and “cottonheads”. Adding to his sense of identity confusion was the fact that African Americans did not accept him either, and called him and his sister “whiggers”, on which Clark comments, “It’s real unsettling when you’re young and don’t know which group you belong to.” Today, Clark reflects on his multiethnic heritage with pride, and says he wishes more people were open-minded about interracial dating, saying, “Our family could claim to be the ultimate melting pot,” and that being of so many different ethnicities gave him the ability to "adapt to any situation."
Clark’s interest in music was stimulated at an early age; his first clear memory was of his parents, his aunt Audrey, and his father’s band recording a demo tape in a Denver studio. Having attended concerts by Boyz II Men, TLC, and Montell Jordan, he began singing himself at age 11, without any formal training, at school functions and concerts.
Clark received his first professional singing job when he was 13, when Debbie Byrd, a family friend and vocal coach who would later go on to work on American Idol, recruited him and his parents to be among the backup singers for Barry Manilow during a week-long appearance in Las Vegas. Although Manilow was not a favorite of Clark’s, he realized his dream during this engagement, saying,
| “ | When the curtain went up the first night, I was floored by the response from the sell-out crowd. I’d never been on stage as a professional singer before, and I got to see someone at the peak of his career working the stage and the audience. Every night he made his performance feel fresh, not just going through the motions. Experiencing the energy of a live show wasn’t at all like listening to a tape or a CD, I realized. It was magical. I was hooked! | ” |
At age 14, Clark started and performed as the lead vocalist in a R & B vocal group called Envy. The group also included the now-Grammy Award-winning singer NeYo, Solomon Ridge and Ray Blaylock. Envy performed in several talent contests, and a few years later, won the grand prize at a Las Vegas amateur singing contest. Envy also opened major shows for major artists such as Mýa and Destiny's Child, and performed during Amateur Night at the famous Apollo Theater in Harlem, New York. The group signed a recording deal in 2000, but nothing came of it, and it disbanded after eight years of performances.
Clark and his family moved to Nashville, and while working as a stage hand in 2002. Clark auditioned for the reality TV music competition show American Idol; he has been described as "one of the most impressive top ten finalists of the talent search’s second season". Clark names making it to the top 32 finalists during that season to be his proudest moment.
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