Sanford Clark obit

Rockabilly performer Sanford Clark dies at COVID-19 at age 85

 

He was not on the list.

Rockabilly and country performer Sanford Clark, who made the top 10 hits on The Fool in 1956, died of COVID-19 at a Missouri hospital. He was 85 years old.

Clark died Sunday at Joplin’s Mercy Hospital, where he had been treated for cancer before he was infected with the coronavirus, his spokeswoman and fellow performer Johnny Valis said on Monday.

Clark was born on October 24, 1935 in Tulsa, Oklahoma, grew up in Phoenix, and began playing in the early 1950s. “The Fool” finished 7th in the Billboard Top 100. The song was later recorded by other well-known artists such as Elvis Presley and The Animals.

Presley actually recorded this song twice. The first was recorded as part of a personal recording while in the Army, and then recorded for professional release in the 1970s, Barris said.

“I can hear him trying to emulate the sound of Sanford,” Barris said. “As you know, most of the people I know are trying to impersonate Elvis, where Elvis was trying to impersonate him.”

Clark recorded several other songs in the 1950s and 1960s, with little success before leaving the music industry to work in the construction industry, but in the decades later on his label. Sometimes I recorded it on a Desert Sun Record.

Sanford has survived by his wife, Masha, and a few children.