My Favorite Singer of All Time Salute (African-American Music Month)

When I was a little girl, I wanted to play the organ. I love the sound of the organ. In my mind, Twinkie Clark & Billy Preston cannot be beaten. Then I saw Twinkie Clark and her sisters (The Clark Sisters) on my TV screen on Bobby Jones Gospel on Sunday night.  I had heard their songs all my life on the radio but this was the first time I saw them. As a  little chubby light-skinned black church girl, I saw myself all in The Clark Sisters especially Twinkie. She was playing the organ almost effortlessly. So, I “researched” playing the organ. I found that one had to learn how to play the piano first. Well with my 4-year-old mind, I gave up then learning how to play the organ. I didn't see the correlation then. I was 4. I decided when we went over to my great aunt's house and was allowed to play church, I’ll play the organ there. It was for the best. I have rhythm issues sometimes. They only instrument I play is the Recorder. Awesome" is my favorite song by her. The song I provided in this blog is called “My Soul Loves Jesus”. This song highlights her skills on the piano. This song features her sisters and R&B & Gospel singer, Shirley Murdock. I do have a favorite line though. “I can't sleep, ‘less I dream of him”. How many times have you were experiencing a sleepless night and you decided to prayed and worshiped the Lord to sleep? Well, if you haven’t let me tell you it is a great feeling. I understand that lyric wholeheartedly. It gets a Diva stamp of approval.

I still have mine. I can still play a mean “Twinkle, Twinkle”. What I didn’t give up on was being a fan of Twinkie Clark. You can’t tell me anything bad about her. She writes such sweet & simple music about God. "

So let’s go to Wikipedia to learn about my favorite singer. Elbernita "Twinkie" Clark is a two-time Grammy award-winning American gospel singer, composer, musician, and evangelist. She is a member of The Clark Sisters, an influential gospel vocal ensemble active since the late 1960s. She has been dubbed "Queen of the Hammond Ivory Super CX-1 & Hammond B-3 organs" and "The Mother Of Contemporary Gospel." According to sister Jacky Clark-Chisholm, their mother, Dr. Mattie Moss Clark, began training Twinkie on the piano as an infant and by the age of four, she could play full songs. Around the age of nine, Twinkie began showing interest in the organ and began training. At 12, she made her professional debut as an organist on the Southwest Michigan State Choir's album A Closer Walk with Thee. Twinkie would serve as Dr. Clark's personal organist until Dr. Clark's death in 1994. She has been the force that shaped the sound that has become the Clark Sisters' hallmark (more affectionately known as the 'Clark Sound') since their mother Mattie Moss Clark turned over control of the group to her in the early 1970s. As the 1970s turned into the 1980s, Twinkie gained increasing notoriety through the popularity of The Clark Sisters albums He gave me Nothing to Lose (1979), Is My Living in Vain(1980), You Brought the Sunshine(1981) and Sincerely(1982). Those albums featured the Twinkie penned classics; "Nothing To Lose", "Is My Living In Vain", "Pure Gold", "Expect A Miracle", "Name It Claim It", "Endow Me", "Walking In The Spirit" and the Clark Sisters crossover smash "You Brought The Sunshine." In the summer of 1981, "Is My Living In Vain" stayed atop the Billboard Gospel Songs chart for 13 weeks while the accompanying album would hit #1 and remain there for over a year. Twinkie wrote and produced three more albums for the Clark Sisters: 1986s Heart and Soul, 1988 Conqueror and 1989 Bringing it Back Home-Live. From those albums "Jesus Is a Love Song", "Pray for the USA", "Balm In Gilead", Jesus Forevermore", "My Redeemer Liveth" and "For The Love Of The People" were played on air. Twinkie amassed other hits in the 1980s ("I Tried Him and I Know Him", "The Anointing Breaks the Yoke", "Lord, Let Me Hear From Heaven") from her continued songwriting on her mother's convention records.

Twinkie left the Clark Sisters in 1989 to focus on ministry and family. She continued her solo career recorded the independent solo album Comin' Home in 1992. Twinkie was featured on the COGIC International Choir's Leaning on Jesus album on the hit duet with Richard "Mr. Clean" White's "Accept What God Allows" and in 1996, she produced the album Twinkie Clark Terrell presents the FAMU Gospel Choir which was a staple on the Gospel charts well into 1997. Twinkie and the Clark Sisters were inducted into the International Gospel Music Hall of Fame in 1999. The Clark Sisters received high honors at the 2007 Stellar Awards when they were presented with the award for Most Notable Achievement. Twinkie reunited with The Clark Sisters on July 8, 2006, to record a new live album, The Clark Sisters did a live recording in Houston, Texas entitled Live... One Last Time. The recording was released as a CD on April 10, 2007, on EMI Gospel, followed by a CD/DVD Special Edition release on June 19, 2007. In support of the reunion album, The Clark Sisters embarked on a 25-city Concert Tour. On January 16, 2009, Twinkie Clark was honored at the 10th Annual Trailblazers of Gospel Music Awards Luncheon Friday, January 16 in Nashville, TN.

Twinkie has written and/or arranged over 200 songs that have been recorded by the likes of Donald Lawrence & The Tri-City Singers, James Cleveland, Dave Hollister, Kelly Price, Rev. Donald Vails, and others. Richard Smallwood, Jennifer Holiday, Kim Burrell, Shirley Murdock, Donald Lawrence, R&B singer Coko, Missy Elliot, and Fred Hammond count Twinkie was influences/inspirations.  Clark's influences include jazz, reggae, classical, funk and blues. This is evidenced by listening to her first two solo albums Praise Belongs to God and Ye Shall Receive Power recorded for Sound of Gospel Records while still with The Clark Sisters. Twinkie Clark is a Stevie Wonder fan and hopes to one day do a duet with him. You Brought the Sunshine is actually pattern after Wonder's hit "Master Blaster".

What an accomplished lady!!! So I Salute pianist, organist, writer & singer, Elbernita “Twinkie” Clark, on today. Maybe this recorder player and you can jam out to “Twinkle, Twinkle” one day. LMBO.

Okay, who is/are your favorite singers of all time? Leave them below in the comments. I'm off to listen to some Clark Sisters.

As Always, Talking to You in Adult Terms

My Siblings

So, today my sister participated in TBT (Throw Back Thursday) and posted a couple of family pictures. That was funny. Gosh, I wore a stupid hairstyle in the 8th grade. Oh, I’m not dumb enough to show you guys. Here’s a cuter one.

Can you pick which one is me? Yes, that little one in the yellow, dotted Swiss dress is me.  The other two kids are my sister, A, and my brother, G. My mother tells people that she raised 3 only children. G is the oldest at 10 years my senior and A is 7 years my senior. So, she is actually right. But we have a close bond.

G has Cerebral Palsy and is severely mentally challenged.  Doctors said he would die at ages 5, 10, and 15. God’s miracle made them give up predicting.  G is actually the reason I went into the medical field as a child. I was going to find a cure for him at age 7. G is a riot. Though he has the mental understanding of a young toddler, He sings (his way), laughs and talks, feeds himself, even fusses & fights with people. I bet the Devil even says WoW when he sees my brother, the miracle. G is my Secret Keeper. He’s my sounding board. He is also my man metal detector. LoL, Like little ones, G detects basic B.S. If G does not make his way to meet you or all of the sudden stops talking to you, you won’t be seeing me much more. Trust me G’s actions are never wrong.

My role model & rock is A. Because she has a much bigger personality than me, many non-Blood related people referred to me as just only A’s sister. That causes me to do many things that look different on the surface than her on purpose. But strangely my methods looked a lot similar. A has supported me in everything, be it wise or dumb. She has come to my aid whenever I needed her. Don’t let me act like I don’t need help and she finds out. I told you, she’s my rock. Now if you guys think I am sarcastic and crazy, A will keep you on your toes then. She has a Great heart and tries to see the fun side in everything.

Yeah, we fuss, cuss and fight at times. It’s a wonder our childhood room is still standing. But I love these people. With all my heart. Nothing but Death can keep me from them. And even that might have to knock me out to get to them too.  Ok let me stop before I start the tears to flow

As Always, Talking to You in Adult Terms

Choir Music (African-American Music Month

If you asked me what my Favorite style of Gospel music is, it would be Choir Music. If you could be a fly on the wall of my life, there will be many times you will see me playing director and/or lead singer while listening to Choir Music. Matter fact if there is a movie based on my life that needs to be a scene.

Okay I may have made the “style term" up but some of you that know what I am talking about. I Love a true Choir Song. Choirs sing lots of stuff but a true Choir Song only sounds good with a choir.

When I a child, I sang in the Junior Choir at my foundation church. I actually can't sing. Well I sing okay. So, I never lead a song. We used to tear the church up with a song by Deleon Richards called “Move on up the Mountain (http://youtu.be/jJQMjrcw0TE). I know this is solo track but in my heart this is choir music. I loved singing this song. When I got to be 9 years old I was finally was old to sing in the Dallas Baptist Ministerial Alliance Youth for Christ for the City Wide Revival. In the 80’s and 90’s that was the thing for us little church kids to do. For six weeks at the beginning of the year that was our social scene. I loved Youth for Christ. Even when I joined the Youth Ushers at Foundation church at age 11, I still sang in Youth for Christ. I sang until I was 15. Singing song like “Send Your Anointing” by TM Mass Youth Choir gave me great joy.

If you asked me the best choir music were written by three men. The late Milton Brunson

the late Walter Hawkins

and Hezekiah Walker wrote many of my favorite Choir songs.

Well indulge me a little bit and act like we are at a good ol’ church musical and click & listen to some of my favorite Choir songs (a few new ones but mostly old one) I have provided. I’ll admit, I had a great time finding this tunes too.

Processional Song
He's Worthy
http://youtu.be/guV94dARrgc

The Anthemn
Keep You Lamps - These kids remind me of my childhood
http://youtu.be/nC7RHZuP_Yw

Yes Lord - As Football Nerd said once "You have to be a heathen not to know this song" LMBO (You had to be there)
https://youtu.be/mqrH6C-3G1M

There is No Failure
http://youtu.be/Wz7BnJtDZiM

I'm Still Holding On
http://youtu.be/kN6Xt0o4cLQ

Fully Commited
http://youtu.be/qCV6kZY4Pv4

Call Him Up
http://youtu.be/KQdZIqTsOm0

There is No Greater Love
http://youtu.be/QVbThm_CzTE

When The Battle is Over
http://youtu.be/kL7xRI3_p58

God Will Take Care of You
http://youtu.be/HP2n9nDn7Oc

Jerusalem - My Foundation Church is one of the choirs featured on this song. The soloist was member and a family friend. RIP Thomas Wade
http://youtu.be/dPHT8KKU-Uo

The Vision
http://youtu.be/opawDQcMVzQ

Same God
https://youtu.be/80Dpek7qK08

Everybody Clap Your Hands
http://youtu.be/MDOhwnzbeJQ

Every Praise
http://youtu.be/UuuZMg6NVeA

Oh in the comments let me know what some of your favorites are. Share with me. LoL

As Always, Talking to You in Adult Terms

Not Interested in Dating…Relatives of Friends or Friends of Relatives

Okay in the Long Distance post you already know I have dated a brother of a female member of my Chosen Family. For this blog post, she will be called Pink Red. I will never do that again. I love my friendships too much to ever put those in jeopardy again. I can honestly say that through all the drama I dealt with the demise of my relationship with J. Mac, Pink Red remained my friend. I thank her for that. Watching and listening to someone being mad at your brother had to be hard. I tried not to do it often but I still did it.

It was crazy for me to be friends with Pink Red even while J. Mac and I dated. Pink Red and I go back to high school. We talked about boys we liked, dated, etc. all the time. So not talking about her brother cause me to pull back some. The first time I felt bad about the turn in our friendship was one time I called for J. Mac and she answered the phone. I didn’t recognize my friend’s voice. She said “My Biological Name! It’s Her Biological Name”. I said “Oh hey girl. How are you doing?” At that moment I felt like an a-word. I didn't acknowledge my friend. That was crappy as hell. Luckily they were eating and J. Mac had to call me later. I had time to kick myself and sit with my emotions. One time Pink Red & J. Mac were fighting and I got a phone call and had to be questioned about something wrong J. Mac did. I told J. Mac off on his next visit. He had wronged my friend. Once the drama started, the first person I called was Pink Red. Gosh, I was so immature for doing that. She was more level-headed than me about the situation. When her brother’s name came up after the Big Fight, she never went off on me as she has. She was always a friend to me. I was even in her 1st wedding as a bridesmaid. I can admit now that I was nervous about the possibility of her brother being there. I never asked if he was going to come down but I think she sensed it because out of the blue on the way to the bachelorette party, the night before, she mentioned he was not going to be there. 

Every time J. Mac would lose my number after we were in a good place, Pink Red would give it to him and ask me can he have it. I finally told J. Mac to stop 1. Stop losing my contact info and 2. Don’t ask his sister for it because he was IMO aggravating her.  I would have told both of us off, years ago. And so far she is still a friend to me. She might read this and Long Distance and it dawned on her “Heck yeah, I was a friend to that…. Time to cut her off”. Lord, I truly hope not.

So that is why I’ll never date a relative of a friend. I take my friendships seriously. Rather share my love of a person with my friends than let it divide us.

Dating a friend of my relatives is easy. I will Never!!! 1. That guy hangs with my relative. He has issues by the association. I was born into knowing that person. This guy chose to know this person. That is a problem! (Yes, you should be laughing). 2. I will never be accused of incest because I think every one of my family members looks like monsters, especially men. More than likely their friends look like monsters to me too. 3. My family member’s friends for the most become our “friends”. So they are like family. So, that would be like incest.

So sorry guys, I’m not interested. You are friends or related to the wrong people. LoL

As Always, Talking to You in Adult Terms

Not Interested in Dating…The Long Distanced

This is the partial story of me dating a guy, I will call J. Mac. He is the brother of a female member of my Chosen Family. I will focus on the other part of our story in the post about dating Friends of Relatives/Relatives of Friends. Okay if I wrote a list splitting ex-boyfriends into Good & Bad, J. Mac is most definitely on the Good. Once we hashed it all out what happened to us (oh that was a doozy) in the past, sometime in 2006 maybe, I can say we are very friendly. I have to remember to tell him Happy Birthday at the end of the month. And he better not forget mine. *wink* He's a June baby too. But We had a Good dating relationship before he had to move away.

I won't go into details but he moved back to his hometown. First of all, I was a little miffed that he told me that he was moving. I felt like “Dang, just like that. Umm, we are dating. I don't get a say. We're not going to discussed this.” (I put felt in bold case because I said nothing about my feelings. I know I see the Irony because I talked a lot then, too) I was in college at U.T. Arlington so, I couldn't move with him. He stayed on my butt about getting my degree so, my moving with him was not even an option for me to even bring up. So now I have to Love someone so much to let them go away. That was the first time I Loved someone I dated. Heck this was the first man I Loved now I have to Love him this deep.Yet, I did it. We decided we would still date even though he was there and I was in school.

Here is my part of the story on how distance ruined our relationship. The Loneliness was Big. I started feeling lonely before he left. I think this is the first time I admitted that. I would get quiet sometimes during his visits and he would ask what was wrong. I would give him some stupid story to mask the fact that I didn't want him to go. He left Mid-December and by Valentine’s Day I was miserable. That day, I was delivering gifts for my best friend, LJ, to his dream girl at the time, for their date. I hung out with some buddies until their boyfriends got there. Got to my room and awaited his call. He called me the next day and I went in on him about how lonely I was. He started calling more often but he still was not there. Well with Loneliness came the Temptation. Oh my gosh, I was barely “not cheating”. Found out this one guy was interested and received every one of his compliment with big, Big smiles. Then I guess my miserable funk was detected by some of the people I hung out with because many of them were trying to set me up with guys. I Never went on dates with anyone but I did entertain phone calls from other men. J. Mac & my calls started waning a lot. He bought a cell phone (this was the late 90’s so there were no free minute anything back then) and I was running up miles on my calling card. Soon a lot of telephone tag was our form of Communication. Then for a minute we were quiet. We were quiet until the Big fight. Let’s say something dangerous happened to me. Well that triggered a series of drama that I needed to involve him. Well I was trying to tell him what was going but I asked him the wrong question first. An accusation got thrown my way. Then the gut wrenching insult was said, “Man, I thought you was calling me to tell me something happened to my sister”.  We ended that call in anger. I didn't get to tell him the real reason I called. We didn't speak until once in the Fall of 2002 and I was still a miffed about that situation (I have issues with holding grudges for extra long periods of time. Pray for me, please) but he seemed to be over it. Now the funny thing is was we were still technically boyfriend & girlfriend. LoL When I was still in the “Getting to Know You Stage” with Football Nerd, he asked about my last relationship and I explained it to him (J. Mac was the last one at that time). He asked “Is there any chance he could be coming back to claim you”. I said “No, I’m free”. I officially broke up with J. Mac in January of 2004 just to make it official when he surprisingly called me one day. I remembering him laughing and saying “Well I'm cheating on you anyway. So we might as well break up”. And actually at that time, I was starting another relationship too. Yeah, OutSpoken_Diva has cheated on a man. LoL Actually I really have but I’m in company with many of the population so, put your lying & judgmental finger down.

So, that’s why I decided distance is a hindrance in a relationship. I only told you my side of the story and how I played a part of the demise of J. Mac and me. I can't tell you his side. But I bet it was just as frustrating. I’m not equipped to handle that. If he has to leave and I can’t go, we Must end our relationship. Oh it is safe to say, If a man doesn't live in a "drivable" distance, I won't be dating him either.
I truly salute those that make it through Long Distanced dating.

As Always, Talking to You in Adult Terms

More Not Interested in Dating...

Ok life has a weird way of reminding you of more things that you don't believe in or won't to include in your life. Well a guy I think who might be interested in me (who ironically doesn't qualify His FE score is no where near 3 and some more stuff that I don't need to get into) asked me would I date a man with a disability. Didn't have to think about it. I know the answer. Well I got to thinking it is some more men out there I'm not interested in dating. So I'm continuing the Series with More Not Interested in Dating.

I will be talking about:
The Disabled
Long Distanced
On Probation or Paroled
Skin Color Issues
Friends of Relatives/Relatives of Friends
Military Soldiers (Grey Area)

So look forward to those. Long Distance will be first.

Also is there a type of  Positive & Legal Guy that you want to find if I would date. Let me know in the comments. I will answer you personally. Also go a read (and comment on) previous Not Interested in Dating... Blog Post
Preachers & Church Leaders (What started this actually)
Official Series Announcement
The Fashionably Unequally Yoked
Chubby Chasers
The Foreign Born
Strippers
My Dating Grey Areas (“Not Interesting in Dating” Supplement)

As Always, Talking to You in Adult Terms

Twinkie Clark - Awesome (African- American Music Month)

Let's kick off African-American Music Month with one of my favorite songs. It is my favorite song by this artist. We always say God is Awesome. This song is a perfect testament to how Amazing we should feel about God being Awesome. Listen to this song.

Oh I know you are not shocked I kicked off  African- American Music Month with Gospel. That's cute!!! LoL

As Always, Talking to You in Adult Terms