Mark Clarke | |
---|---|
Born |
Liverpool, England |
25 July 1950
Genres | Rock |
Occupation(s) | Musician |
Instruments | Bass |
Years active | 1966 – present |
Associated acts | Colosseum, Uriah Heep, Tempest, Mountain, Rainbow, Natural Gas, The Monkees, Billy Squier, Torque |
Mark Clarke (born 25 July 1950 in Liverpool) is an English musician, bass player and singer.
After seeing the Beatles and many other bands in Liverpool as a young boy at the age of 12, he decided to be a bass player. In 1966 Mark Clarke played with the Kegmen, in 1968 with the Locomotive and late 1968 with St. James Infirmary. Liverpool Echo called him in an article "The Joe Cocker of Liverpool". After a year of local gigs, he moved to London.
In London he was introduced to Clem Clempson, who played at that time in Colosseum. After some time Mark was asked by Jon Hiseman to join Colosseum in summer 1970 and played in the band until the split late 1971, and again from 1994 after the reunion of the band. After Colosseum split he was briefly around the turn of the years 1971/1972 a member of Uriah Heep, performing (and co-writing) on one studio track, "The Wizard", on the 1972 album Demons & Wizards. In the beginning of 1973 he became a member of Jon Hiseman's Tempest and played bass on the two Tempest studio albums with Allan Holdsworth, Ollie Halsall and Paul Williams, and a live album issued later. He also played bass on Ken Hensley's solo albums.
In 1975 he formed Natural Gas with Joey Molland, Jerry Shirley and Peter Wood. He also played in Mountain, Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow, and in 1980 started working with Billy Squier and recorded Don't Say No, The Stroke, In the Dark and many other albums with him. In 1986 he toured with The Monkees, and until recently still worked with Davy Jones. Clarke has also worked with Mountain,Ian Hunter and Torque, recording albums with all of them. With Colosseum he played from the reunion in 1994 to the farewell concert at BSE in London on the 28th of February in 2015.