The Magnificent Clara Ward — Just Over the Hill: Rare Recordings, 1949-1972

It didn’t have to come to this. The divine magic needn’t have ended so tragically. Or, most certainly, so soon. She was only 48.

Clara Ward—no, make that The Magnificent Clara Ward—was at the tip-top of her game. By association, the same went for her often accompanying Ward Singers. Life buzzed with activity: Labels snapped up recording session after recording session. National as well as international tours rang up miles. Top-shelf venues—the Apollo Theater, Carnegie Hall, Madison Square Garden, the Newport Jazz Festival—booked performances. A Las Vegas hotel extendedly blocked off a standing residence in their lounge for a handful of years. Even the polar extremes from the Playboy Mansion to Disneyland couldn’t pass up the hot ticket that was Clara and her crew.

But you didn’t have to attend one of her concerts or purchase one of her LPs to be spellbound. Chances came even easier. Right to your front door, in fact. Because the five-foot-three Philadelphian with the versatile voice beamed straight into American living rooms by way of television screens that flickered with The Ed Sullivan Show to The Tonight Show.

The limelight did not end there. Elvis Presley was a huge fan. Aretha Franklin was a protégé. Little Richard was an idolizer to the point of copying those spontaneous, high-pitched hollers spiking up through her “Get In a Hurry” and “That’s Enough For Me” in order to heat up his “Good Golly, Miss Molly” and “Tutti Frutti” with similarly yodeled wooooooo’s. Then there were the sequined gowns and mountainous wigs, swishing and swaying in choreographed movement, that offered a glamorous look no one had seen before within this style of music. Clara and her Ward Singers were God’s own Diana Ross & the Supremes.

Even more impressive is knowing that Ward conquered the public eye by singing … gospel. Not rock-and-roll. Not rhythm-and-blues. Not pop. But the Lord’s music. And anywhere was fair game for pew-shakers like “Oh Glory Hallelujah” or slow, smoldering rollers such as “Salvation Is Free.” Out there beyond the traditional limits of the church circuit—the Ward Singers’ original source of faithful audiences—lurked the broad, deep mainstream for those willing (and daring enough) to cross over.

That said, it doesn’t take long to understand why Ward accessed so much territory, both sacred and secular. Three minutes will suffice. Simply try “You’ll Never Walk Alone,” when she alone sidled up to a microphone in 1958 and began levitating. Her alto taps into achingly soft tones; the band follows her lead with a guitar gently doing laps around and around pillowy swells of organ. But since the song’s message of assurance rises to the level of personal empowerment, she too builds and climbs into the finale’s soaring heights.

Or skip to “A City Called Heaven” for peak drama. Although only nine years ahead, the arrangement seems light years removed. Its words, unfurled in long, drawn breaths, speak brutally and honestly to a (near) hopeless case of emotional darkness. A bank of strings sweeps across the sorrow, dialing up the bittersweetness. The crush is tragic—yet absolutely sublime and forever haunting. As with Dinah Washington likewise hanging on by a thread through “This Bitter Earth” in 1960, no amount of time or space can diminish Ward’s profoundly transmitted anguish.

Still, you can never go wrong with any of Ward’s more classic gospel presentations. Namely, simpler accompaniment akin to what churchgoers could readily hear on any given Sunday: a pianist twinkling above and an organist percolating below. Such is the basic setup for the ironically peppy “Tired” and the panoramic “From Youth to Old Age.” “I Am Happy” beams an uplifting smile every which way possible: lyrically, musically and spiritually. Five songbirds sing “Are You Ready” as one, whereas “Don’t Wait Too Late” instead splits off the backing ladies for caffeinated blasts of call-and-response to Clara’s lead. Add some pattering drums here and there, and they’re good to go.

Although plenty of Clara Ward albums are out there, Just Over the Hill angles to separate from the pack by virtue of its 27 hand-selected tracks, fortified with tougher-to-find treasures such as the simmer-to-boiling title track. Spanning 1949 through 1972 affords opportunity to hear the growth of Clara’s voice; the comings and goings of her Singers (which, at one point, counted the great Marion Williams among its ranks); and the evolution of the genre, in general, across the decades. A lot of fame lives within these 77 minutes.

The toll for such was dreadfully steep, however. Gertrude, one of the Ward Singers who doubled as the group’s taskmaster of a manager and promoter, shoved and pushed without relent. Her campaign of maximal exposure simply ground Clara down: There was always another city, another stage, another studio, another night, another opportunity. Anxiety and exhaustion accelerated into a series of strokes that ultimately proved too much. On January 16, 1973, Gertrude Ward lost her daughter; the world lost one of the great gospel travelers. But the heavens prematurely gained a shining star.

Label: Gospel Friend

Release date: 7/25/25

Label website: gospelfriend

Reviewed by Dennis Rozanski