Anne Clark

Anne Clark is an English poet, songwriter, and musician from Croydon who released the 1983 album Changing Places on Red Flame, followed by a round of titles on Ten during the mid-to-late 1980s.

Background

Anne Charlotte Clark was born May 14, 1960, in Croydon, South London, England. Clark left school at sixteen and worked as a care assistant at Cane Hill psychiatric hospital. She then joined Bonaparte Records, an independent record shop and label in South London.

Clark joined the Warehouse Theatre as an unpaid administrator and programmed music, poetry, comedy, and theatre events for nearly two years. Her bookings included Paul Weller and Linton Kwesi Johnson. Clark also served as co-editor of Riot Stories, the publishing venture Weller established for young writers. The project led Faber & Faber to publish the anthology Hard Lines.

Clark made her live debut on Feb. 16, 1981, at Richard Strange’s Cabaret Futura in London. Local band A Cruel Memory backed her spoken-word set on a bill with Depeche Mode. Clark continued to combine spoken texts with instrumental settings through her association with A Cruel Memory. She signed with Red Flame and recorded the seven-track The Sitting Room for release in 1982.

Discography:

• The Sitting Room (EP, 1982)
• Changing Places (1983)
• Joined Up Writing (EP, 1984)
• Pressure Points (1985)
• Hopeless Cases (1987)