Mattie Moss Clark

Mattie Moss Clark (1925–1994) was an American gospel choir director, musician, and songwriter. She was born in Selma, Alabama, and began playing piano at age six. Over a career that spanned decades, she became one of the most recognizable figures in black gospel music, serving as the International Minister of Music for the Church of God in Christ (COGIC).

Clark is widely credited with introducing three-part harmony—soprano, alto, and tenor—to gospel choir arrangements, a technique that helped define the modern mass choir sound. She founded the Mattie Moss Clark Conservatory of Music in Detroit in 1979, and she recorded more than thirty albums during her lifetime.

Among her best-known recorded works are the 1958 single “Going to Heaven to Meet the King,” the album Salvation Is Free, and the songs “Climbing Up the Mountain” and “Wonderful, Wonderful.” Three albums she recorded with the Southwest Michigan State Choir were certified gold. In 1981 she received an honorary degree from Trinity College in Pennsylvania.

Clark was the mother of the gospel vocal group the Clark Sisters, whose sound she shaped through her leadership and arrangements. In 1997, three years after her death, she was posthumously inducted into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame, a recognition of her lasting contributions to gospel music and choral artistry.