The Clark Sisters

Also known as The Sentimentalists while working with Tommy Dorsey & His Orchestra, the Clark Sisters were a close harmony singing quartet consisting of sisters Jean Clark, Ann Clark, Peggy Clark, and Mary Clark from Grand Forks, North Dakota. The oldest three sisters, Jean, Ann, and Peggy, began performing together as children, known as The Clark Kiddies. Achieving local fame in the 1930s, the sisters appeared on local radio and eventually moved to New York City, where they were featured on "The Major Bowes Amateur Hour". They toured with a USO show for several months in the early 1940s. (Teenage Mary, the youngest of the four, joined the group in New York at some point.) The quartet was signed by bandleader Tommy Dorsey in 1944 to replace departed vocalists The Pied Pipers. The four sisters were between the ages of seventeen and twenty-three at the time. Under the name The Sentimentalists, they recorded several hits with Dorsey and his band, including "Chicago" and "On the Sunny Side of the Street". Outside of their association with Tommy Dorsey, the Clark Sisters recorded under their own name for Capitol Records in the late 1940s, including a string of recordings with crooner Jack Smith. The sisters finally left Dorsey's band (and the "Sentimentalists" moniker) in 1953. The group moved to California and recorded (once again as the Clark Sisters) for the Dot Records and Coral Records labels, releasing a handful of albums in the late 1950s and early 1960s.