Clara Ward gained national acclaim as the lead singer of the Famous Ward Singers, a group she formed with her mother and sister, achieving significant success with their energetic and emotional gospel performances. Clara Mae Ward was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on April 21, 1924, the daughter of George and Gertrude Mae Murphy. Gertrude supported her family by serving wealthy White families as a domestic. Following a revelation in a dream, Gertrude began singing gospel music in 1931, and performed in churches throughout the Philadelphia area. To be sure, it was Gertrude Murphy Ward who founded the renowned The Ward Trio in 1931, and Clara Ward was the seven-year-old lead singer. Clara and older sister Willarene (Willa) sang in their church choir and each received piano instructions. Clara attended South Philadelphia High School in 1940, but she dropped out of high school to pursue her musical career.
At the age of seventeen, Ward left music for romance and married Richard Bowman. It was short-lived, and within a year, she was back singing. The Ward Singers began touring nationally in 1943, following a memorable appearance at the National Baptist Convention held in Philadelphia, PA, earlier that year. The addition of virtuoso singer Marion Williams brought to the group a powerful singer with a preternaturally broad range, able to reach the highest registers of the soprano range without losing either purity or volume, with the added ability to descend "growling low notes" in the style of a country preacher. Williams' singing style helped make the group nationally popular when they began recording in 1948. Ward made her first recording, “Just One Moment,” in 1948. Her high-register singing, unique nasal tone, quivering moans, varied rhythms, and intense vocal delivery established her as an instant gospel music recording star.
In 1949, the Ward Singers toured from Philadelphia to California in their new Cadillac, appeared on national television programs, and recorded for the Miltone Record Company of Los Angeles. The Miltone recordings were purchased in a multi-artist package by Gotham Record Company, which had moved to Philadelphia. Ward was much taken with William Herbert Brewster’s composition “Our God Is Able,” and in 1949 she decided to record a new arrangement of the song, titled “Surely God Is Able.” Ward changed the tempo to three-quarter time, a waltz meter rare in gospel music, and added background refrains of “surely, surely,” in an infectious call-and-response. The Ward Singers’ release of “Surely God Is Able” in 1950 under the Gotham label became the first million-seller record by a gospel music group. With Ward’s success, the Famous Ward Sisters secured a multiyear contract with the Savoy Recording Company.
In 1950, Clara Ward and the Ward Singers of Philadelphia made their first Carnegie Hall appearance on a gospel program titled Negro Music Festival, produced by gospel music pioneer, Joe Bostic, sharing the stage with Mahalia Jackson. In 1952, the Ward Singers became the first Gospel group to headline a show at the famous Apollo Theater. Gertrude dressed the group in flamboyant sequined gowns, a novelty for gospel singers. Ward created a booking agency for gospel acts, sponsored tours under the name "the Ward Gospel Cavalcade", and in 1953, established a publishing house for gospel music, which she called "Ward's House of Music". She wrote an instructional manual for churches, detailing how to promote gospel programs. Gertrude created and managed a second group, "the Clara Ward Specials", to accompany the Ward Singers. Gertrude Ward was extremely controlling, managed finances, and dictated career moves.
Clara was composing, recording, and performing nationally on a relentless schedule. As musical director of the Ward franchise, Clara was willing to share the spotlight with her talented co-singers. Clara Ward had a long-term romantic relationship with the Reverend C. L. Franklin, a gospel singer and the father of Aretha Franklin, whose interest in singing Ward encouraged. Franklin was already married for much of that period, and his personal life was complicated and controversial. Ward’s mother and manager, Gertrude Ward, was strongly opposed to anything that might damage Clara’s career or reputation. The relationship with C. L. Franklin was likely her most significant and widely acknowledged romantic involvement after her early marriage. But it did not develop into anything lasting or publicly formalized, and much of the detail remains partly obscured by limited documentation and gospel-world discretion.
Clara Ward's success allowed her and her mother to move to an exclusive neighborhood in Los Angeles and purchase such luxuries as a purple, 12-passenger 1957 Chrysler limousine. In the late 1950’s she began performing in nightclubs, such as New York’s Village Vanguard. The 1958 the departure of the talented Marion Williams, who shared lead singing with Ward, was a blow to the group. She had demanded a raise and reimbursement for hotel expenses, but was rejected. She was followed shortly thereafter by the rest of the group. Their departure marked the end of the glory days for the Ward Singers, who later alienated much of their churchgoing audience by performing in Las Vegas, nightclubs, and other secular venues in the 1960s. The name of the group changed from the Ward Singers to the Clara Ward Specials and finally to the Clara Ward Singers. By this time, gospel singer Albertina Walker formed her group, the Caravans,
In 1963, Clara Ward was the second gospel singer to sing gospel songs on Broadway in Langston Hughes' play Tambourines to Glory (the first being her former group members, which starred Langston Hughes. It was the first Gospel stage play and the first play that featured an all Black cast to be produced on Broadway, "The Black Nativity"). She was also the play's musical director. Ward was the first gospel singer to sing with a 100-piece symphony orchestra in the 1960s. The Clara Ward Singers recorded an album together on the Verve label, "The Heart, the Faith, the Soul of Clara Ward". The Ward Singers performed their music live in Philadelphia with the city's Symphony and the Golden Voices Ensemble. Ward sang backup for pop artists with her sister Willa's background group, most notably on Dee Dee Sharp's hit, "Mashed Potato Time", which reached No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1962.
Continuing to break barriers, the Clara Ward Singers performed at the Philadelphia Academy of Music in 1967—the first gospel group do so. They also recorded with other groups, such as the Isley Brothers. During a performance in 1967 in Miami, Ward collapsed from a stroke. Rushed to the hospital, she recovered in three weeks. Her mother proclaimed her a “miracle girl” and arranged for her to resume her relentless performing schedule. In 1968, the Clara Ward Singers toured Vietnam at the request of the U.S. State Department and the U.S.O. It was a popular war-time tour supported by recorded radio broadcasts of the Ward Singers on U.S. Armed Forces Radio. The Ward Singers narrowly missed death when their hotel in Vietnam was bombed and several guests died. Ward acted in the Hollywood movie "A Time to Sing" in 1968, starring Hank Williams, Jr., and Shelley Fabares, Ed Begley. Ward was invited back to Vietnam by U.S.O. in 1969 for several more months. These war-time tours were filmed and all the Ward Singers were given special certificates of recognition by the U.S. Army.
Clara Ward died on January 16, 1973 at age 48 as a result of several strokes. Aretha Franklin and Rev. C. L. Franklin sang at her funeral in Philadelphia, Marion Williams sang at her second memorial service held days later in Los Angeles. For her monumental impact in the world of gospel music, Ward has received numerous awards including being posthumously inducted in the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1977 in New York City. Her surviving sister, Willa, accepted the award in her honor. Clara Ward’s talents as a singer were noted early and brought the Ward sisters to prominence in the world of gospel music. Their songs featured a call and response that was one of the most exciting elements of their gospel style. Although criticized in later years for commercialism, Ward and her group had a significant influence on gospel and popular singers, notably Aretha Franklin, and helped transform gospel into a dominant mainstream genre.
Clara Ward’s legacy is manifold. In popularity as a female gospel singer in the 1940’s and 1950’s, Ward was outshone only by Mahalia Jackson. Ward was also a talented arranger of gospel music. She and her singers were the first all-female gospel group organized on a permanent basis. Under Gertrude’s aggressive and demanding management, Ward and her singers pioneered numerous techniques. They excelled in a lead-switching style. Their songs featured a call and response that was one of the most exciting elements of their gospel style. Ward’s singing incorporated jazz and blues elements with gospel, and Gertrude had the singers abandon their church robes for elegant dresses, sequined gowns, beehive hairstyles, and coiffured wigs. On stage and in public, Ward projected confidence and authority. She didn’t just sing; she led the Ward Singers with precision and power. Ward embraced: stylish gowns, theatrical presentation, and refined stage choreography. Clara Ward didn’t just sing gospel, she reshaped how it was presented to the world, even while paying a personal price.