Mark Clarke

Who is Mark Clarke?

Mark Clarke is a British musician, bass player and singer.

After seeing the Beatles and many other bands in Liverpool as a young kid at age of 12, he decided to be a bass player. In 1966 Mark Clarke played with The Kegmen, in 1968 with The Locomotif and late 1968 with St. James Infirmary. Liverpool Echo called him in an article "The Joe Cocker of Liverpool". After a year of local gigs, he moved to London, where he was introduced to Clem Clempson, who played that time in Colosseum.

After some time Mark was asked by Jon Hiseman to join the Colosseum in summer 1970 and played in the band until the split late 1971, and again for 17 years from 1994 to 2011, after the reunion of the band. After Colosseum split in 1971 he was briefly a member of Uriah Heep, performing on one studio track, "The Wizard", on the 1972 album Demons & Wizards. In the beginning of 1973 he became a member of Jon Hiseman's Tempest and played bass on the two Tempest studio albums with Allan Holdsworth, Ollie Halsall and Paul Williams, and a live album issued later. He also played bass on Ken Hensley's solo albums.

In 1975 he formed Natural Gas with Joey Molland, Jerry Shirley and Peter Wood.