Rockabilly performer Sanford Clark dead at 85 from COVID-19

JOPLIN, Mo. (AP) — Rockabilly and country performer Sanford Clark, who had a Top 10 hit with “The Fool” in 1956, has died in Missouri from COVID-19 at age 85.

Clark’s publicist and fellow performer, Johnny Vallis, said on Monday that Clark died Sunday at Mercy Hospital in Joplin, where he had been receiving cancer treatment before he contracted the coronavirus.

Clark was born on October 24th, 1935, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and raised in Phoenix, where he first began performing in the early 1950s.

“The Fool” reached No. 7 on the Billboard Top 100. The song was later recorded by several other well-known artists, including Elvis Presley and The Animals.