Faye Carol

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Faye Carol

Background information
Genre(s)	Jazz, Blues
Occupation(s)	Singer
Years active	mid-60s – Present
Label(s)	Gamble Girls, World Stage
Website	www.FayeCarol.com

Faye Carol is a jazz and blues singer. She has been recognized as one of the San Francisco Bay Area’s most versatile and creative female vocal stylist for over three decades. Faye weaves the influences of jazz singers like Billie Holiday and Betty Carter and blues singers like Bessie Smith into her unique vocal tapestry. Faye Carol first got into music as a child in Meridian, Mississippi, where she sang in a gospel choir at a school where her grandmother taught. At age 10 she moved to Pittsburg, where she discovered Sam Cooke, Little Richard and eventually her true love -- rhythm and blues.^[1] She began her career in the mid-60s touring as a vocalist in Bay Area R&B and funk bands. In the 1970s she formed her own trio and found appreciative audiences in cabaret and jazz venues. The San Francisco Examiner once wrote that “no singer in the Bay area comes close to Carol’s sheer intensity; she doesn’t just sell a song . . . she sells her soul for that song.”^[2]

Faye’s illustrious career has included recording with the late drummer Billy Higgins and bassist Marcus Shelby (Flow on World Stage Records) and on-stage collaborations with Marvin Gaye, Ray Charles, Albert King, Charles Brown, Bobby Hutcherson, Ben Vereen, Steve Turre, Billy Higgins and Pharaoh Sanders. She has performed at a number of major music festivals including the Monterey Blues Festival, the Monterey Jazz Festival (with her daughter, pianist Kito Gamble), San Francisco Blues Festival, the San Francisco Jazz Festival, Berkeley Jazz Festival, and the San Jose Jazz Festival. She has also toured throughout Europe and Canada.

From 2001-2003 Carol Faye was a vocal teacher and director of the Music in the Community program at the Black Repertory Group in Berkeley, California.^[3] She has been the recipient of numerous awards throughout her career, including the KPFA BAJABA (Bay Area Jazz & Blues Artist) Bay Area Living Legend Award (2003), Top Star Awards as Entertainer of the Year (1994) and as Best Vocalist (1968). During the 1980s, she was a three-time winner of the Cabaret Gold Award and a recipient of the David Award as Outstanding Jazz and Blues Vocalist.^[4]