Karen Carroll

Karen Carroll, a blues vocalist, entered the world in Chicago on January 30, 1958, with a lineage that pointed toward musical pursuits, given that her mother Jeanne Carroll performed as a blues and jazz singer and her godparents included guitarist George Freeman along with vocalist Bonnie Lee. Her stage appearances began at nine years old, and by fourteen she was playing guitar in her mother's ensemble; independence came at eighteen, when she honed her abilities in small South Side blues venues while crafting a profound singing approach shaped by jazz inflections and gospel fervor. The first recording featuring her arrived via Carey Bell's Son of a Gun in 1984, with an additional appearance on Eddie Lusk's Professor Strut from 1989, before her own initial release, Had My Fun, emerged in 1995 and Talk to the Hand followed two years afterward.