Karen Wolfe

Karen Wolfe launched her recording career in gospel as part of Soul Unlimited, yet she later built her reputation as a Southern blues-soul vocalist across multiple albums issued during the 2000s and 2010s.

She entered the world in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, on August 14, 1959, and spent her childhood immersed in gospel singing. At first she focused professionally on religious music, performing with Soul Unlimited and cutting her earliest release, Stop by Here, alongside the Harmonettes, the quartet that eventually became known as Direction. Marriage to Gary Wolfe, brother-in-law of celebrated soul-blues singer Denise LaSalle, prompted her shift from gospel to blues in 1992. The pair moved to Jackson, Tennessee, in 1997, the same year Karen joined LaSalle’s backing vocalists.

Following several years of road work with LaSalle, Wolfe inked a deal with B&J Records and delivered her debut album, First Time Out, in 2006. Three years afterward she issued A Woman Needs a Strong Man, which included the single “Man Enough.” She then moved to Coday Records for the 2012 project Telling It Like It Is; the same imprint brought out No Regrets in 2015. During summer 2017 Wolfe unveiled “That Bitch Ain’t Me,” whose cleaned-up version appeared as “That Chick Ain’t Me,” marking the lead single from her fifth album.