Daisy Mae (March 25, 1916 - August 8, 1986) was a Country & Western Singer, who also sang as a duet with her Husband Old Brother Charlie (Charlie Arnett).
Daisy Mae, was born Ethel Irene Reddy in St. Louis, Missouri. As a child she learned how to play various instruments including the Hammond organ, guitar, bass and piano. Her show business career started at the age of 14 when she appeared near her home town on radio with a band called the "Shadey Valley Folks ". Daisy first married Joseph Garcia in St. Louis and had a daughter, Bonita Lee, but the marriage soon broke up. Daisy wanted a career more than anything else.
In 1944 she joined the Rentro Valley Barn Dance in Kentucky, where she met Charlie Arnett. They Had once met before in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Only six months later, while on tour in Texas, Charlie and Daisy Mae got married. She later gave birth to another daughter Sandra Kay. Bonnie went back to Missouri to live with her grandmother.
In 1946 Charlie put a band together called the "Haymakers" at WMMN, West Virginia. Two years later the Arnetts formed a new country duo and appeared regularly on "Radio Ranch" as Daisy Mae and Old Brother Charlie, on the Tampa Daily Times own station WDAE in Tampa, Florida, where the couple resided. This led to a recording contract with Mercury Records for whom they recorded 26 sides. In 1949 the duo opened a record shop. On May 15, 1951, a one year contract with Columbia Records had started with whom they recorded 28 sides.
Daisy Mae & Charlie
In the meantime TV had arrived in the Tampa Bay area, which brought the Arnetts back to Florida in 1953. Each Thursday night they could be seen on WSUN-TV, channel 38, on the show "Home Folks" with their own songs. But due to too much competition of new established TV stations, "Home Folks" went off the air in 1955. The couple still had a full-time radio show on country music station WHBO in Sulphur Springs, after which they were playing on the political circuit, but late in 1956, Charlie left town and left Daisy Mae penniless behind.
She returned for a short time to Missouri and worked some modest jobs, but eventually resumed singing as a solo artist on WHBO. The Daisy Mae Show lasted until the mid 60's. One of the rarer historic records is a 1963 radio broadcast in Tampa, Florida, where Daisy Mae was visited by western Gospel singer Patsy Prescott. All that time Daisy Mae lived with her mother Pearl Miller in Temple Terrace. Her last job was a clerk in a card shop. She died on August 8, 1986.
(Scant information edited from Album liner notes & Discogs)
Kalaparusha Maurice McIntyre (March 24, 1936 – November 9, 2013) was an American free jazz tenor saxophonist, who also played flute, clarinet and percussion, and occasionally performed in face paint and tribal costume.
Maurice Benford McIntyre was born into a well-educated family in Clarksville, Arkansas, the child of a pharmacist and a schoolteacher, and was raised in Chicago. Music was an integral part of his upbringing; his parents insisted he play an instrument. He started on drums at age seven and switched to saxophone shortly after. Upon high-school graduation, McIntyre attended the Chicago College of Music.He was an early convert to the world of narcotics, and at the age of 24 found himself serving a two year drug sentence alongside the pianist and composer Tadd Dameron, a major figure in bebop. By accounts, he spent the bulk of his days in prison studying and practicing the saxophone. When released in 1963, time had served him well. He was filled with musical fire.
Here's the title track from above album
McIntyre made contact with the tutelary co-founder of AACM, Muhal Richard Abrams, and became one of the most passionate and articulate spokesmen of the Chicago-based Association and an exponent of fiery but spacious "spirit jazz". He described the AACM's mission, and his own, in strikingly dramatic terms. The new black avant-garde, he said, was "the stranded particle, the isolated island of the whole", at war with, but also to some degree still dependent on, the confused normality of the mainstream political and cultural system. It was this vision that fuelled his work.
His record Humility In The Light of the Creator was released on the Delmark label in 1969, followed by the fine Forces and Blessings. He adopted the name Kalaparush Ahra Difda, but later reverted an extended version of his birth name. McIntyre moved to New York City in the 1970s and worked at Karl Berger's Creative Music Studio for a time, recording further material for the European Black Saint label, but it was as a teacher, guru and community-based musician that McIntyre made his greatest impact. He and Muhal Richard Abrams toured Europe several times.
Between 1977 and 1984 he recorded seven full length records. Four find him as the bandleader. On two he shared the billing (Jerome Cooper, Frank Lowe / Roland Alexander). On the final he’s a member of a collective (Ethnic Heritage Ensemble). It was a very productive time. Many of those records rank among the best of the era. But by then the music industry seemed to have wholly abandoned him.
Every now and then, with the assistance of longtime friends or younger admirers, Kalaparusha would emerge with a new band, playing in underground spots in Brooklyn, or recording for true-believer independent labels. In those instances, one was quickly reminded of the beauty of his sound and the power of his conception. But his last years were difficult; he made most of his living playing in the subway, as portrayed in a heartbreaking and troubling documentary short film by Danilo Parra, in which he sadly regards his own horn as a “starvation box.”
His next major appearance on record was not until 1998, with Pheeroan akLaff and Michael Logan; the following year, he played with many AACM ensemble members on the album Bright Moments. Intermittent drug use harmed his career, but McIntyre returned strongly in the first decade of the new century, continuing to record as leader with further explorations that combined avant-garde saxophone playing and roots music. Some of his later work demands a sympathetic ear to extract much pleasure, but McIntyre was not primarily interested in the commodification of music as entertainment.
Last sightings had him working as a street musician, preparing new material in the midst of the community, which is where he felt most comfortable. His is an individual tragedy; whether through bad luck or bad choices, he never received the attention his artistry deserved, and never received the financial or societal support that might have allowed him to make a full recovery, or at least better manage his illness.
He died from heart failure 9th November 2013, in The Bronx, New York, at the age of 77.
(Edited from The Independent, The New Yorker & Wikipedia)
Louisiana Red (March 23, 1932 – February 25, 2012) was an American blues guitarist, harmonica player, and singer, who recorded more than 50 albums. A master of slide guitar, he played both traditional acoustic and urban electric styles, with lyrics both honest and often remarkably personal. His career includes collaborations with artists as Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, Eric Burdon, and others. He could create moods and textures, both musically and spiritually, and had the ability of falling so deep into his own songs that he would go to tears, making his audience cry with him. That was the gift of this great artist. It is surprising that he was not better known, as he performed almost continuously for more than fifty years and played with a host of legendary figures.
Wikipedia lists Louisiana Red as being born Iverson Minter, in Bessemer, Alabama but his own reports have fluctuated from various Southern towns and cities. Red lost his mother at birth and his father was killed in a Ku Klux Klan lynching when Red was just 5 years old. He lived in an orphanage in New Orleans for a few a his childhood years until his grandmother took him to Pittsburgh to live. When he was 11 years old she bought him his first guitar, a $12 Kay. Red would play along with records and the radio and begged some guitar lessons from his first mentor, Crit Walters. It was early in life that Red made the decision to become a blues musician. At sixteen, Minter lied about his age and joined the U.S. Army, serving in Korea during the Korean War. Minter was assigned to a labour battalion and spent his evenings belting out the blues at the service club. He went through a series of stage names when he was establishing himself, but the nickname associated with his passion for oysters doused in Louisiana red pepper sauce is the one that stuck.
Red with Muddy Waters
In the late 1940s Red would follow his passion to Detroit where he would become friends with Eddie Burns and John Lee Hooker. He would make his first recordings in Detroit for producer Joe Von Battle under the moniker of Rocky Fuller, a pair of these recordings were leased to Chess records. He would accompany John Lee Hooker on a session for Modern Records and you can hear Red shouting “Lord Have Mercy” in the middle of JLH’s “Down Child”. In 1953 Red landed a deal with Chicago’s influential Chess Records after playing a song over the phone for label co-owner Phil Chess, who sent him a bus ticket for Chicago.
The man who picked Red up at the station to drive him to meet Chess was Muddy Waters, who was to become one of the label’s biggest stars. During that recording session he was accompanied by Little Walter on the brilliant “Funeral Hearse At My Door” which remained in the vaults unreleased for decades. Red’s next stop would be New York where he would record for producer Bobby Robinson and for Atlas Records. But it was Louisiana Red’s 1962 Roulette label recordings that garnered him national recognition as a bluesman. His single “Red’s Dream” with its humorous political commentary became a major hit and was followed by his first album The Lowdown Back Porch Blues, recorded in New York City with Tommy Tucker and released in 1963.
His second album, Seventh Son, was released later the same year. Louisiana Red released the single "I'm Too Poor to Die" for the Glover label in 1964. It peaked at number 117 on the Billboard Hot 100 and number 30 on the Cashbox chart. (Billboard did not publish an R&B chart in 1964.) In the mid 70s he became the cornerstone of the Blue Labor label cutting two excellent solo acoustic albums; Sweet Blood Call and Dead Stray Dog and also appearing on that label as a featured sideman on albums by Johnny Shines, Roosevelt Sykes, Brownie McGhee, and Peg Leg Sam. He was romantically involved with folk legend Odetta for a small period of time in the 1970s. European promoters and booking agents took an interest, and Red found a new audience with his annual overseas tours.
After his appearance at the Montreux Jazz Festival in 1975, Louisiana Red was acclaimed as a master of the slide guitar and a powerful and effective singer. Labels such as L+R from Germany and JSP from England began recording Red, the latter debuting their catalog with Red, Funk and Blue, a duet album with Sugar Blue. Red appeared as himself in the movie Come Back featuring Eric Burdon of Animals fame. Red lived in Chicago for awhile in the early 1980s where he worked at the Delta Fish Market. He would then move to Phoenix in late 1981 where he lived and played with Bob Corritore for about a year.
Red left Phoenix for a European tour in late 1982, and it was then and there that he met his true love, Dora, who he married and spent the rest of his life with. Dora gave Red an uncompromised love and the constant companionship and protective looking-out-for that Red needed. Dora also provided the family situation that Red yearned for in his life as Red took great pride in his love and adoption of Dora’s sons. The positive impact and dedication that Dora provided Red was simply amazing. Red would live in Hanover Germany for the rest of his life with Dora and each year in January, the two would vacation in Ghana, Africa, Dora’s country of origin. He found work so plentiful in Europe that for a period of time he rarely would come to the USA.
In 1995 Earwig Records would release Sittin’ Here Wondering. which had been recorded by Bob Corritore in 1982 and sat on the shelf for over a decade. This CD created a relationship between Red and Earwig label chief Michael Frank who would record 2 more records by Red and book annual US tours. In 1983 he received the W.C. Handy Award as best traditional blues artist. In 1994, Louisiana Red fused the blues with the urban Greek music of the bouzouki player Stelios Vamvakaris, on the album Blues Meets Rembetika. In 2005, Louisiana Red, became the central figure in the documentary film 'Red and Blues' directed by the German-Finnish filmmaker Susanna Salonen. The documentary chronicles Louisiana Red's life touring across Germany, providing an intimate look into his experiences as an elderly African-American blues artist residing in Europe.
Red & Bob Corritore
Releases followed on High Tone and Severn as well as a documentary DVD released only in Europe. In 2009 Little Victor struck gold with his production of Red’s Back To The Black Bayou CD released first on the Bluestown Label and then picked up by Ruf Records. Victor had idolized and studied under Red for years and lovingly coaxed this brilliant album from his mentor. Back To The Black Bayou swept Europe and the US with awards and nominations.
Simultaneously, Red’s collaborationwith pianist David Maxwell produced You Got To Move, and in 2010 Red would go to the Blues Music Awards with 5 nominations and receive 2 wins for acoustic blues artist of the year and acoustic album of the year for his duet with pianist David Maxwell, “You Got to Move.” Little Victor also produced Red’s final critically acclaimed CD Memphis Mojo. In 2011, Louisiana Red released the album Memphis Mojo, to broad public acclaim. Minter adopted Dora’s two sons and together they resided in Hanover, Germany.
English slide guitarist Michael Messer noted on February 25, 2012, that he was very sorry to be the bringer of such sad news that his dear friend, Louisiana Red, died that morning in a Hanover hospital, aged 79. He had a stroke a week earlier due to a thyroid imbalance, and had been in a coma.
(Edited from Blues Magazine, Wikipedia, Los Angeles Times & Independent)
Keith Relf (22 March 1943 – 12 May 1976) was an English musician, best known as the lead vocalist and harmonica player for rock band the Yardbirds. He then formed the band Renaissance with his sister Jane Relf, the Yardbirds ex-drummer Jim McCarty and ex–The Nashville Teens keyboardist John Hawken.
When people remember the Yardbirds, the British blues-based band that came to prominence in the mid to late 60s, what they remember most is the triumvirate of guitar players that used the group as a launching pad to stardom: Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, and future Led Zeppelin founder Jimmy Page. While there is no doubt that these now world-famous guitarists contributed greatly to the Yardbirds’ sound, another less-famous member gave the group voice, performing presence, and direction. That man was Keith Relf.
William Keith Relf was born in Richmond, Surrey, England. He was the eldest child and only son of William Relf and Mary Vickers. He Ched onto American rhythm and blues as a teenager. Influenced by the likes of Sonny Boy Williamson, Relf began to play harmonica in school and then in bands around the summer of 1956 as also a singer and guitarist. e was in a band with Paul Samwell-Smith called The Metropolitan Blues Quartet. They met Chris Dreja, Jim McCarty and Top Topham and backed Cyril Davies at Kingston Art School, which led to the forming of The Yardbirds in 1963, the name which was apparently first chosen by Relf according to McCarty which he likely chose from Jack Kerouac's novel On the Road, where it referred to railroad yard hobos.
Relf co-wrote many of the original Yardbirds songs ("Shapes of Things", "I Ain't Done Wrong", "Over Under Sideways Down", "Happenings Ten Years Time Ago"), later showing a leaning towards acoustic/folk music as the sixties unfolded ("Only the Black Rose"). He also sang an early version of "Dazed and Confused" in live Yardbirds concerts, after hearing musician Jake Holmes perform the song, which was later recorded by the band's successor group Led Zeppelin.
Most of Relf's recordings were released under the name of the group he was in at the time. However, an early attempt was made to establish him as a solo musician, and two singles came out under his own name in 1966. His debut solo single, "Mr. Zero", peaked at No. 50 in the UK Singles Chart in May 1966. That year he married April Liversidge. They had two sons, Danny and Jason.
After the Yardbirds broke up in July 1968, Relf formed the acoustic duo Together, with fellow Yardbird Jim McCarty, followed immediately by Renaissance (which also featured his sister Jane Relf). After leaving Renaissance in 1970, he started producing other artists: Steamhammer, folk rock band Hunter Muskett, the acoustic world music group Amber, psychedelic band Saturnalia, and blues rock band Medicine Head (with whom he also played bass guitar).
Armegeddon
In 1974, he formed progressive/rock group Armageddon. Their self-titled debut, Armageddon, was recorded in England and released in the United States on A&M Records. The album's original liner notes used the term "supergroup"; their personnel (besides Relf) included drummer Bobby Caldwell (previously a member of Captain Beyond and Johnny Winter's band), guitarist Martin Pugh (from Steamhammer, The Rod Stewart Album, and later of 7th Order), and bassist Louis Cennamo (also formerly of Renaissance and Steamhammer).Following the breakup of Armageddon, Relf and Cennamo reassembled the original line-up of Renaissance, now under the name Illusion because a new line-up of Renaissance was still using the original name. Relf's final recordings before his death were a series of demos by Illusion. Illusion went on to record a series of albums after Relf died, with Cennamo later commenting, "In some way, we did so as a tribute to Keith."
Relf was a lifelong chronic asthmatic and nearly died on three occasions as a child during a bad asthma attacks. His respiratory problems led to him losing a lung; in 1964, Relf passed out during the Yardbirds' first U.S. tour after a lung collapsed, resulting in the lung being removed. In his last years he developed emphysema.
Keith and sister Jane Relf
On 12 May 1976, Relf died in the basement of his home at age 33 from electrocution while playing an electric guitar. He was discovered by his son Daniel. He may have been taking medications such as theophylline, commonly used to treat respiratory diseases at the time, and these drugs may have led to tachycardia and/or arrhythmia which possibly contributed to his inability to survive the electric shock. His death was announced two days later on 14 May, which is sometimes erroneously listed as the date of his death. He was only 33 years old. He was buried in Richmond Cemetery.
In 1989 a single was released on MCCM in the US only. Together Now" / "All The Fallen Angels" – MCCM 89 002 (1989) The A-side was originally recorded in 1968 by Together. The B-side was recorded on 2 May 1976, ten days before Relf's death. His's posthumous 1992 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction with the Yardbirds was represented by his widow April, and sons Danny and Jason ("Jay").
Gary Buck (born 21 March 1940 in Thessalon, ON; died 14 October 2003 was a singer, songwriter, record producer, executive, administrator and one of Canadian country music’s most accomplished and versatile talents. He excelled at virtually every aspect of the business during his 45-year career.
He recorded dozens of hit singles, worked as a leading producer and a record executive, and started his own recording and publishing firm, which handled some of the top names in Canadian music. He also served five terms as international director of the Country Music Association in Nashville, co-founded the Academy of Country Music Entertainment (now the Canadian Country Music Association) and founded the Canadian Country Music Hall of Fame, which inducted him in 2001.
Gary Ralph Buck was born in Thessalon but grew up in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. As a child he played guitar and bass and in his teens he formed his band the Rock-A-Billies. He sang on CKCY radio with Ray Kovisto's band The Country Caravan. After briefly playing semi-pro baseball, he made his first recordings for the Canatal label in Toronto in 1959. In 1963, his song “Happy to Be Unhappy” was an international hit for the American label Petal, reaching No. 1 on the country chart of the American trade magazine Cashbox and cracking the Billboard country chart, making him only the third Canadian (after Hank Snow and Myrna Lorrie) to achieve that feat. Buck was subsequently hailed as Newcomer of the Year by Cashbox.
Other singles followed, including a second US hit, “The Wheel Song” (1964), and several others that reached No. 1 on the RPM country chart in Canada, including “The Weather Man” (1966), “Break the News to Lisa” (1965), “Mr. Brown” (1969) and “Wayward Woman of the World” (1970).In the mid-1960s, Buck moved from Sault Ste. Marie to Kitchener, ON, where he starred on CKCO-TV's The Gary Buck Show (1967–69). He appeared on other Canadian and US country music TV shows and made several appearances in the late 1960s and early 1970s at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville. Buck’s later hits included “It Takes Time” (1971), “Saunders’ Ferry Lane” (1973), “What'll I Do” (1975) and “You Can't Change Horses” (1998). He also wrote and recorded many jingles. Among his later recordings were Western Swing & Country (1998) and the gospel album Don't Be Standin' on the Outside (2002).
Buck was also a prolific and sought-after producer, working on recordings by George Hamilton IV, Dallas Harms, Dick Damron, the Family Brown, Tommy Hunter, the Mercey Brothers, Al Cherny, Wayne Rostad, Billie Jo Spears, Johnny Duncan, Gene Watson and others. His own songs have been recorded by such pop and country artists as Bobby Curtola, Donna Darlene, Hunter, the Mercey Brothers and Orval Prophet, among many others. His own discography included more than 50 singles, as well as LPs for such labels as Canatal, Petal (issued by Sparton in Canada), Capitol, Tower, RCACamden and Broadland.
In 1970, Buck began to divide his time between performance and administration, serving as general manager from 1970 to 1971 of Capitol Records’ publishing affiliate, Beechwood Music. In this role he was instrumental in launching such significant songs as Anne Murray’s recording of Gene MacLellan’s “Snowbird,” George Hamilton IV’s cover of Damron’s “Countryfied,” and Gene Watson’s version of Harms’ “Paper Rosie.” He was co-founder of label Arpeggio in 1972. Founder of publishing companies Broadland Music Ltd., Doubleplay Music, and Grandslam Music in 1972. Founder of label Broadland in 1974 (which he sold controlling interest in, along with the two publishing companies, to Quality Records Limited in 1976). Founded label GB in 1977. He also founded Broadland International in Nashville in 1990 with a largely US roster that included George Hamilton IV. While based out of Kitchener, Ontario, in the 1970’s, Gary Buck hosted his own TV series on CKCO-TV and was regularly featured as a special guest on country radio and TV shows across Canada, in Nashville, and while touring with his band Loose Change in Australia, New Zealand and in 1979 the UK.
Buck served as international director of the Country Music Association in Nashville for five non-consecutive two-year terms, the first in 1970 and the fifth starting in 1990. In 1976, he co-founded the Academy of Country Music Entertainment (now Canadian Country Music Association). He also founded the Canadian Country Music Hall of Fame, which began inducting individuals in 1984 and officially opened in Kitchener in 1989, eventually relocating to the Stampede grounds in Calgary in 1999. Buck later served as president of the Hall and was inducted in both artist and builder categories in 2001.Buck continued to produce albums for Hamilton and many Canadian musicians from Broadland's Nashville and Calgary offices until his death from cancer in Didsbury, Alberta, 14 October 2003 ,leaving behind a legacy unmatched in its breadth. He was posthumously inducted into the Northern Ontario Country Music Association’s Hall Of Fame in 2004.
(Edited from The Canadian Encyclopaedia, Soo Music Project & AllMusic)
Martha Carson (March 19, 1921 – December 16, 2004), born Irene Amburgey, was an American gospel-country music singer most popular during the 1950s.
The Amburgey Sisters
Amburgey was born in Neon, Kentucky (since absorbed into Fleming-Neon). She and her two sisters were spotted by radio barn-dance impresario John Lair and invited to join the cast of the WSB Barn Dance in Atlanta in 1938. The Amburgey sisters were given the hayseed names of Minnie, Marthie, and Mattie. After Amburgey left the group and teamed with her husband, mandolin player James Carson, in the 1940s, the stage name stuck and she became Martha Carson.
James & Martha Carson
The duo performed (with Martha on guitar) as the "Barn Dance Sweethearts". By the time of her divorce from James Carson in 1950, Martha had begun making solo appearances on Knoxville's WNOX radio. However, she couldn't record because the Barn Dance Sweethearts' label, Capitol, had them contracted through 1957 and refused to let her go solo, instead trying to pair her up with other male singers.
She began doing session work instead, appearing on The Carlisles' "Too Old to Cut the Mustard," "No Help Wanted," and other recordings by that group of unrelated performers headed by WNOX stalwart Bill Carlisle. Things began to change after Carson met Fred Rose in Nashville. He helped convince Capitol to let her record alone, and in 1951 she made her solo-single debut with "Satisfied", a gospel song she had written in response to audience disapproval over her divorce. The combination of Carson's powerful alto voice and the song's propulsive handclap backbeat formed one of the blocks on which early rock & roll was built. The song featured backup by Carlisle, Chet Atkins, and Carson's sister, Opal, now known as Jean Chapel. Although the song was not a hit at first, it gained momentum continuously over the next several years.
By 1955, Carson was living and recording all her work in New York. She had a series of minor hits that included "This Ole House", and "Saints and Chariot", a combination of two old favorites that Presley later covered in concert. After signing with the William Morris Agency in 1957, Carson and Crosse became full-time residents of New York, and she gained national exposure by appearing on The Steve Allen Show. She moved temporarily away from gospel-oriented music and toward citified country-pop, appearing on Tennessee Ernie Ford's television program and pursuing a style shaped in part by his big, low vocals and pop orchestral arrangements. It was a successful move for a time, but by the late 1950s, her star began to wane.
She remained in the music scene during the later 1960s and 70s, writing and performing in Tennessee, but she did not record again until the Starday/Gusto company approached her in 1977, asking her to re-record some of her songs for a Greatest Hits album. Carson agreed, and also recorded some of the new songs she had recently written. In the late 1970s, with her two sons grown, she began to devote more time to her love of music, playing many areas of the southern states. Audiences greeted her with great affection. She made appearances on Pop! Goes the Country and Nashville Now, and one of her songs was featured on an episode of the TV series Fame in 1983. Her comeback was cut short by the illness of her husband, Xavier. She went into retirement to care for him until his death in November 1990.
In 1996, the Kentucky legislator awarded Martha Carson an Honorable Citation for her contribution to country and gospel music. A Highway was named in her honor near her home town of Neon. In 2001, Carson's 80th birthday party was attended by many country singers including Melba Montgomery, Sonny James, Kitty Wells and Stonewall Jackson (musician). On December 16, 2004, Carson died at age 83 in Nashville, Tennessee.She had been in fragile health for the past year.
Irene Cara (March 18, 1959 – November 25, 2022) was an American singer and actress.
Irene Cara Escalera was born in the Bronx, New York, the youngest of five children of Louise, a Cuban-American cinema usher, and Gaspar Escalera, a Puerto Rican factory worker and saxophonist. From five years old she studied piano, dance and acting, making her Broadway debut, aged nine, in the musical She started singing and dancing professionally on Spanish-language television and made early TV appearances on The Original Amateur Hour (singing in Spanish) and Johnny Carson's The Tonight Show.
In 1971, she was a regular on PBS's educational program The Electric Company as a member of the Short Circus, the show's band, appearing as a member during the show’s first season. In 1975 she made her film debut as Angela in Aaron Loves Angela, a “Romeo and Juliet” comedy drama set in Harlem. The following year she played the title role of Sparkle Williams in the Sparkle (1976), a rags to riches musical loosely based on the story of the Supremes. John Willis' Screen World, Vol. 28, named her one of twelve "Promising New Actors of 1976"; that same year, a readers' poll in Right On! magazine named her Top Actress.
Cara was proudest of landing a role in the 1979 television mini-series Roots: The Next Generations, in which she was cast as Alex Haley’s mother from adolescence to the age of 30. “Roots was the biggest thing in American TV history and it put my career and my mind on the right path,” she recalled. She burst on to the scene as rising star Coco Hernandez in Alan Parker’s 1980 hit movie Fame, topping the charts with the title track, which won Michael Gore a best original song Oscar.
The 1980 hit film Fame, directed by Alan Parker, catapulted Cara to stardom. She originally was cast as a dancer, but when producers David Da Silva and Alan Marshall and screenwriter Christopher Gore heard her voice, they re-wrote the role of Coco Hernandez for her to play. In this part, she sang both the title song "Fame" and the single "Out Here on My Own", which were both nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song. These songs helped make the film's soundtrack a chart-topping, multi-platinum album, and it was the first time that two songs from the same film and sung by the same artist were nominated in the same category. Cara had the opportunity to be one of the few singers to perform more than one song at the Oscar ceremony; "Fame", written by Michael Gore and Dean Pitchford, won the award for best original song that year, and the film won the Academy Award for Best Original Score.
Cara earned Grammy Award nominations in 1980 for Best New Artist and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance, as well as a Golden Globe nomination for Best Motion Picture Actress in a Musical. Billboard named her Top New Single Artist, and Cashbox magazine awarded her both Most Promising Female Vocalist and Top Female Vocalist. Asked by Fame TV series producers to reprise her role as Coco Hernandez, she declined, wanting to focus her attention on her recording career; Erica Gimpel assumed the role.
In 1983, Cara reached the peak of her music career with the title song for the movie Flashdance: "Flashdance... What a Feeling", which she co-wrote with Giorgio Moroder and Keith Forsey. Cara wrote the lyrics to the song with Keith Forsey while riding in a car in New York heading to the studio to record it; Moroder composed the music. Cara admitted later that she was initially reluctant to work with Giorgio Moroder because she had no wish to invite comparisons with Donna Summer, another artist who worked with Moroder. The song became a hit in several countries, attracting several awards for Cara. She shared the 1983 Academy Award for Best Original Song with Moroder and Forsey, becoming the first black woman to win an Oscar in a non-acting category and the youngest to receive an Oscar for songwriting. She won the 1984 Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance, 1984 Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song, and American Music Awards for Best R&B Female Artist and Best Pop Single of the Year.
In 1984, she was in the comedic thriller City Heat, co-starring with Clint Eastwood and Burt Reynolds and singing the standards "Embraceable You" and "Get Happy". She also co-wrote the theme song "City Heat", sung by the jazz vocalist Joe Williams. In May 1984, she scored her final Top 40 hit with "Breakdance" going to No. 8. "You Were Made for Me" reached No. 78 that summer, but she did not appear on the Hot 100 again. In 1985, Cara co-starred with Tatum O'Neal in Certain Fury. whilst working on the film she met stuntman Conrad Palmisano whom she married (but the marriage was dissolved in 1991). In 1986, she appeared in the film Busted Up. Cara also provided the voice of Snow White in the unofficial sequel to Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Filmation's Happily Ever After, in 1993. The same year, she appeared as Mary Magdalene in a tour of Jesus Christ Superstar with Ted Neeley, Carl Anderson, and Dennis DeYoung.
On the back of her success, Irene Cara paid a high price for fame, losing her husband, battling drink and drugs and becoming embroiled in an eight-year court battle with her record company over unpaid royalties from the Flashdance soundtrack and her first two solo records. This ended in 1993 with a ruling in her favour but with an award of only $1.5 million in unpaid royalties out of the $12 million she had claimed. Cara stated that, as a result, she was labelled as being difficult to work with and that the music industry "virtually blacklisted" her. She continued to land parts in films, though later on these mainly involved voice work. In 1997 Irene Cara recorded a new version of Flashdance with Germany’s star rapper, DJ BoBo for The Full Monty.
In the 2000s she formed her own production company, overseeing the all-female group Hot Caramel which she formed in 1999. Their album, called Irene Cara Presents Hot Caramel, was released in 2011.
Cara died from arteriosclerosis and hypertensive heart disease at her home on November 25, 2022, at 63 years of age; she also had diabetes. At the time of her death, Cara was a resident of Florida, living in Largo and maintaining a secondary address in New Port Richey, where her company, Caramel Productions, was located. “I wouldn’t wish fame on anyone, ” she said in 2009. “If I could go back, I’d be a lot less trusting of the people who were handling my career. I didn’t know the nature of the beast.”
.jpg)
.jpg)
