The Dynamic Miss Faye Carol believes that she was put here to sing. And it’s this conviction that’s propelled an independent music career that’s spanned more than six decades.
She’s seen enormous triumphs, like when the City of Oakland tapped her to perform for Nelson Mandela after his release from prison. And she’s also had her share of hurdles. In the 1960s, for instance, various government infrastructure projects decimated the Black-owned jazz and blues clubs that were Carol’s bread and butter. She nonetheless found a way forward and became a sought-after live performer who toured with Marvin Gaye.
In the ’70s and ’80s, Carol found an audience in the Castro’s cabaret scene, but in the ensuing years the community was hit hard by the AIDS epidemic. She found new ways to thrive again in the ’90s, 2000s and 2010s, performing with the likes of Pharoah Sanders and Ray Charles, recording an album and launching her own music school. Then, in 2020, just as she launched a new concert series at Geoffrey’s Inner Circle, COVID-19 shut everything down.
Still, Carol remains undeterred. She and her pianist, Joe Warner, have kept busy all year with virtual concerts at venues like Piedmont Piano Company and Freight & Salvage, and, thanks to a grant from the Zellerbach Family Foundation, even created their own livestreaming studio complete with a professional camera and sound set-up, Chez Carol.
“It’s all just a new frontier, and I’m up for it, and we’ve been having fun doing it,” she says. “As James Brown would say, I have to stay on the good foot. Because other than that, it’s too depressing. If you look at really what’s going on in the world, it’s pretty depressing knowing how many people don’t have their life, and how many families don’t have their loved ones. And art—being such a healer of people—is so away from people.”
