Faye Carol

Faye Carol was born in Meridian, Mississippi. After moving with her family to Pittsburg, California, she participated in youth choir at the Solomon Temple Missionary Baptist Church. She took piano lessons from Martha Young, the niece of Lester Young. She sang in blues bars after graduating from high school and won a talent contest in Oakland. She worked with locals blues musicians such as Eddie Foster, Johnny Heartsman, and Johnny Talbot. During the 1970s she became more of a cabaret singer.[1]

Her early musical influences included Sam Cooke, Aretha Franklin, Mahalia Jackson, Little Richard, and Nancy Wilson. She began her singing career with gospel music, singing in church and touring nationally with The Angelaires. She won a talent show as a young adult, leading to several years of performing, touring, and recording with Oakland blues and funk band Johnny Talbot & De Thangs. With Talbot she recorded the single "Good Man" in 1967 and performed at The Fillmore as the opening for act for James Brown, Otis Redding, and Martha Reeves. Her husband Jim Gamble and pianist Martha Young exposed her to the music of Billie Holiday, Horace Silver, Dinah Washington, and the Great American Songbook.

Carol has worked with Charles Brown, Ray Charles, Marvin Gaye, Billy Higgins, Bobby Hutcherson, Albert King, Pharoah Sanders, Marcus Shelby, Steve Turre, Paul Tillman Smith, and Ben Vereen. She has performed at the Berkeley Jazz Festival, Monterey Blues Festival, Monterey Jazz Festival (with her daughter, pianist Kito Gamble), San Francisco Blues Festival, San Francisco Jazz Festival, and the San Jose Jazz Festival.

From 2001 through 2013, Carol was founder and director of the Music in the Community program at the Black Repertory Group in Berkeley, California.[2]

She received the East Bay Express Best of the East Bay, Best Singer or MC (2008), KPFA BAJABA (Bay Area Jazz and Blues Artist) Bay Area Living Legend Award (2003), Top Star Awards as Entertainer of the Year (1994) and Best Vocalist (1968); Cabaret Gold Awards (1978, 1983, 1984); Pittsburg Entertainment and Arts Hall of Fame (2015); Oakland Blues Walk of Fame (2015); Jazz Journalists' Association Jazz Hero Award (2014), and the City of Berkeley Lifetime Achievement Award (2016).

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