Blues singer Karen Carroll was seemingly destined for a career in music: not only was her mother Jeanne Carroll a blues and jazz vocalist as well, but her godparents were guitarist George Freeman and singer Bonnie Lee. Born in Chicago on January 30, 1958, Carroll started performing at the age of nine, joining her mother's band as a guitarist five years later; at 18 she struck out on her own, cutting her teeth in tiny South Side blues joints and developing a deep vocal style heavily influenced by jazz phrasing as well as the intensity of gospel. She made her recorded debut on Carey Bell's 1984 outing Son of a Gun, followed by the 1989 Eddie Lusk LP Professor Strut; Carroll made her solo debut with 1995's Had My Fun, returning two years later with Talk to the Hand. ~ Jason Ankeny