Carleen Anderson
| Carleen Anderson | |
|---|---|
Carleen Anderson
|
|
| Background information | |
| Birth name | Carleen Cassandra Anderson |
| Also known as | Mardou Fox |
| Born |
May 10, 1957 Houston, Texas, U.S. |
| Genres | |
| Occupation(s) | |
| Instruments | Vocalist |
| Years active | 1990–present |
| Labels | |
| Associated acts | |
| Website | Official website |
Carleen Anderson (born May 10, 1957) is an American soul singer, who has had success in the United Kingdom. She is the daughter of the singer Vicki Anderson and stepdaughter of Bobby Byrd, and is best known as lead singer of the Young Disciples as well as for her own solo career.
Anderson was raised by her paternal grandparents, David Sr. and Alberta Anderson, in Houston, Texas, during the civil rights movement in the 1960s. Pastor Anderson’s Pentecostal church was located in the Fifth Ward, Houston, populated by working class African-Americans, many of whom were migrant sharecroppers, and their descendants, from Louisiana. By the time Anderson was 3 years old, she was singing solos in front of the congregation. By the age of 7, Anderson was playing piano by ear, directing the church choir and writing church songs every week for the choir to sing before her grandfather would deliver his Sunday sermons. The gospel music atmosphere was enhanced by Anderson having the benefit of her Aunt Betty Faye Anderson, soprano soloist for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Her Uncle, David Anderson Jr., and his daughters, Pamela and Jhelisa, along with their mother, Yvonne, had a very successful family gospel singing group that travelled the southern US states. Anderson’s birth father, Dr. Reuben Anderson Sr., is pastor of the Tower of Faith Evangelistic Church of God in Christ, in Compton California. Her mother is soul singer, Vicki Anderson who featured with James Brown during the 1960s and 1970s. Vicki Anderson (birth name, Myra Barnes) married Bobby Byrd (soul singer and childhood friend of James Brown) who formed a group with James Brown in the late 1950s called The Flames, which was later named, James Brown & The Famous Flames. After a brief marriage, Anderson gave birth to a son, Bobby Anderson, in 1979. After the divorce, Anderson lived as a single mother in Los Angeles where she received several scholarships to study classical and jazz music performance, as well as music education, at Los Angeles City College (LACC) and the University of Southern California (USC). Anderson also studied Creative Literature at the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA). During her studies, Anderson worked as a student tutor for extra income to support herself and her child. Anderson’s goal at the time was to become a music school teacher, but her plans were thwarted when President Ronald Reagan took music out of the curriculum in the government-sponsored schools. With only one semester left before completing her music degree, circumstances caused Anderson to take office-clerk jobs to make ends meet. In a 2005 Echoes magazine interview, Anderson says that a career in music performance was not at all on her agenda at that time.
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