⬇️ WYNONA CARR ⬇️
(Wynona Merceris Carr / Sister Wynona Carr)
(4CD)
Carr was born in Cleveland, Ohio, where she started out as a gospel
singer, forming her own five-piece group The Carr Singers around 1945 and
touring the Cleveland/Detroit area. Being tipped by the Pilgrim Travelers,
who shared a bill with Carr in the late 1940s, Art Rupe signed her to his
Specialty label, giving Carr her new stage name "Sister" Wynona Carr
(modelled after pioneering gospel singer Sister Rosetta Tharpe) and
cutting some twenty sides with her from 1949 to 1954, including a couple
of duets with Specialty's biggest gospel star at the time, Brother Joe
May.
Not having too much success on the charts (except for "The Ball Game"
[1952], which became one of Specialty's best selling gospel records and
most recently featured in the movie 42), Carr grew increasingly unhappy
with the straight gospel direction of her career and pleaded with Rupe to
let her record "pops, jumps, ballads, and semi-blues". Rupe relented and
from 1955 to 1959 Carr recorded two dozen rock and roll and R&B sides
for Specialty, which, like her gospel songs, she mostly wrote herself.
Despite scoring an R&B hit with "Should I Ever Love Again?" in 1957,
overall the change from spiritual to secular music did not help Carr in
terms of sales or recognition. She also contracted tuberculosis around
this time, which kept her from doing the necessary promotional work and
touring for two years, effectively ending her tenure with Specialty in mid
1959.
In 1961, Carr signed with Frank Sinatra's Reprise Records and released an
unsuccessful pop album. She moved back to Cleveland, sinking into
obscurity and suffering from declining health and depression; she died
there in 1976.....
(Wikipedia)