Thursday, June 7, 2012

Black Paris Profiles™: Carole Denise Fredericks

For Women's History Month 2011, I published "notes" on a number of black women who either made Paris their home or enjoyed significant professional growth and achievement in the city. Among them was Carole Denise Fredericks, a singer who enjoyed enormous international success. The Paris suburb of Montreuil has named a street after her and France is soon to honor her with a plaque on the building that she called home for ten years. I am honored to bring her story to you – courtesy of the Carole Fredericks Foundation – as part of the Entrée to Black Paris Black Paris Profiles™ series. Carole is the first person that I am featuring in the series posthumously.

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Carole Denise Fredericks
Photo courtesy of the Carole Fredericks Foundation

Carole Denise Fredericks (June 5, 1952 Springfield, MA – June 7, 2001 Dakar, Senegal) was an American singer most famous for her English and French recordings in France. Fredericks stepped from the shadow of her brother Grammy winning blues musician, Taj Mahal, to achieve fame and popularity in Europe, France and the francophone world. Although Fredericks left her mother country, she never left her roots. Steeped in the fertile traditions of her parents, striving professionals from the Carolinas and West Indies, Carole emerged as a powerful singer who wove the passionate threads of blues, gospel and rock into a uniquely French tapestry.

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Black Paris Profiles is now available on Kindle.  Only excerpts are available on this blog.
To get your copy of Black Paris Profiles, click HERE.

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Entrée to Black Paris!™ is a Discover Paris! blog.

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