Sister Soul

There’s something supernatural that lingers around local blues singer Carolyn Kelly. It’s not just in her voice, which can cause a chain of chills to tingle spines, but in her demeanor and her language. It’s in the way she admires her longtime musical partner and friend, the legendary Roosevelt Dean. It’s the way you can feel his presence when you’re in hers. 

“I’m grateful,” Kelly, 60, says thoughtfully. “I’m grateful for him teaching me how to do this and listen and groom and train and yell at me because Rosie…I think I wouldn’t be able to do this, this interview, I wouldn’t have been able to accomplish what he wanted me to do {without him}. I know he’s proud of me.”

Although Dean passed away in April 2009, his memory lives on emphatically with the Carolyn Kelly Blues Band. The group is fueled by the strength and emotion of Kelly’s voice and her commanding, yet sincere, stage presence that can both charm and amaze any audience.

But for a woman with such power on a stage and such vigor in her vocals, Kelly is no diva. She often repeats how grateful she is and reiterates that her journey through life and through music has been a struggle from the beginning. Further, she endured a 30-year span that found her avoiding the spotlight. But once Dean brought her off the couch, out of the house, into the studio and finally back to the center-stage microphone, Kelly rediscovered the voice she had all along. 

The Carolyn Kelly Blues Band, with Jim Pavente on bass, Nick Humez on guitar and drummer Don Solars, will celebrate their latest effort, Somebody Told Me (independent) on Saturday, Oct. 6, 10 p.m., at Dinosaur Bar-B-Que, 246 W. Willow St. It’s an album of songs they’ve been performing for years, but didn’t lay down in SubCat Studios until now. It’s been worth the wait. 

Southern Girl

Kelly was born in South Carolina and raised by her grandmother until she moved to Philadelphia when she was 10 years old to be with her mother, who had moved there after Kelly was born. The young singer knew she had talent even as a child, although it often surprised those around her.

“I was a bad little girl when I was in Philly,” Kelly admits. “I fought boys. Beat ’em up, for real,” she says with a straight face. 

“She still does that,” Pavente jokes. 

“When I went to a talent show there {in Philly}, my teacher was like, ‘We’re gonna give a talent show,’” Kelly explains. “So I said, ‘Can I sing?’ She looked at me and said, ‘What you gonna sing? You can’t sing!’ And I said, ‘Let me try.’ So, they played a record and we would sing along and I loved Aretha Franklin and Gladys Knight and when I sang Aretha, she couldn’t tell whether it was Aretha or me singing. She was like, ‘Wow.’”

Kelly, who now works as a nursing assistant at Loretto, was only 14 at the time, but her talent was enough to get her recognized. A talent scout picked her out and placed her in the running for a contest put on by a local radio station looking for the next big thing. Kelly waited patiently for a response, but the call never came. It was only later that she realized a letter had come announcing her as the winner—but her mother had hidden it.

“She didn’t know anything about raising a child,” Kelly says forgivingly. “But I was already raised by my grandmother by the time I got there {to her mother}. I was like, forget it. It hurt me. But I was like, well, maybe God was saying it wasn’t my time. That’s how I took it.” 

Kelly let the loss roll off her back by the time she got to Syracuse in 1968 at age 16. Within a year she was mixing and mingling with the bluesmen of the Syracuse scene at the time, cats like Rosie Dean and singer, songwriter and drummer Herb Williams. Again, she quickly drew attention as a soul singer with a serious voice. 

“One day, my mother’s oldest sister decided that we were gonna sneak out of the house and go to the bar,” Kelly says. “It was me, her and my aunt, the three of us. They were the backup group. We did Aretha and Rosie would always try to put me in competition with the other girls and it was embarrassing. I felt like I shouldn’t have to compete, just let everybody be themselves. I knew what I could do.” 

Kelly got picked up by local blues group, The Soul Expressions, and Williams kept an eye on the talent. He had just settled in Syracuse after retiring from the Air Force and was looking to start a band. Although Williams had only begun drumming when he was 21 years old, he was capable behind a set and even better behind a pen as a songwriter. 

“Somebody told me about Rosie, so I called him up and told him I was putting together a band,” Williams says. “He said {Williams’ voice gets deeper as he imitates Dean}, ‘I already got a band,’ click.” 

But less than a week later, Dean called back and offered himself on guitar—and a singer, a bassist, a keys player. “He was trying to salvage all the members of the Soul Expressions into what I was putting together!” Williams says. “So I just discontinued what I was doing, who I had already talked to and just went with him.” 

Kelly was a part of the group at the time, which became The Soul Doctors in 1968. The group played often throughout New York state, gaining immense popularity to the point that they were booked months in advance and consistently asked to play gigs, rather than pursuing them. 

But rollin’ with the boys was trying sometimes for Kelly, tough as she was, especially with bandmates who demanded perfection. “They were all mean,” she says of Dean and Williams. “Well, not really mean. They were strict.”

Williams defends himself. “You gotta understand, when you’re doing music—music is a mathematical science in addition to a lot of other things. It’s mathematical. People have to get it right. All the pieces have to fit together like a jigsaw puzzle. When it doesn’t, it sounds like crap. When people aren’t doing it like they’re supposed to, sometimes you have to let them know in no uncertain terms—you ain’t got it—so you better get it.” 

“So we sounded like crap?” Kelly prods. 

“Did I say that?” Williams’ honest question draws a laugh. The camaraderie built up over years of musical successes and arguments is obvious and Williams goes on to explain that he was always the one to look out for Kelly. 

“Yep, Herb,” she confesses. “You were always protecting me.”

Divine Intervention

But for Kelly, that life had to come to an end when she became pregnant with her first son, Darnell, in 1971 (he was born in 1972). Dean and Williams kept going in music, and Kelly performed occasionally with groups until 1973, but after having her second son, Terrence, in 1979, and daughter, Tareta, in 1981, she left singing largely behind her. 

“I went around to her house,” Williams says. “I had started a band called Nightshade and was looking for a female vocalist. I wanted this lady right here, but she started pulling rank on me.” 

Kelly kept her singing confined to church. Her mother’s oldest sister was a pastor, so religion played a major role in her and her family’s lives. For years Kelly felt she would be judged and that it was wrong to sing out with the band, especially in clubs and bars. She also began to doubt her ability, shaking her confidence.  

“He {Dean} would call, I would see it was him,” Kelly says. “And I’d sit back down. I would go to the store, see him in the plaza and I’d say, ‘I’ll call you!’ And I never did. I was just tossed between believing I couldn’t sing and going to church. It was just a crazy situation.”

She wouldn’t back down until David Usry, a pastor she heard on the radio, came to Syracuse in 2004 and she spoke to him about her dilemma. “He said, ‘God wants you to sing,’” Kelly remembers. “He didn’t say where or when or what to sing. I was like, ‘Is this real?’ And he said, ‘God is takin’ you through the back door,’ which is like sayin’, I’m so much into church singin’, he’s taking me that way, that back door way, to singing—through the church. He said, ‘You can sing. Nothing wrong with singing.’”

With that acceptance in mind, Kelly started thinking about performing publicly again, but didn’t make any moves without significant prodding—or begging—from others. 

In 2006, Dean was working on a new record, Keep All My Secrets (independent, 2007), and eventually Kelly agreed to appear on it. Pavente remembers vividly the first meeting in the studio. 

“Rosie said, ‘I got this singer. She’s gonna come down and be on the album,’” Pavente tells. “We run through the tunes and her voice was great. The first time I met her it was like I’d been listening to her voice all my life. She evoked this impression of Aretha, Gladys Knight, Denise LaSalle, all these great soul singers. And it wasn’t because she wanted to sound like ’em. She had this delivery and style about her. I remember distinctly asking, ‘When ya gonna come out and play?’ ‘I ain’t comin’ out with you guys! I’m a church-goin’ woman! You need some churchin’ up!’ Basically she was calling us a bunch of hoodlums.” 

But eventually that resistance wore down and Kelly was back in the clubs, lighting up stages with her voice, her stage presence and the dynamic she and Dean created as they played off each other in performance. Kelly also appeared on the 2008 album Slow Cookin’ on Hot (independent) and she and Dean stayed close even as he grew weaker, the result of worsening cancer. 

Williams, Pavente and Kelly hit stories back and forth about Dean: How he would ask Williams to write songs, then change them completely. How he called Kelly “Red,” an appropriate name given her take-shit-from-nobody attitude that came out fiercely when Dean had his most demanding moments. And how he still rehearsed right up until his final days. 

“After Rosie died we were all hurtin’ a lot,” Pavente says sadly. 

“We just couldn’t think,” Kelly adds.

The band started playing together again as therapy to help them through their loss. But it started blossoming into more. Kelly began laying lyrics on top of jams, a role she hadn’t had the chance to explore much before, and the songs began multiplying. Kelly wrote four of the nine songs on the album, with Williams contributing four others. “Amazing Grace” rounds out the disc. 

The CD serves as a hard copy of what the band has been doing for years and has been keeping alive since 2009: a local blues legacy. Although Kelly calls herself “meek and humble,” she serves as a powerful symbol of inspiration for listeners, something Dean helped to draw out of her. 

Kelly confesses she can’t read music, but she can feel music in a way that translates into her voice in a remarkable way, and it’s been widely recognized. Kelly led the Soul of Syracuse (S.O.S.) all-star blues band at the New York State Blues Festival in 2011 and 2012 and been praised by some of Central New York’s finest. 

“Great people like Mark Doyle, Kevin Barrigar, Loren {Barrigar}, Dusty Pascal, will email me and mean it from the heart,” Kelly says, clearly moved.

Pascal, a local singer, songwriter and guitarist, confirms. “I haven’t heard anybody take what they truly feel and attach it to the melody of a song like her. Although I’ve never met her, I’ve been a fan and following her music for about 10 years now.”

Pascal knew of Kelly through Dean, who became an unlikely good friend to the folk musician years ago. “I was 24 years old and got a call from Rosie saying he dug my music,” Pascal recalls. “I was like, ‘No way is this black blues guy digging my folk stuff.’ Then he invited me to play at some bar: this 6-foot-8 white guy in a golf shirt playing for 500 black people… I played with Bobby Perry on bass and Danny Welch on harmonica and it was the best show I ever had.”

Pascal and Dean became good friends through the music scene at the former Cicero bar Damon’s, where Pascal would pay up Dean’s massive bar tabs in exchange for Kelly’s recorded voice. “She’s exceptional,” he continues. “I don’t know how she does it. I’m obsessed with her timing. She’s on another level. Carolyn is authentic and that’s what the world needs more of.”

It’s obvious audiences agree with Pascal when Kelly performs. Pavente describes it as a Baptist revival-like scene, with eyes closed and bodies swaying as the band rips through songs, especially their powerful version of “Amazing Grace.” The band is tight, but Kelly’s voice is magic. 

She keeps her modesty throughout the interview, saying “I’m grateful,” many times, but she also expresses one wish in exchange for the gift she shares. “I just wanna pass it on to someone else,” she says. “I see these young musicians coming up…I haven’t met one young person, women-wise, that loves blues, that wants to sing and play it, that wants to be an instrument of music and the blues. I like being in the center now because they’re around me and when they’re there looking at me and they’re young, they admire me. So I would like to just give it back to them and respect them for loving blues. When a kid goes to do his homework and he’s up there playing guitar—that’s amazing.”

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