Carol Barrett

Bio
Carol Barrett

Technically speaking Carol Barrett’s musical career began when her parents decide to give her the name Carol which means Joyous song.  A native of Kingston, Jamaica, Carol moved to Canada at age 11 and began singing at Church in her teens.

One evening when she thought the church lobby was empty, she began singing to herself.  A church leader overheard her and immediately booked her to sing at some church functions.

Singing at church didn’t give her any ideas about becoming a professional singer and so after graduation from University, armed with a degree in French literature; she left Canada to become an English teacher in Japan.

Even in the middle of her teaching career it would always accidentally leak out that she could sing somehow and friends, students and family members would often book her to do weddings and other events.

An avid creative writer and script-writer for years, during this time Carol also began to hone her skills as a song-writer, often waking up at night to write songs and eventually penning 46 songs.

Armed with a book of songs, she set off for New York in 2001 to pursue a recording career full-time.  As we all know, this was the year of the 9-11 attacks.  Watching the second tower come down from her balcony was all too close to what would later happen to her singing ambitions. She returned to Canada in October of 2001 and put the book of songs and a recording career aside for a while or about 7 years.

During this time she shifted her attention to script writing and studying film.  The end result was a story set in Japan about a woman who has a secret power and doesn’t realize it.

But if your name means Joyous song, you can’t put the music aside for ever and in 2008 Carol reached for a song from her songwriting collection and teamed up with producer Al Fraser to produce the music.  The track, “I’ll probably love you anyway”, is all about investing a lot in someone who chooses to be with someone else.

The recording was done at Cherry Beach Studios in Toronto and the reception so far has been wonderful. Particularly meaningful was a single mother going through a divorce who emailed her to tell her how close to home this song was.

Plans for the next few months including putting I’ll probably love you anyway plus 9 more of the 46 songs on a full-length album.

Following this, the inspiration for her next project comes from Jamie Foxx.  In 2004 Carol was deeply inspired by the way Jamie Foxx took all that he was: a piano player, a singer, a mimic and an actor and poured it into the film Ray.

“My real work is taking the creative writer, the singer/songwriter and my love of Japan and pouring it all into the film project-The Mission.”
www.nejo.ca