Carleen Anderson

American soul singer (born 1957)

Carleen Cassandra Anderson (born May 10, 1957) is an American musician. She was the vocalist, composer and musician for the Young Disciples and is known for her numerous, varied collaborations. Her solo career began in 1992. She is credited for composing and writing futuristic Operas. By the time Anderson was three years old, she was singing solos in front of the congregation. By the age of seven, she was playing piano by ear, directing the church choir and writing songs every week for the choir to sing before her grandfather delivered his Sunday sermons. Anderson’s vocal skills were influenced by her paternal aunt, Betty Faye Anderson, a Juilliard scholar, Gospel singer and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s first soprano soloist.

After a brief marriage that resulted in the 1979 birth of her son, Bobby Anderson, Carleen Anderson lived as a divorced single mother in Los Angeles. 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 to support herself and her child. Anderson's goal at the time was to become a teacher of music,

From 2002 to 2007 Anderson taught and was Head of the Vocal Department at Brighton Institute of Modern Music (BIMM). She had a bi annual residency at Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club in Soho, performing to packed audiences from 2006 to 2015. She sang a varied repertoire of jazz classics, musical theatre and unreleased material, as well as her commercial hits. In March 2007, in celebration of International Women’s Day, Anderson had the honour of singing for Her Majesty The Queen. In 2014 Arts Council England awarded Anderson a grant to produce her Tribal Opera Cage Street Memorial. In 2015 she also received a grant from PRS Women Make Music to record her compositions from Cage Street Memorial, released as her seventh album on Freestyle Records in 2016. A Barbican Theatre stage production of the album in 2018 earned her a JazzFM Innovation of the Year nomination. In 2019 Anderson became an Associate Artist at Hall for Cornwall in Truro. She was Choir Director for the BBC Singers and UK Vocal Assembly at the Royal Albert Hall for the August 2019 “Sacred Music” tribute to Duke Ellington at the BBC Proms and contributed to the performance as vocal arranger and curator. In June 2020 Anderson composed the music and was the featured vocalist and narrator for the BBC Radio 4 adaptation of Harlem Renaissance author Jean Toomer's Cane, Drama of the Week in the BBC Sounds Electric Decade series.

In March 2020, Arts Council England awarded Anderson a grant to develop her second theatre piece, MELIOR, in partnership with Hall for Cornwall, Falmouth University and its Academy of Music and Theatre Arts (AMATA). Due to Covid 19 restrictions, the music from this ocean themed time travel fantasy will be released online in anticipation of its live premiere and subsequent tour. MELIOR introduces Anderson’s new music performance style, “Opus Griot”, a blend of storytelling, singing, poetry, visual art and music ensemble accompaniment. It features the new gesture controlled digital instrument developed by Imogen Heap, MI. MU Gloves. Following the successful preview performance at Hall for Cornwall in November 2022, plans are in motion for new staging directives replacing the MI. MU Gloves with FX digital sounds to be synchronised with its theatre production development. Anderson is preparing a Southwest England regional premiere performance as well as a worldwide release of a double album of the full music scenes from the opera in autumn 2024.

Carleen Anderson is the daughter of singer Vicki Anderson, stepdaughter of Bobby Byrd and goddaughter of James Brown. Vicki Anderson featured with James Brown during the 1960s and 1970s. Her mother was married to Bobby Byrd (musician, producer, bandleader, singer and childhood friend of James Brown). Byrd formed a group with James Brown in the late 1950s called The Flames, which was later named James Brown & The Famous Flames. Carleen's father, Dr. Reuben Anderson Sr., is pastor of the Tower of Faith Evangelistic Church of God in Christ, in Compton California. Carleen's uncle, David Anderson Jr., and his daughters, Pamela and Jhelisa, along with their mother, Yvonne, had a very successful family gospel vocal group that travelled the southern United States. Carleen Anderson has one son, singer songwriter/music producer Bobby Anderson (aka Wilderman).