Karen Alexander (singer)

Infobox musical artist
Name = Karen Alexander


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Background = solo_singer
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Born = 1946
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Origin = Los Angeles, California
Instrument = Singing
Genre = Pop rock
Occupation = Singer-songwriter
Years_active = 1973–1978
Label = Asylum, Elektra
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Karen Alexander (born 1946) was an American singer-songwriter who had some success in the 1970s.

She was born in Los Angeles, California, and grew up in one of the suburbs of Hollywood. Her father had a psychoanalytic practice in Beverly Hills.During the Cuban missile crisis she came to believe that the world could end any day, and therefore she decided to get as much out of life as she could. In 1965 she married an Iranian architect and moved to Tehran. While Karen was living in Tehran she travelled back to the U.S., now and then. On one of these trips she bought a guitar and started writing songs. As a first step in her singing career she started to sing in clubs. Although it was not done for women to sing in Iran, she continued to write songs there, and sent her tapes to America. She obtained a record contract in the early seventies, and before she recorded her first album she appeared as a backing vocalist on albums by Maria Muldaur and Wendy Waldman. [ [http://www.artistdirect.com/nad/music/artist/links/0,,396361,00.html#artist_name Artistdirect.com] ] Her first album was "Isn't It Always Love" (1975). She wrote all the songs herself, except for the title song, which was written by Karla Bonoff. [ [http://www.bryndle.com/karla/lyric-always-love.html "Isn't It Always Love"] at Bryndle.com] Her songs had an up-tempo rhythm and entertaining lyrics.

Three years later she recorded her second and final album, "Voyager". This album had a more melancholic atmosphere, and the tempo of most songs was slower than on her first album. The producers wanted her to stay in America to promote her second album, but she went back to Tehran, because she already had changed her focus from music to painting. In Tehran she had a job at CBS Records, but the Iranian Revolution was growing more and more severe, the CBS office in Tehran closed, and Karen Alexander lost her job. Although by that time many foreigners were already leaving the country, Karen and her husband decided to stay. Eventually, the situation became too dangerous and she fled with her family in 1979. In America they moved first to Portland, Oregon, and later to Palo Alto, California. Karen Alexander did not make any more records.

Discography

* "Isn't It Always Love" (1975, Asylum)
* "Voyager" (1978, Elektra)

The song "A little bit more" from her first album was covered by The Chenille Sisters and Julie Covington [ [http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=11:39fyxqr5ldke~T3 Allmusic Guide] ] .

Notes

ources

* Bahrampour, Tara (1994) "To see and see again: a life in Iran and America." New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
* [http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=11:39fyxqr5ldke~T2 "Karen Alexander"] — AllMusic Guide