Carol Celeste Parks was an American singer and composer. She was the former wife of musician Dean Parks

Dean Parks

Dean Parks is an American session guitarist and record producer from Ft. Worth, TX.-Albums:Dean was member of The North Texas State One O'clock Lab Band before moving to Los Angeles to work with Sonny and Cher in 1970. Dean is best-known through his many contributions to albums by Steely Dan...

.

Early life

She was born Carol Celeste Carmichael in Pasadena, California

Pasadena, California

Pasadena is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. Although famous for hosting the annual Rose Bowl football game and Tournament of Roses Parade, Pasadena is the home to many scientific and cultural institutions, including the California Institute of Technology , the Jet...

, daughter of contemporary Christian music composer/conductor/arranger Ralph Carmichael

Ralph Carmichael

Ralph Carmichael is a composer and arranger of both secular pop music and contemporary Christian music, being regarded as one of the pioneers of the latter genre...

..

She found a place in the music business at an early age. As a teenager, Parks was a member of the Jimmy Joyce Children's Choir, performing with Art Linkletter

Art Linkletter

Arthur Gordon "Art" Linkletter was a Canadian-born American radio and television personality. He was the host of House Party, which ran on CBS radio and television for 25 years, and People Are Funny, on NBC radio-TV for 19 years...

 (Kids Say the Darndest Things

Kids Say the Darndest Things

Kids Say the Darndest Things is an American comedy series hosted by Bill Cosby that aired on CBS as a special on February 6, 1995 then as a full season from January 9, 1998 to June 23, 2000...

), Ann-Margaret and Johnny Green

Johnny Green

Johnny Green was an American songwriter, composer, musical arranger, and conductor. He was given the nickname "Beulah" by colleague Conrad Salinger. His most famous song was one of his earliest, "Body and Soul"...

. According to Social Security Death Index, Parks died October 21, 2010, in Valley Village, California.

A back-up vocalist

Parks was a Hollywood studio singer in the 1970s and worked with Andy Williams

Andy Williams

Howard Andrew "Andy" Williams is an American singer who has recorded 18 Gold- and three Platinum-certified albums. He hosted The Andy Williams Show, a TV variety show, from 1962 to 1971, as well as numerous television specials, and owns his own theater, the Moon River Theatre in Branson, Missouri,...

 and Tom Jones

Tom Jones (singer)

Sir Thomas John Woodward, OBE , known by his stage name Tom Jones, is a Welsh singer.Since the mid 1960s, Jones has sung many styles of popular music – pop, rock, R&B, show tunes, country, dance, techno, soul and gospel – and sold over 100 million records...

 in shows and was in the choir for Sonny & Cher

Sonny & Cher

Sonny & Cher were an American pop music duo, actors, singers and entertainers made up of husband-and-wife team Sonny and Cher Bono in the 1960s and 1970s. The couple started their career in the mid-1960s as R&B backing singers for record producer Phil Spector....

, Cher

Cher

Cher is an American recording artist, television personality, actress, director, record producer and philanthropist. Referred to as the Goddess of Pop, she has won an Academy Award, a Grammy Award, an Emmy Award, three Golden Globes and a Cannes Film Festival Award among others for her work in...

, and Danny Kaye

Danny Kaye

Danny Kaye was a celebrated American actor, singer, dancer, and comedian...

.

She was featured as backing vocalist

Backing vocalist

A backing vocalist or backing singer is a singer who provides vocal harmony with the lead vocalist or other backing vocalists...

 on several popular songs of the 1970s including "Desiderata

Desiderata

Desiderata is a 1927 prose poem by American writer Max Ehrmann...

", "It Never Rains In Southern California", "Undercover Angel

Undercover Angel (song)

"Undercover Angel" was a hit single for singer/songwriter Alan O'Day. Certified gold, it reached #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #9 on the Australian Singles Chart.-Background:...

", "Rock Me Gently", "The Goodbye Girl", "Little Green Apples

Little Green Apples

"Little Green Apples" is a song written by Bobby Russell which was most successful as a 1968 hit single by O. C. Smith.According to Buzz Cason, who partnered Bobby Russell in the Nashville-based Rising Sons music publishing firm, Russell wrote both the songs "Honey" and "Little Green Apples" as "an...

", "Train of Thought", "That's The Night The Lights Went Out In Georgia" and "Delta Dawn

Delta Dawn

"Delta Dawn" is a song written by former child rockabilly star Larry Collins and songwriter Alex Harvey , best known as a 1972 top ten C&W hit for Tanya Tucker and a number-one hit for Helen Reddy in 1973.-Lyrical story:The title character is a faded southern...

".

She sang on several commercials for Ernest and Julio Gallo, Avco Financial Services, Bank of America

Bank of America

Bank of America Corporation, an American multinational banking and financial services corporation, is the second largest bank holding company in the United States by assets, and the fourth largest bank in the U.S. by market capitalization. The bank is headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina...

, Toyota, Datsun

Datsun

Datsun was an automobile marque. The name was created in 1931 by the DAT Motorcar Co. for a new car model, spelling it as "Datson" to indicate its smaller size when compared to the existing, larger DAT car. Later, in 1933 after Nissan Motor Co., Ltd...

 and other clients.

Under the alias "Honey White and the Night Man", "Kim Carmichael" and "Carol Carmichael" she recorded two album

Album

An album is a collection of recordings, released as a single package on gramophone record, cassette, compact disc, or via digital distribution. The word derives from the Latin word for list .Vinyl LP records have two sides, each comprising one half of the album...

s Songs My Father Taught Me, The Carol Carmichael Songbook, and two singles

Single (music)

In music, a single or record single is a type of release, typically a recording of fewer tracks than an LP or a CD. This can be released for sale to the public in a variety of different formats. In most cases, the single is a song that is released separately from an album, but it can still appear...

, "All Night's Alright", "Shake A Hand". She also recorded two albums Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and Touring The Motor City, plus a single "Summertime Love" with The New Christy Minstrels. Additionally Parks sang main titles for Where's Papa?, The Miracle Worker

The Miracle Worker

The Miracle Worker is a cycle of 20th century dramatic works derived from Helen Keller's autobiography The Story of My Life. Each of the various dramas describes the relationship between Keller—a deafblind and initially almost feral child—and Anne Sullivan, the teacher who introduced her to...

, Save the Tiger

Save the Tiger

Save the Tiger is a 1973 film about moral conflict in contemporary America. It stars Jack Lemmon, Jack Gilford, Laurie Heineman, Thayer David, Lara Parker and Liv Lindeland. The film is directed by John G...

, Lifeguard

Lifeguard (film)

Lifeguard is a 1976 drama movie made by Paramount Pictures. It was directed by Daniel Petrie, based upon a screenplay by Ron Koslow. It stars Sam Elliott, Anne Archer, Steve Burns, Parker Stevenson, and Kathleen Quinlan....

, The Last Picture Show

The Last Picture Show

The Last Picture Show is a 1971 American drama film directed by Peter Bogdanovich, adapted from a semi-autobiographical 1966 novel of the same name by Larry McMurtry....

, and the television program

Television program

A television program , also called television show, is a segment of content which is intended to be broadcast on television. It may be a one-time production or part of a periodically recurring series...

 Ironside

Ironside (TV series)

Ironside is a Universal television series which ran on NBC from September 14, 1967 to January 16, 1975. The show starred Raymond Burr as the wheelchair-using Chief of Detectives, Robert T. Ironside. The character's debut was in a TV-movie on March 28, 1967. The original title of the show in the...

.

Parks recorded "The Persuader" on the first automated recording console invented by George Massenburg

George Massenburg

George Y. Massenburg is a recording engineer and inventor. Working principally in Baltimore, Los Angeles, Nashville, and Macon, Georgia, Massenburg is widely known for his 1972 paper on the parametric equalizer.-Background:...

 at The Complex in the early eighties.

Assistant record producer

She also worked as an assistant producer of records for several pop music groups of the era including Rita Jean Bodine and Hodges, James and Smith in the 1970s, The New Monkees in the eighties and associate produced for Donald Fagan, Walter Becker

Walter Becker

Walter Carl Becker is an American musician, songwriter and record producer. He is best known as the co-founder, guitarist, bassist and a co-writer of Steely Dan.-Career:...

 and Ricky Lee Jones in the nineties. She contracted recordings

Sound recording and reproduction

Sound recording and reproduction is an electrical or mechanical inscription and re-creation of sound waves, such as spoken voice, singing, instrumental music, or sound effects. The two main classes of sound recording technology are analog recording and digital recording...

 for Kenny Rogers

Kenny Rogers

Kenneth Donald "Kenny" Rogers is an American singer-songwriter, photographer, record producer, actor, and entrepreneur...

, Dolly Parton

Dolly Parton

Dolly Rebecca Parton is an American singer-songwriter, author, multi-instrumentalist, actress and philanthropist, best known for her work in country music. Dolly Parton has appeared in movies like 9 to 5, The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, Steel Magnolias and Straight Talk...

, Johnny Rivers

Johnny Rivers

Johnny Rivers is an American rock and roll singer, songwriter, guitarist, and record producer. His styles include folk songs, blues, and revivals of old-time rock 'n' roll songs and some original material...

, Lambert & Potter, Michael O'Martian, Marty Paich

Marty Paich

Martin Louis "Marty" Paich was an American pianist, composer, arranger, producer, music director and conductor....

, Melanie

Melanie Safka

Melanie Anne Safka-Schekeryk is an American singer-songwriter. Known professionally as simply Melanie, she is best known for her hits "Brand New Key", "Ruby Tuesday" and "Lay Down ".-Early career:...

, Lee Greenwood

Lee Greenwood

Melvin Lee Greenwood is an American country music artist. Active since the early 1980s, he has released more than twenty major-label albums and has charted more than 35 singles on the Billboard country music charts....

, Helen Reddy

Helen Reddy

Helen Reddy , often referred to as "The Queen of 70s Pop", is an Australian-American singer and actress. In the 1970s, she enjoyed international success, especially in the United States, where she placed fifteen singles in the Top 40 of the Billboard Hot 100. Six of those 15 songs made the Top 10...

, Alan O'Day

Alan O'Day

Alan O'Day is an American singer-songwriter, best known for writing and singing "Undercover Angel," a song which was number 1 in 1977. He also wrote songs for several other notable performers, such as 1974's Helen Reddy number 1 hit "Angie Baby" and the Righteous Brothers' number 3 hit "Rock And...

, Andy Kim

Andy Kim

Andrew Youakim, performing as Andy Kim, is a Lebanese Canadian pop rock singer and songwriter. He grew up in Montreal, Quebec in Canada. Kim is known for a number of hit singles that he released in the late 1960s and early 1970s such as "Rock Me Gently", which topped the US singles charts. In 1968,...

, Albert Hammond

Albert Hammond

Albert Hammond OBE is a British singer, songwriter and record producer from Gibraltar.-Birth and early success:Hammond was born in London, England, where his family had been evacuated to from Gibraltar during World War II. His family returned to Gibraltar shortly after his birth, and there he grew...

, David Gates

David Gates

David Gates is an American singer-songwriter, best known as the lead singer of the group Bread, which reached the tops of the musical charts in Europe and North America on several occasions in the 1970s. The band was inducted into the Vocal Group Hall of Fame...

, Johnny Mathis

Johnny Mathis

John Royce "Johnny" Mathis is an American singer of popular music. Starting his career with singles of standards, he became highly popular as an album artist, with several dozen of his albums achieving gold or platinum status, and 73 making the Billboard charts...

, Vicki Carr, Billie Joel, and many others.

Along with her former husband, Dean Parks she co-wrote and sang the score for The Care Bears Movie II: A New Generation. Her children, Amanda and Acacia Parks, also sang on several tracks.

Art

Parks conducted workshops for art teachers such as Sabrina Ward Harrison

Sabrina Ward Harrison

Sabrina Ward Harrison is a Canadian artist and author.She is the creator of four published books of her journals the first one being published at the age of 23 : Spilling Open; The Art of Becoming Yourself , Brave on the Rocks; If you don't Go You Don't See , Messy Thrilling Life; the Art of...

, SARK

SARK

For other definitions, see Sark The SARK or NSAR is a folding knife designed by Knifemaker Ernest Emerson for use as a Search and Rescue knife for the US Military. It features a wharncliffe blade with a blunt tip in order to cut free trapped victims without cutting them in the process...

 and Michael deMeng

Michael deMeng

Michael De Meng is an assemblage artist who bases most of his work on transforming "rubbish" into something which can be appreciated. He is the author of the book Secrets of Rusty Things, which was published by North Light Books in May 2007....

.

She lived in and worked in Southern California's NoHo Arts District until her death.

External links

• Official site
• Art Freak Zine
• [ Discography] at Allmusic website
  Website
  A website, also written as Web site, web site, or simply site, is a collection of related web pages containing images, videos or other digital assets. A website is hosted on at least one web server, accessible via a network such as the Internet or a private local area network through an Internet...