Carol Douglas

Carol Douglas was born in Bedford–Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, New York City, United States. She is the daughter of Minnie Newsome, a jazz performer who has been cited as the inspiration for the Cab Calloway classic "Minnie the Moocher"; her father was a mortician. Sam Cooke was her cousin. At 10, Douglas was a contestant and winner on the game show Name That Tune and says "Ebony followed my career for the next three years." She attended the Willard May School for professional children and afterwards the Quintanos High School for young professionals alongside Gregory Hines, Bernadette Peters, Carol Lynley, and Patty Duke. While in high school Douglas sang in a female trio named April May & June, who were signed as a management client by Little Anthony and the Imperials. She made a one-off recording in 1965 for RCA Victor, cutting the single "I Don't Mind (Being Your Fool)" under the name Carolyn Cooke: becoming pregnant with her first son at age 15 ended RCA's interest in promoting her. Douglas also cut several jingles for TV commercials – "[I] used to do voiceovers for Ideal Toys and General Mills with Bernadette Peters" – but recalls: "I never thought I would be a singer," and for most of the 1960s Douglas pursued an acting career, appearing in an episode of The Patty Duke Show but mostly acting in theatrical productions beginning with One Tuesday Morning starring Clarice Taylor. Later Douglas understudied Jonelle Allen in the off-Broadway production of The Life of Mary McLeod Bethune and co-starred with James Earl Jones and Cicely Tyson in the play Moon on a Rainbow Shawl. She married "high school sweetheart" Ken Douglas in the mid-1960s and resumed her musical career in the early 1970s, touring nationally on the oldies circuit in a line-up of the Chantels, featuring original frontwoman Arlene Smith: with these Chantels, Douglas cut the single "Some Tears Fall Dry" for Capitol. ==Music career==

In 1974, Douglas was recruited by Midland International Records via an ad in Showbiz magazine: label vice president/record producer Eddie O'Loughlin had heard the UK hit single "Doctor's Orders" by Sunny and was seeking a female vocalist to cut the track for the U.S. market. Douglas's audition led to a five-year contract and her version of "Doctor's Orders" became a hit, reaching No. 2 on the Billboard disco chart, No. 9 R&B, and No. 11 on the Hot 100; Douglas's 1979 album Come into My Life was an obvious bid to recharge her club popularity; it was only six tracks long with production by Greg Carmichael who had enjoyed several disco hits with studio groups, but the single "I Got the Answer" was a mild club success. Although she did not appear in the disco-themed movie Saturday Night Fever, she was enough of a disco star that her name appears on the marquee of the disco featured in the movie. (A snippet of "Midnight Love Affair" can be heard playing when Tony Manero, played by John Travolta and his friends are at the club). In 1981, her cover of the Three Degrees' "My Simple Heart" was released on 20th Century Records as by then the Midland International (aka Midsong) was defunct. "My Simple Heart" was also her debut on Carrere Records based in Paris where she lived for a time: in the early 1980s Carrère handled her European releases while in the US she was signed to O'Loughlin's Next Plateau label. Her last album to date 'I Got Your Body', renamed 'Love Zone' in the US and Canada, was released in 1983 and included her last four 12" singles from 1981 to 1983: "My Simple Heart", "You're Not So Hot", "I Got Your Body", and "Got Ya Where I Want Ya"; "You're Not So Hot" reached #71 in France (1982). ==Career resurgence==

The retro-boom of the 1990s put Douglas back on the road touring and making personal appearances at a number of special events including the Martin Luther King Concert Series, ''Beatstock '97, Saturday Night Fever 20th Anniversary Reunion'', and the Dance Music Hall of Fame ceremony. In 2003, she returned to the recording studio when she was invited to sing backing vocals on Wanda Dee's Goddess Is Here! CD. During this period, she also re-recorded a number of her hits. Douglas is not to be confused with (and is not related to) Carl Douglas, a fellow pop one-hit wonder whose famous No. 1 single, "Kung Fu Fighting", was in the Billboard Hot 100 at about the same time as "Doctor's Orders". ==''The People's Court''==

Douglas made an appearance on ''The People's Court'' (with Judge Marilyn Milian) in 2003 as the plaintiff in a case involving herself and fellow disco diva Sharon Brown. After the ruling, Brown stated that Douglas's decision to take her to court was a publicity stunt, to get some free TV air time. In addition to awarding Douglas some (not all) of the money she was requesting, Milian had Douglas sing a brief snippet of "Doctor's Orders", as well as having Brown sing a snippet of her 1982 song "I Specialize in Love". ==Discography==

Studio albums Compilation albums • The Best of Carol Douglas (1980, Midsong Int'l) • Satin and Smoke: The Best of Carol Douglas (1981, Stack-O-Hits) • Greatest Hits (1989, Unidisc) • ''Doctor's Orders: The Best of Carol Douglas'' (1995, Hot Productions) • Disco Queen - Carol Douglas: Greatest Hits (1999, Classic World Productions) • Hits Anthology (2011, Essential Media Group) Singles ==See also==