Thumbnail Biography

Dusty Carr was born Gossamer Gretch in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1934. His mother, Queenie Carr (nee Gretch), was a local nightclub 'performer'. His father, Tor Lappard Carr, had immigrated to the United States from Norway in 1933, escaping a jail term for mail fraud and petty larceny. Tor became a chronically unemployed train mechanic who met Queenie only once, for about five minutes.

In his self-published (very limited edition) autobiography 'Dusty Carr: My Life, My Love, My Hell', Dusty describes growing up in a run down house trailer: "The worst thing about a house trailer is that there's only one way in and one way out. That's it. One damn door! Do you know what that's like? It really affects your whole stinking perspective of life."

In 1948, through a 'friend' of his mother's who worked in an advertising agency, Dusty became the on-air voice of 'Tripple Tipple Soda', as featured on Jack Benny's weekly radio program. Two years later he signed (that is, his mother signed) a five year recording contract with Silly Sally Records.

Irving ("Dead Lips") Moffberg, former head of A & R and Building Supervisor of Silly Sally, recalls, "Although he was kind of an ugly kid, he had the voice of a fallen angel." Moffberg arranged an audition for the boy with the head of Silly Sally, Shelby Critter. Says Critter, "What I heard was a raw talent that we had neither the interest nor energy to refine into something better. And herein lays the 'Carr appeal' - just a desperate guy with balls big enough to go up and sing in front on people."

Carr's first single for Silly Sally, and his first big hit, was the self-penned 'You Are My Angel', an achievement that won him repeated appearances on the Milton Berle Show.

As Carr's career was never properly managed, he stumbled through the dark morass of pop music like a drunk moose in mating season. But above all, he's a survivor, although clearly jaded and profoundly embittered.

Dusty Today

The year 2001 finds Dusty with a new lease on life, having survived six months in a state penitentiary for drunk driving and evading arrest. In his defense, Dusty claimed that he was "actually too drunk to drive" so "technically, I wasn't really driving." Recently, he received an offer from the Rap music label 'Ho' Boyz in da Hood' to record a hip-hop version of his 1960s hit 'It's All So Groovy'. Dusty plans to "keep in the biz in a big way. I'm talking Dayton, I'm talking Atlantic City - wherever there's a stage. In fact, I've got a personal invitation from my close pal Donald Trump for a casino gig - so I'm told. In fact, we have the same barber."