Wynona Carr (August 23, 1924 -- May 12, 1976) was an African-American gospel, R&B and rock and roll singer-songwriter, who recorded as Sister Wynona Carr when performing gospel material.Wynona Merceris Carr was born in Cleveland, Ohio, where she started out as a gospel singer, forming her own five-piece group The Carr Singers around 1945 and touring the Cleveland/Detroit area. Being tipped by The Pilgrim Travelers, who shared a bill with Carr in the late 1940s, Art Rupe signed her to his Specialty label, giving Carr her new stage name "Sister" Wynona Carr (modelled after pioneering gospel singer Sister Rosetta Tharpe) and cutting some twenty sides with her from 1949 to 1954, including a couple of duets with Specialty's biggest gospel star at the time, Brother Joe May. Not having too much success on the charts (except for "The Ball Game" (1952), which became one of Specialty's best selling gospel records), Carr grew increasingly unhappy with the straight gospel direction of her career and pleaded with Rupe to let her record "pops, jumps, ballads, and semi-blues". Rupe relented and from 1955 to 1959 Carr recorded two dozen rock & roll and R&B sides for Specialty, which, like her gospel songs, she mostly wrote herself. Despite scoring an R&B hit with "Should I Ever Love Again?" in 1957, overall the change from spiritual to secular music didn't help Carr much in terms of sales or recognition. Unfortunately she also contracted tuberculosis around this time, which kept her from <b>...</b>
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