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Биография
As a singer, I feel very influenced by instrumentalists and by many classic instrumental songs, says Karrin Allyson
Born in Great Bend, Kansas, a prairie town on the Arkansas River, Allyson came of age in Omaha, where her parents (her father was a Lutheran minister and her mother was a psychologist, schoolteacher and classical pianist) moved when she was six. She became a serious classical piano student, eventually making it her major in college, where she first performed professionally, paying tuition as a singer-pianist on introspective 70s pop (Joni Mitchell, Carole King, Janis Ian) and on funk-rock repertoire with an all-female band. She caught the jazz bug from fellow students, and began to listen to Nancy Wilson, Cannonball Adderley, Carmen McRae, Billie Holiday, Dinah Washington, Bill Evans, and Thelonious Monk. She pored through books, and applied her lessons at local jam sessions. I got hit pretty hard, she says. I loved the beautiful stories in those songs, but quickly realized how exciting it was to be able to improvise and swing to vary tunes and suit your own style. Singing started to take first chair.
