Carole Creveling is the most notorious of the One-Shot Wonder stories. Her only LP, "Here Comes Carole Creveling", Vol. 1(1955; there is no Vol. 2), became a jazz collectors’ Holy Grail, with copies commanding four-figure sums apiece regardless of condition. Her album features some well-known session players (the most famous being Jimmy Wyble), has a reputation as an excellent album, and few copies are known to exist. To make matters worse, there was a mystery factor at play, as history seemed to be completely silent about who exactly Carole Creveling was.
Jazz historian Bill Reed, the producer of the reissue of "Here Comes Carole Creveling", was finally able to track Carole Creveling down after months of intensive research. He learned that she is still living in the Los Angeles area and was completely unaware of her status as a jazz legend.
Carole Creveling is a woman of her word. Just as she promised her sister , singer Creveling (not her last name nowadays) called me this morning. And make that "erstwhile singer," for her 1955 LP and a 45 from the next year mark just about the only professional entertainment activity for Carole, who was still a teenager when she recorded the album.
Carole explained to me that the album was the brainchild of a couple who owned a music store in Laguna Beach, where Carole lived, and sensed that she not only possessed great potential as a singer but also realized that at age 18 she was quite ready for a trip into the recording studio. As to exactly what studio it was in L.A. where the album was recorded is lost in the dim recesses of time and Carole's memory. But she was more-or-less aware that the musicians who accompanied her were important studio players, especially Jimmy Wyble and Bill Baker from the album session and Lou Levy, Chuck Flores and Max Bennett on the followup single. She knew, for example, that Levy was an accompanist for major singers in addition to his career as a solo artist.
Meanwhile, she is deeply flattered at all the attention her recording is finally receiving. All in due time, I suppose, is the moral here.
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