Carolyne Mas: News

The Markthalle Theater, Hamburg, Germany, January 21, 1981. Charlie Giordano on piano this time, and Ricky DeSarno on guitar. Crispin, Ivan, and Bobby were still with me at this point.

This song is called "Due Relief," and it was never recorded because everyone thought it was too nasty. I always loved it!
This next song is our cover of The Grass Root's song, "Midnight Confessions." I made up most of the words because I could not get them off the LP. I remember my manager telling me that the publishers didn't care if I wanted to record it with the wrong words, it was okay. Unfortunately, Mercury Records had zero interest in me recording this song at all, despite the fact that it was a real show-stopper.
This is a really great Mark Johnson song called "Bad Love." What fun!!! Still my favorite of all of the songs I have ever written, "Baby Please." I was having dinner with my manager Faris in the winter of 1978. I excused myself from the table because I told him that I had to go home and write a song. I came back while he was still eating, with my guitar, and played him this song. It was snowing outside as I sang.
This is the song that they love so much in parts of Europe, "Sittin' in the Dark" It has helped keep my career alive. I still cannot understand or explain its immense popularity

A fan sent me this, from a show done at The Bathurst Theatre in Toronto in 1979. Today, I coverted it to mp4, and put it on my MySpace page, and on YouTube.

Bernie Shanahan is playing synth, David Landau is on guitar, Ivan Elias is on bass, Crispin Cioe on sax, Bobby Chouinard on drums, and myself, on piano.

The woman who is impersonating me is Caryn MacFadyen. She has done it before on message boards, and I'm sure she has done it in person over the years. I first read her fraudulent posts in 2001. They were written in 1999. Here is an example of just one, http://www.spring.net/yapp-bin/public/read/music/54 although there are others.

The woman from the hair salon who wrote in the Guestbook here saying that she had met me, actually met Caryn MacFadyen, and from reading all of Caryn's posts, which I sent her, she is sure. Caryn claims to be me, but she also claims to have a Celtic background.

This happened in the Atlanta area, and I'm not sure what I can do about it legally. As I said to the woman fro the salon, I believe that your greatest asset is your reputation. I hate the fact that this Caryn may be damaging mine in any way.

If you encounter this woman either online or in person, please be sure to email me, or post something in the Guestbook. For sure me having entered this here will ruin her chances of being able to use this Web site as her calling card!

My Guestbook had an interesting post today from a woman claiming to have done my hair last Sunday at her salon named "Ultra." She also said that she hoped my trip to Las Vegas went well.

While deleting this post, I saw her email address, and thought to write her and find out what kind of a joke this was, since I am here in Florida, and have not had my hair done, or been to Vegas. (I would rather die than go to Vegas.) She seemed angry that I would accuse her of making a fake post like some jokers do just to appear on search engines. As some of you know who post here, this is a constant problem, and it causes me to edit the Guestbook sometimes several times a day. She then went on to say that this "Carolyne Mas" had shown her ID, and she looked like my picture on the Web site (she had given her the Web site address!) except that now she was blond. This woman then questioned if I might be another Carolyne Mas ( maybe I was mistaken?), that she had heard there was another younger one in France. I corrected her, saying that there was a Jeanne Mas in France, but that she had been around for a while now.

Very weird, thriller movie kind of stuff!!! It does make me very uncomfortable, though, with all the fraud going on these days. In an effort to bust my impostor, and to convince this woman that I am who I am, HERE IS MY PHOTO!!! This was taken at my home last year with my beautiful son who also graces the cover of "Brand New World." I will email her the same picture. When it then matches the one that I have posted on this Web site, maybe she will believe me, and help me find the psycho is who is impersonating me!

If anyone else knows this person who is impersonating me, please email me at samlorac@aol.com. It will be our own little "Unsolved Mysteries!"

I am glad that last year is over. It was a very hectic year for me, filled with extreme ups and downs. Many thanx to those who were so supportive of me when I was going through those zoning problems. All of the animals are so happy now that it's hard to imagine that they were ever in any peril.

My Aunt continues to survive the ravages of Alzheimer's with humor and courage. She is now 93. My son Gabriel is almost 5 now, and to see them "play" together is really something else. That we were all able to bring in the New Year together, my Mom who is now 81 included, was really a blessing and a fitting end to the mostly chaotic year which threatened to pull us apart.

Life is beautiful, even while there are those lurking around corners who would have it otherwise, and we somehow still manage to tear away the old page effortlessly and marvel at the new one with hopeful eyes. What strange and wonderful creatures we are, indeed!

I hope you are a little bit closer to where you want to be this year, and I hope that you find the opportunity to be with the people whom you love. I wish you the happiest of New Years, dear people, and the chance that it will be one filled with magic!

Faris Bouhafa was my manager during the most significant part of my career, as well as one of my best friends. I grew to really love him over the decades, as the number of people I called my true friends dwindled down to the count of a couple of fingers on one hand.

He was a fiercely intelligent, impetuous man, as well as a great lover of music and the beautiful things in life that many people don't take the time to appreciate. He was a fine cook and one my favorite people to share an evening's feast with. He was deeply passionate and concerned about the world we live in. If you needed 1,000 people in a room for an event by tomorrow, Faris was the man who could do that.

He was loved by many, and had just celebrated his 60th birthday with some of his closest friends by his side. I am very lucky to have been one of them.

Never will there be another soul in my life who will love my music more. He made me feel very important as an artist even when others had long forgotten and given up on me. He spoiled me for any other manager, and the ones that I had after him just never got me or what I was trying to do.

Please visit bouhafa.com, a tribute to this remarkable man, and read about his many accomplishments. It is a Web site originally set up by one of his best friends for his birthday, which he had been looking forward to working on himself.

Rest in peace, dear Faris, and I will be sure and turn up the volume for you the next time I play.

I have just returned from a tour of Italy, and I must say that I had a great time. The shows were great, and the people were so affectionate and lovely to be around. What a beautiful country!!!

The Italians are very emotional people, and as I am an emotional person, too, it was a perfect match. I was able to play many of the ballads that I hold dear to my heart, and I feel that I was truly able to express myself as an artist and as a person.

I will be posting many photos of my trip, as well as mp3s of live music, and the many stories of my shows with two great artists, Graziano Romani and Dirk Hamilton, just as soon as I overcome my jet lag and unpack.

For those awaiting CDs, I will be getting that together soon, and I am sorry about the delay. Thank you for your patience!


My great new friend Fulvio and I at the last show in Modena.

We got the property, but were waiting for one of our current houses to sell so we could have money to build kennels for the dogs, nearly 20K worth. This was not good enough for the court today. They wanted to take all of my animals on Monday. I was barely able to get a word in edgewise in my defense.

I was humiliated by the court once again, even though I have made what I think are great strides. They ended up giving me 30 days to move the animals, or Animal Control will take them all.

If anyone out there knows of any way to help me, please do. We are more than desperate, and anxious to put this behind us once and for all.

This is Michi. He is from Argentina. He thinks that he finally found a home. Please help us relocate these beautiful and innocent animals safely.

Thanks to some great Realtors, some creative financing, and a very helpful seller, we have found a new location in Brooksville, FL, about 45 minutes NE of where we are now. This is in Hernando County, where apparently everyone who loves animals goes to live in peace.

My legal situation is still in the toilet, and I do not know if I will ever receive any kind of justice, but at least we will all be able to sleep at night once again.

Thank you to all who care. Some of you have even offered monetary help, and I am pleased to announce that I am now in the position to accept all offers, however big or small, anything will be of great help. We need to build new kennels because we will have to move the dogs into ones that are already built. We also will need to do some minor construction on a cattery that is already in place, as well as create a fenced in area for the ponies. We spent a lot of money a year ago building these very things here, but we will need for them to be in place at the new house before we can move anyone in, including people. We will have to leave what we built behind, or sell it after the fact. It will be far easier to sell both properties without the animals present. Some people have trouble having vision, especially if they are not animal lovers.

Any donations can be sent via PayPal to ouranimalhaus@aol.com, or mailed to us directly. Please call 727-863-7826 if you wish to contribute, and we can tell you the particulars.

This is Jax, who sadly passed away last summer. He is sorely missed.

Last year a Realtor in Florida sold us this lovely 5 acre property which had in the past been a boarding and training facility for Whippets. After moving in and believing that we were realizing our dream to help those who cannot help themselves, we sadly found out that the property was not zoned for a kennel. We have a very sick neighbor who has gone around soliciting support against us, and he was eventually able to find people to join him in his cause against us--people who are one-quater of a mile away. They are the only persons in the area who do not have animals.

On my birthday this year, I had to go to court in response to the zoning violation, and was given until January 1st to comply. My lawyer told me today that he has been talking to the zoning commission, and any request for rezoning will most certainly be turned down. I am suing the Realtor and all other participating parties who lied to us, but if I cannot comply with the strict zoning standards by January 1st, I could go to jail.

I need help from any Animal Welfare groups, powerful persons, or anyone else whom you can think of. We in tears here, because we love all of our animals, and would die before any harm came to any of them. The sorrow is unbearable, and we are beginning to believe that nice guys really do finish last.

Please call me at (727) 863-7826 if you can help in any way. The picture here is of a Shih Tzu named Meatloaf. We have no idea how old he is, but he is very old. He was found wandering the streets in Nashville close to a busy 4-lane road. He has had to have all but one of his teeth pulled, and had to have his jaw wired twice because of bone loss. This is just one example of what we do, and why we acquired this lovely property with so much space to do so.

We have seen many miracles happen in the lives of our dogs and cats, and we'd hate to see any of it undone by the petty behavior of a few bad souls.

This is Carlos (left) and Buster (right).


These days I am devoting myself primarily to the care of my family, and my growing extended family. I have slowly begun to build a non-profit animal rescue called "ANIMAL HAUS." I have always been concerned about the plight and the welfare of our fellow creatures who share this lovely planet, and this has become much more of a serious endevour over the years for both myself, and for my husband, Teddy.

When we lived in Nashville, TN, we came across so many stray animals--especially dogs and cats--who had been abandoned by their owners, or were simply left to fend for themselves on the streets even though they had owners. This was, to us, completely unacceptable. We also discovered that there were so few "no kill" shelters, the state of TN is very underfunded, and that they were turning away dozens of animals on a daily basis. Many shelters were forced to close because there was simply no money to be had. We could not live with this.

Eventually we built multiple kennels in our small backyardard for the dogs, and we used our basement, as well as several other rooms upstairs, for the smaller dogs and cats. We both did the best we could with what we had, both of us working full time jobs for 7.50 an hour, and we eventually established good relationships with our neighbors, and with the local authorities.

When my Dad died in 2002, I moved to Florida to look after my Mom, as well as my Aunt who has Alzheimer's. Crammed into a station wagon with our son Gabriel, then 9 months old, 3 cats, 4 birds, and one sugar glider, I made the drive through torrential rains on Christmas Eve. My husband stayed behind to take care of everyone else. After nearly 2 years of enduring this forced separation, I was finally able to get the much needed help from my Mom and my Aunt (not an easy task, lots of tearful begging!), to purchase a property appropriate for housing so many animals, as well as a good place to manage the care of my Aunt (this is how I make my income, as Guardian), who was now confined to her bed. Finally, with the prospect of better days ahead, my husband was able to move down to Florida, along with all of the animals (via an animal transport company), and we were all reunited at the end of 2004.

In December of 2004 we acquired a group liscence for our dogs, and when I was asked the name of our kennel by Animal Control, I said the first thing that popped up into my head--"ANIMAL HAUS," as my husband's family was visiting from Germany and we were already in a kind of "German" mode.

We are now able to provide a loving sanctuary for over 150 animals--not just for the the cats and dogs, but for rabbits, ferrets, fish, sugar gliders, 2 Shetland ponies, and a variety of birds who have either been adopted from individuals, or rescued from pet stores. Because I work at home, my husband is able to stay home as well, and this works out perfectly for our human family, and for our extended animal family, who are so very close to being human.

Gabriel Joseph Jules Agustinho Mas was born on March 17, 2002. He has completely changed my life, and I wonder whether or not he will one day become a working musician.

He will certainly not encounter many of the difficulties that I have experienced, because he will be a man in a man's domain.

Gabrielle is very animated, and has taken an avid interest in several different musical instruments. He is already quite the song and dance man, and ever the actor.

'BRAND NEW WORLD," the last recorded collaboration between myself and producer Steve Burgh (recorded 11/98 through 3/99), has been released, after much ado, on my own label, Savage Juliet Records.

Steve also produced my first two albums in 1979 and 1980. When he died of a sudden and massive heart attack in February of this year, I was devastated. At his funeral many people told me, including his mother whom I had never met before, that the work we did together meant a lot to him. It had been so many years since our first projects, and he never really told me to my face, so I was deeply touched by this. It then seemed such a crime for this CD to go unheard, for people not to be reminded of how good he was--how good we were together. I decided then to release "Brand New World," just the way he first sent it to me after it was mixed, as a tribute to my musical mentor and dear, dear friend.

Inside the CD is my dedication to Steve under an image of us onstage at The Bottom Line in New York City when we were recording the album. The CD cover picture is of my son, Gabriel. I wish Steve had had the chance to meet him.

"BRAND NEW WORLD" is finally now available online. Just click on "BUY" above for more info, as well as an interesting tidbit about one of the songs on the CD.

Incidentally, all you Media Moguls and Industry Types out there--I am available for press and radio interviews, and I am not totally turned off to the idea of worldwide distribution for this CD--especially in Europe, Japan, and Canada.