Carmen Electra As A Singer

Few people may realize that Carmen Electra (formerly known as Tara Leigh Patrick) first ventured into show business via a singer career. To those that know her very well, this should come as no surprise, since music runs in the Patrick family. Carmen’s father was a guitarist while her mother was singer.  And they were instrumental to Carmen’s development as a performer.

At a tender age, her parents sent her to the School of Creative and Performing Arts, where she took voice lessons, as well as participated in a lot of musicals. Not long after, Carmen decided to leave her small hometown of White Oak, Ohio, to move to Minneapolis and eventually to Los Angeles, hoping to land a recording contract and have a flourishing music career.

Underage and working in Los Angeles as a performer, Carmen first started as a dancer on “Soul Train” to be able to break into the industry. This was in the year 1991. Yet, even with her gorgeous looks and remarkable talent, it took awhile for the break to happen. Sneaking with a friend into a nightclub one time, Carmen was spotted by no less than pop superstar, Prince, who convinced her to audition for a group of singers he was thinking of forming. 

While at the audition, Carmen sensed she wasn’t the right person they were looking for and conceded to the fact that this all-girl band was not her path. She was on her way to closing a recording demo deal with Capitol records, when meeting Prince for the second time the pop royalty told her that he instead wanted Carmen as a solo artist under his record label Paisley Park Records. It was Prince who christened Tara Leigh Patrick into Carmen Electra, naming her after Bizet’s Carmen and a Greek goddess named (Electra).

Carmen eventually recorded and released her album with the carrier single called “Go-Go Dancer” and by 1992 it would seem like things were going well for her. But unfortunately, her debut album failed to earn critical success and struggled at the charts. Then, after two years under Prince’s music genius and guidance, Carmen left and took a job on the Nickelodeon show, “All That”.

Before she earned international fame through her nude photos on Playboy Magazine, Carmen used to be the lead singer for the cabaret-inspired all-girl dance troupe called The Pussycat Dolls. The group’s repertoire included cabaret classics like Big Spender and the theme from the Pink Panther and was known to delight the crowd by performing while sporting skimpy dance outfits that showed their flawless and well-toned bodies.  The Pussycat Dolls regularly performed at the Viper Room.

Carmen was a member of the group for two years before she left and landed a role on the TV hit series, Baywatch.