Carletta Sue Kay are equal parts Marianne Faithful, Joanna Newsom and Emmylou Harris, coupled with the song writing styles of Stephen Merritt and Cole Porter. CSK is named after singer-songwriter Randy Walker’s real-life cousin who served a prison sentence for domestic terrorism and threatening to blow-up her ex-boyfriend with a pipe bomb. This is an auspicious inspiration for a musical persona who, performing with an obvious five-o’clock shadow, sings heart-wrenching yet transformative songs of love, life, and relationships told from the perspective of a woman. The debut Carletta Sue Kay LP ‘Incongruent’ (Kitten Charmer) and. Randy Walker, aka Carletta recorded backing vocals with the Magnetic Fields on their 10th album Love at the Bottom of the Sea (Merge).

“Perhaps the most obvious comparison for Mr. Walker’s gender- and genre-bending approach would be Antony Hegarty, the androgynous singer with an angelic voice...but Mr. Walker is more in the realm of sweaty rock ’n’ roll than torch songs: his voice, a tenor, can easily slide up and down the scale...”
New York Times

“Carletta Sue Kay is the female alter-ego of SF musician Randy Walker, and this identity shift pushes his art in some astonishing directions. Androgynous to its core, and loaded with overtones, his vocal delivery as Carletta Sue Kay can recall Annie Lennox, Gene Ween, and Joanna Newsom, all in the same breath.”
San Francisco Bay Guardian