After slaying audiences as an opening act, MercuryCarter gets his chance to headline
If you’ve heard Charlotte’s MercuryCarter cover Adele or Rachelle Ferrell live, watched his videos on YouTube, or listened to the innovative 2015 EP he made with a microphone and an iPad in his closet, then you may wonder why he’s just now headlining his own show. Carter (real name Kevin) is just that good.
He’s performed at Tosco Music Party, at local benefit concerts paying tribute to Prince and Motown, and at Switzerland’s renowned Montreux Jazz Festival. He’s often asked to sing songs by Prince and Maxwell due to his amazing vocal range. He’ll do it, but he’d rather be interpreting Sarah Vaughan and Ella Fitzgerald.
“I’m a grandma,” he deadpans while seated at Amelie’s in NoDa after finishing a shift at his day job verifying insurance at a surgery center.
Next Wednesday he gets his chance, curating his own two-hour set and making his much-deserved hometown headlining debut at the Mint Museum Uptown’s “Live at the Mint” eight-week local arts series. He’ll perform a two-hour set with a full band, including three backup singers.
“(Promoters) want to hear Jill Scott and Floetry. They ask me to sing Maxwell or Prince because of a look or sound,” he explains, referencing his facial features and spiraling afro tucked into a polka-dotted scarf. “I aspire to golden age jazz, soul, rhythm & blues — not R&B.”
A teen fashion prodigy whose work was exhibited alongside Chanel, Dior and Halston at the Mint Museum while he was still in high school, Carter left the sewing machine (but not the threads) behind to pursue music thanks to the encouragement of two friends who often heard him sing in the car.
He used karaoke as a “diagnostics test” to see if his voice was as good as friends said it was, and to see if he had the nerve to perform. A bad breakup and the death of his 16-year-old shih-tzu Carmelo drove him to download a recording app and pour his emotions into that first EP, which caught the attention of local media. Comparisons to Prince, Maxwell and Freddie Mercury abounded.
In late 2017, he received further validation when an invitation from the Montreux Jazz Festival appeared in his inbox. He thought it might be a scam, but called the number anyway. By July 2018, he was on stage singing at the same 52-year-old festival that once hosted Miles Davis, Fitzgerland and Ferrell.
“I was told I was the first solo vocalist from North Carolina since Nina Simone,” he says.
Production-wise, his debut shared a multi-layered, forward-thinking approach that Prince and Grammy-winning jazz bassist Esperanza Spalding — both considered geniuses in their field — exhibited early in their careers.
He’s constantly told to audition for “The Voice,” but refuses to sway stylistically or succumb to the “frail ideology” of an industry that’s still figuring itself out after the rise of digital media.
He has no desire to embark on 32-month-long arena tours, for instance. He’d prefer quiet theaters and opera houses. He wants to record live with live musicians, but is conscious of the logistics of making an album economically.
“It takes extensive tours to pay for expensive albums,” he says. “I need money to survive, which is why I’m wearing black scrubs.”
Carter was raised in Charlotte in a close-knit Southern family that urged him to audition for Northwest School of the Arts. He studied piano, chorus and musical theater, but curiosity about life outside of a school where there were dance battles in the hallways and “Glee”-style group sings in the cafeteria led him to West Charlotte. It was there his interest in fashion blossomed.
He’s close to his parents and 27-year-old sister, but has become increasingly convinced that he’ll have to move to New York if he wants to achieve his goal of winning a Grammy by age 30. He turned 25 in September.
While he’s not in a hurry to rush his artistic development (“Ella or Sarah’s voices didn’t really form until their mid-30s”) and praises the work being done by Jazz Arts, the Jazz Diva and the new Middle C jazz club, he points to the recent failed arts and education bill when discussing Charlotte’s arts environment.
“That’s all you have to say,” he says with a shrug. “There’s more fish in the sea in New York, but also resources. New York makes you not want to sleep in.”
As for next Wednesday’s performance, he and his holistic voice coach Tiffaney Borgeline (who he describes as a mentor and therapist as well as coach) have created a set that Carter hopes lets listeners escape.
“I hope you leave differently than how you came in. It’s two hours of complete release. You can dance, cry, jump — however you want to shed.”
MercuryCarter
When: 6 p.m. Wednesday.
Where: Mint Museum Uptown, 500 S. Tryon St.
Tickets: Free.
Details: 704-337-2000; www.mintmuseum.org.