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Karen Alexander was born in Los Angeles, California, and grew up in a suburb of Hollywood. Her father had a psychoanalytic practice in Beverly Hills. In 1965, she married Iranian architect Esfandiar Bahrampour and moved to Tehran. While living in Tehran, she occasionally traveled back to the U.S., where she bought a guitar and began writing songs. Despite the cultural restrictions on women singing in Iran, she continued to write music and sent her tapes to America, eventually securing a record contract in the early seventies. Before recording her first album, she provided backing vocals on albums by Maria Muldaur and Wendy Waldman. Her debut album, "Isn't It Always Love," was released in 1975, featuring all self-written songs except for the title track, which was penned by Karla Bonoff. The album was characterized by its up-tempo rhythm and entertaining lyrics. Three years later, she released her second and final album, "Voyager," which had a more melancholic tone and slower tempo. While in Tehran, she worked at CBS Records, but as the Iranian Revolution intensified, the CBS office closed, leading to her job loss. Despite many foreigners leaving the country, Karen and her husband chose to stay until the situation became too perilous. In 1979, they fled with their family, initially relocating to Portland, Oregon, before eventually moving to Palo Alto, California.

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