Carroll Gibbons was born in a small manufacturing town near Boston, in Massachusetts. He took up music because he stuttered, and wanted a career in which he would not need to talk. Starting at the age of fifteen as a concert pianist, he grew interested in popular music and formed a school dance band. This was a great success, and led to engagements with various small orchestras, and after two years he accepted an offer to play a cinema organ in Boston.
In 1924 he received an offer to play in London with Howard Jacobs, and came to England, in company with Joe Brannelly and Rudy Vallee. He first went to the Berkeley as a pianist, and later to the Savoy, where he began his association with the Savoy bands, with whom he has broadcast regularly since 1925, both from the Savoy and from the BBC studios.
He has written many of his own numbers, and among his most successful compositions are "While My Pretty One Sleeps", "Garden in the Rain", "My Cigarette Lady" (with Rudy Vallee), and his signature tune, "On the Air".