noWax

Karen Dalton is another one of those ‘brilliant but forgotten about’ musicians of which there seem to be so many. Her style sometimes described as Folk Blues or Acid Folk takes its cues from all across the board. She came to New York around 1960 and became a staple in the Greenwich Village folk circuit with Bob Dylan and Fred Neil. She was not comfortable in studios and didn’t get an album released until 1969, preferring instead to play in cafes in New York and around the United States. This, her second and last album from 1971 is the tighter and better collection of her work. These 10 tracks are sublime. Nick Cave says ‘she’s my favourite female blues singer’. Devendra Banhart says ‘She is my favourite singer’, even Bob Dylan gets his name on the cover on the album by saying ‘she has a voice like Billie Holiday and plays the guitar like Jimmy Reed’. High praises indeed. In fact the similarities between Karen and Devendra are quite dazzling, his music is almost a carbon copy.

The tracks are all covers and traditional interpretations not that you’d know it. She manages to transform even standards such as ‘How Sweet It Is To Be Loved By You’ into something new entirely. Her voice is cracked at almost every turn creating something very raw. This surprisingly, fits exceptionally well with the professional and tight backing provided by some of the best session musicians around at the time, such as Amos Garrett, Bill Keith on steel, pianist John Simon, guitarist John Hall and pianist Richard B. ‘In A Station’ is one of the standouts on this album, the rolling toms almost announcing her voice and the piano annunciating it. Dalton came from a strict folk background, more so than all her contemporaries on the scene. ‘Same Old Man’ is a classic old traditional tune, which is pretty much just her and a banjo. It adequately demonstrates just how much this sound is inside her emotionally. ‘One Night Of Love’ has some upbeat drums and is almost a folk rock tune, her voice straying further than sometimes you think it should.

‘In My Own Time’ is another example of an album that should not be overlooked now simply because it was overlooked at the time. Karen Dalton’s second album has just been reissued so now there are no more excuses.