Revisiting Karen Dalton
Eddie Robson
The release of a previously unheard demo record sees New Noise rediscovering a folk treasure
"I don’t care what kind of music’s your bag, whether you like shiny pop or death metal or hard trance, this has gotta make you feel something"
A couple of years ago, Greenwich Village folkie Karen Dalton went from being totally obscure to just being fairly obscure, which gathered sufficient interest for her records to be reissued. However, due in part to her disengagement with the concept of a career and her all too strong engagement with the reality of hard drugs, Dalton only managed two studio albums in her lifetime (she died, basically destitute, in 1993). One of the joys of discovering an artist years after the event is that there’s usually a wealth of material for you to devour: by comparison, Dalton’s output is a disappointing haul.Yet, those who have now discovered her display the kind of zealous obsession which marks out fans of, for example, Gram Parsons or Scott Walker – the kind of artists who are, paradoxically, famous for being obscure. Dalton’s followers are likely to play her music to the uninitiated at any opportunity and there’s a thirst for more of her material, in whatever form.
The response, following on from last year’s 1962 live album ‘Cotton Eyed Joe’, is ‘Green Rocky Road’, a set of bluegrass-blues recordings which dates back to 1963. These tracks – which, like all Dalton’s material, were not her own but are a selection of covers and traditional songs – were laid down in an early portastudio and were never intended for release.
Scraping the barrel? Fuck no. These were made six years before Dalton’s proper stab at a recording career and offer something very different – on her albums she sounds like she’s being pitched as a kind of female James Taylor with more feeling (in fact, one of the covers on 1971’s ‘In My Own Time’ was Marvin Gaye’s ‘How Sweet It Is’, which Taylor had a big hit with four years later). ‘Green Rocky Road’ is a set of echoey demos, just about up to commercial standard, but it’s got everything it needs: just Dalton and a banjo. That’s the kind of voice she had, you see.
Bob Dylan was a fan and they share very similar vocal qualities – technically she’s not much of a singer, but something in that voice just cuts right through you. Within a few seconds of the title track of ‘Green Rocky Road’ you will, most likely, be floored – I don’t care what kind of music’s your bag, whether you like shiny pop or death metal or hard trance, this has got to make you feel something. Dylan went on to define the zeitgeist in American music; Dalton never found her niche – her records, when she finally got to make them, were commercial flops.
It’s easy for music fans to grumble about the homogeneity of modern music, but against this is the fact that the much-vaunted 1960s and 1970s clearly had no place for someone like Dalton – she may have hampered her career with her erratic approach, but it’s not as if there was somebody else doing what she did but better. Today, someone like Joanna Newsom – who has acknowledged Dalton as a big influence – is able to make widely praised records. Perhaps if Dalton had been born a few decades later, she might not have died on the streets with half her teeth missing.
Meanwhile, the masterpiece that is ‘Green Rocky Road’ has been sitting down the back of a cupboard for 45 years and, as luck would have it, is completely timeless. All we can say is, thank god it survived.
Related Links
- Myspace page
- You tube footage
- New Noise album review | Karen Dalton - Cotton Eyed Joe | 6 August 2007
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