That's a good-faith effort, but so atypically low-key for her---possibly good bedtime listening, given the right candles and weed, but I wouldn't know----here's my blog take on her complete works so far (hope something else turns up, like more live from the Attic, or The Trio w guest Bobby D. on harp, back in the Village, or more from her band tour; see the bonus tracks about to be mentioned for some of that):
Shuckin Sugar, seamlessly selected from two January 1963 shows at Joe Loop’s Boulder place the Attic, plus a CORE benefit, was my gateway for Karen J. Dalton’s glinting vocal precision, which can take its time, an extra split second rolling and yowling all around the release of each note (like Joplin at the beginning and end of her discography, not the loud middle)(although some of Dalton’s Green Rocky Road living room tape is like mainlining Sonny [and Linda!] Sharrock’s Black Woman intensity-wise, so might as well be loud, but ain’t; Dalton seems never to have felt the musical need for that). Sometimes it’s in my system already, just pure, or distilled, which might be the better word lifestyle-wise: that thin substance some called “horn-like,” which goes with the jazzy suggestions sometimes audible in her 12-string folk-country blues: the modal connections, also the--modulation? Is she re-tuning some strings back and forth?--- the march, shuffle, pendulum going sideways in a good way, just for a little while, with voice reflecting that or vice-versa, while third husband Richard Tucker’s singing and six-string has no prob following (not here, although some of the expeditions on 1966 send for instance their former The Trio colleague Tim Hardin’s songs sideways in an alarming way, but hey those are just rehearsal tapes, nothing ventured nothing gained ).
The cadence, reinforced at times by her banjo.and always a boot beat, sounds and feels bold and careful at once: she knows “You’ve got to walk that lonesome valley all by yourself,” just like John and Jesus did, even “If you’re a viper,” and she is, babes (introduces that one by saying something to the effect that it’s a response–by other hands, a cover as always—to “a Biblical passage about a generation of vipers”). There’s always something straight-forward and affirmative, sometimes even hopeful, at least purposeful with no loss ov shadows—”In The Pines” goes right over there in the scent without the usual waltz, and “Katie Cruel” ‘s brief stark life, from pretty to shitty, has just enough room for rich whistling. On my sub-sub-audiophile over-the-ear headphones and YouTube Music, especially (though it worked as well first of all on Bandcamp), this whole set works better and better, note by note, on these ancient tapes, and is sometimes breathtaking (not a word I ever first choose to use).
Dalton’s other 2022 release, the expanded 50th Anniversary Edition of her second and last studio album, In My Own Time, was (following my Attic/living room tape experience) pretty startling at first, being served up with with a full, unmistakably early 70s rootsy-polished Woodstock band, but except for the kinda tiresome “When A Man Loves A Woman” and the kinda funny (when all the guys start singing along), ready for James Taylor “How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You),” all the covers seem much closer to home, speaking to her strengths, with Harvey Brooks’s production always in good faith (as was his bass playing on the refined yet less sympatico Nic Venet-produced ‘69 maiden voyage It’s So Hard To Tell Who’s Going To Love You The Best, a late-night blues groove, with promising choices of material like “Sweet Substitute, “ yet where she can sound a little too careful, especially when her guitar and banjo are mixed way down low—often effectively absent, no matter how loud I turn it up—most distressingly so on “Ribbon Bow,” yet another intriguing harmonic horizon line of Shucking Sugar).
Coming back to IMOT 50th after that snoozer, it’s even more of a grower, as I get the hang of floating momentum, as the sun changes the clouds of opener “Something On Your Mind,” by Dino Valente (AKA Chet Powers, who also wrote Youngbloods apotheosis “Get Together” before settling in as tiresome, nasal, magic microphone headvoice of Quicksilver Messenger Service, then checking out early: what the hell with guys like this?)
Richard Manuel’s “In A Station” gets maybe a bit overemphatic instrumentally, but most of these tracks build in a satisfying way, sometimes with just a few notes coming in from the margins, commenting, suggesting. Dalton, always appealing, gets overtly seductive, or at least inviting, on Tate’s “Take Me,” because sometimes you gotta spell it out, while remanng mobile enough (more flotation, in case the response isn’t satisfactory)
.Paul Butterfield’s “In My Own Dream” is as robust and slightly blurry- photorealist as dreams can be: a view from a slow merry-go-round, centered by Brooks’ oompah bass, leaning out from associations with Miles Davis’s “All Blues,” and here comes Bll Keith’s steel guitar again, defining the edge of motion, a good place to step.
The band occasionally disappears, except this “Katie Cruel” leaves off the whistling for Bobby Notkoff’s daring, never oversold fiddle (which is also on Michelle’s tripworthy 60s L.A. psych-folk-pop nocturne Saturn Rings, produced by Curt Boettcher) and the Steve Weber-arranged “Same Old Man” withstands a droning swarm of un auto-taggable triumph (perhaps Robert Fritz’s clarinet, if it’s bass and he knows Tuvan throat-singing??)
“One Night of Love” gets Brooks’ bass loping toward “Can’t Turn You Loose”(not officially covered, but close enough)
Richard Tucker’s “Are You Leaving For the Country?” is the hazy, observant closer, antipodal to “Something on Your Mind.”Three alt-takes are all keepers “Something…” gets a more lively-from-the-start combo performance, maybe considered a little too folk-rock for hipper 1972, but certainly not for 2022; this “In My Own Dream” mainly differs in being a minute longer, which is fine by me) ditto six live ventures of Dalton and band into Bremen and a Montreux festival, with studio atmospherics intact enough and nimble: it’s a balancing act, really out there for her, far from the Attic and her Boulder living room.
If only she could have kept going a little longer, as the singer-songwriter thing found its niche on little labels, beyond trend-hungry majors, then maybe…
But her stubbornness, her wariness, her night vision too, seem to have included some fear, some blinks, some blanks: for one thing, she refused to sing her own words, though the musical settings provided by Lucinda Williams, Patty Griffin, bold Julia Holter, and a variety of other singer-composers on Remembering Mountains always sound plausibly Daltonesque, Her words were ready to go, to be perhaps matched to adapted traditional tunes, a la Dylan and others, but—maybe she just couldn’t face the tough aesthetic choices that wait for any writer, the ones that can wake somebody up at 4:00 AM or lunch: “My God why did or didn’t I do THAT?”
Here several people who knew her have their say, sometimes disagreeing: a suitable “oral history, sort of,” cogently spliced by Johnny West:
https://johnnywestmusic.wordpress.com/2014/10/29/karen-dalton-an-oral-history-sort-of/
*This follow-up adds that Dalton did write out chords for the words that Sharon Van Etten sings on Remembering Mountains:
https://johnnywestmusic.wordpress.com/2015/06/20/now-your-time-is-your-own/
― dow, Thursday, 25 January 2024 20:26 (two months ago) link