a r t i s t : Karen Dalton
t i t l e : Green Rocky Road
d a t e : 2008
l a b e l : Megaphone (CDMEGA18)
g e n r e : Folk
r l s. d a t e : May/2008
t r a c k s : 09
b i t r a t e : VBRkbps
s i z e : 32,6 MB
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Forty five years on from the original recordings, yet more
lost treasures are unearthed from the estate of Karen Dalton,
and once again, it's a reissue of sessions committed to tape
by amateur sound engineer Joe Loop, the man responsible for
capturing the Cotton Eyed Joe live double album that surfaced
last year. As ever, Karen's voice turns out to be quite the
shock to the system, with a wizened resonance that doesn't
really fit the youthful frame. Despite there being overlaps in
terms of the songs performed, there's a gulf of difference
between the Karen Dalton documented here and the one who would
later go on to record It's So Hard To Tell Who's Going To Love
You The Best (1969) and In My Own Time (1971). 'Ribbon Bow'
from the former appears in a rough cut fashion here, as does
the much celebrated 'Katie Cruel', a song that's become
something of a standard in recent years, thanks to covers by
Bert Jansch, Beth Orton, Devendra Banhart and White Magic. You
can still hear traces of the swaggering, smoky tones that
would later define Dalton as the 'Bilie Holliday of folk' in
Green Rocky Road, but her talent is clearly caught during an
incubatory period, committed to record in a style redolent of
the old rustic field recordings that defined the way folk
music was discovered in the first half of the twentieth
century. Bar for the final song, 'In The Evening', which
features assistance from Loop on drums, these are all solo
performances, with Karen accompanying herself on either 12-
string guitar or her unique, customised banjo. You'd be hard-
pressed to a find a more intimate portrait of the artist as a
young woman. Excellent.
http://www.boomkat.com/item.cfm?id=88491
http://www.megaphone-music.com
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01-Green Rocky Road [04:01]
02-Whoopee Ti Yi Yo [03:25]
03-Ribbon Bow [04:09]
04-Katie Cruel [05:12]
05-Little Margret [05:09]
06-Red Rockin' Chair [03:50]
07-Nottingham Town [06:26]
08-Skillet Good and Greasy [03:56]
09-In The Evening [05:29]
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41:37 min