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It’s only been since the likes of Devendra Banhart and Joanna Newsom have dropped her name that Karen Dalton has begun to receive the appreciation that only her close contemporaries (like Dylan and Fred Neil) gave her in her lifetime. But that lack of recognition meant that she didn’t record much material in her lifetime and both “proper” albums have now been re-released. But a Boulder, Colorado club owner, Joe Loop, was prescient enough to record her, both at his club (released on the superb Cotton Eyed Joe last year) and at her home. The songs on Green Rocky Road are those she played, mostly solo, at home, while Joe Loop operated the tape machine.
It’s a bit like listening to Bessie Smith or Robert Johnson; you’re separated across some seemingly vast tract of time from a long-dead artist whose scratchy work you’re hearing recorded on the basic equipment of the day. But what comes through all the crackle and hiss is a spine-shaking soulfulness and an instinctive, intense playing that connects across the decades. Though a Karen Dalton novice wouldn’t start with this album, it demonstrates her deep talent, on songs she’d record in different ways later in her career. Playing either a red 12 string Gibson guitar or a banjo carved by a Boulder folky out of an antique coat rack, she lights up the record with her emotive, world weary voice, as she plays folk tunes like ‘Nottingham Town’ or the old blues ‘In the Evening’ and shows her interest in Appalachian folksong. ‘Skillet Good and Greasy’ is a humorous drinking song but its references to jugs of brandy remind you of her biggest seducer and eventual killer. These 1963 recordings are clearly of her own time but also suggest that her time has finally come now. Great music, yet desperately sad, at the same time.
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