From the heart: Karen Dalton

It's Sunday night, I have been practicing for the upcoming JaLaLa gig, and my mind has nothing in it but lyrics, repeating. So I thought I would post a video for you of a singer you may never have heard.

Karen Dalton only recorded two albums, It's So Hard to Tell Who is Going to Love You in 1969, and In My Own Time 1971. That's it. But I had them both, and loved them.

Her voice was often compared to Billie Holiday's, and I used to hear a great resemblance. Now, though, I don't hear it as much, perhaps because I know Billie's work so much better than I did then, and can recognize how Karen's harsh beauty is different. But there is a resemblance in their artistic integrity. Both women sang from their experience, both were fiercely individual, both were stalked by demons of addiction, and paid a price for that ferocity.

Two albums, recorded (and first heard) forty years ago, still ringing in my memory. Karen's singing continues to move me with its simplicity, and honesty, and the way she told her story.