IN MY OWN TIME by KAREN DALTON (1971, Just Sunshine Records)

Karen Dalton is the great forgotten singer of the ‘60s Greenwich Village Folk Scene which attracted and made names of Bob Dylan, Joan Baez and Ritchie Havens among others. Dalton only made two albums, IN MY OWN TIME was the second and it is breathtaking.

Her surviving peers are full of praise for Dalton. In his autobiography ‘Chronicles’ Dylan reminisces about the Greenwich scene and the acts that used to frequent the regular live haunt, Café Wah; “My favourite singer in the place was Karen Dalton. Karen had a voice like Billie Holiday and played guitar like Jimmy Reed. I played with her a few times”.

Dalton has a world weary voice and brought a soulful blues to the folk and acoustic pop that she recorded. Little is known about her private life but what is, sounds tough. Her heritage was Cherokee and before moving to NY she lived in Enid, Oklahoma. By the time she was 21 she had been married and divorced twice. Though she’d been in Greenwich since the early ‘60s but her first album only came out in 1969. Karen did not record her own compositions and both of her albums are made up of folk and pop covers or her versions of traditional songs. It’s been suggested that this is one of the reasons that success eluded her, given that at this time all singer-songwriters wrote their own songs and music.

The recording process proved torturous for Karen. She loathed the experience. Her first album was only recorded because Fred Neil fooled her into believing the tape wasn’t running. The recording of IN MY OWN TIME, her second album, was set up by Bob Dylan’s manager Albert Grossman. In order to make the recording less stressful Dalton apparently returned to her home Oklahoma and brought back with her, her dogs, horse and children to keep her stress under control.

It’s a beautiful and soulful folk album. Standout tracks are the opening song ‘Something On Your Mind’ which speaking personally, her vocals go right through me. They’re heartbreaking and real. There’s also a lovely version of the American folk song ‘Katie Cruel’, a traditional song that dates back to the American Civil War, although Karen’s version is considered now to be the definitive recorded version. Also included are covers of Mowtown classics ‘When A Man Loves A Women’ and ‘How It Sweet It Is’.

The album was a commercial failure when it was released. Karen never recorded again. She spent the majority of the next twenty years destitute, addicted to drink and drugs and the was thought to have died on the streets of NY after long battle with AIDS. However for an article in Uncut magazine it was discovered that actually she died in 1993 in upstate New York having been cared for by friend and fellow folk musician, Peter Walker.

IN MY OWN TIME is forgotten masterpiece by a forgotten singer. 

Both deserve to be much better known than they are.

‘SOMETHING ON YOUR MIND’
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CsYHN7eCCtU

‘KATIE CRUEL’
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FEKWpMUZoUE

‘HOW SWEET IT IS’
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPzK_ABS_mE