Profile: Karen Dalton

When the Sun Goes Down::
There are so many myths and misconceptions about Karen Dalton that it is easy to become absorbed in them instead of in her work. The mythology of Dalton ranges from the beautiful (plants stretching up and growing into her New York City windows), to the self-invented (although Dalton claimed half Cherokee heritage, according to her daughter, Karen didn't have enough blood to collect benefits) to the classic rock end (contrary to popular, belief Dalton was neither alone nor homeless but in a friends apartment cared for by her son Lee, when she died of AIDS in 1993). The facts are plain: Karen married Ron Dalton, a college professor, had two children, divorced, and moved with her daughter to pursue her art in New York. Dalton was popular in the New York folk circuit of the 1960s but never tasted success, perhaps because of her strict adherence to standards, perhaps to her lack of stage savvy. Her daughter left Dalton and moved back with her father; Dalton's son Lee eventually moved to stay with his mother in New York. Dalton developed a rough heroin habit, contracted AIDS and died in 1993, shortly before her albums were re-released. Sweeping aside the tragic, romantic notions of Dalton's life allow one to fully listen to the her work.

While her studio albums, It's Hard to Tell Who's Going to Love You The Best and In My Own Time, are good there is an air of folly about them; Dalton didn't enjoy the studio environment so recording her in one was like capturing nature by going out, killing and then stuffing a wild animal. Sure, that doe may look life like but it just isn't the essence of a deer. The Karen Dalton captured in the nine tracks on Green Rocky Road is not the Karen Dalton tagged as "folk's answer to Billie Holiday" or "the best singer you've never heard". What is frozen on the two-track the songs were recorded on is much purer, simpler, less styled, and more self-aware than either of her studio album.

The recordings for Green Rocky Road (Delmore Recordings) come from Dalton's friend, Joe Loop, who recorded some live sets of Dalton at his coffee house in Colorado, The Attic, in 1962. The recordings on Green Rocky Road start with the simple proclamation, "Recorded on two tracks," and that is the ideal amount of introduction for Karen Dalton. As soon as she starts picking her banjo on the title track, Dalton's voice fills the ears like honey flecked with shards of glass, making the words of each standard she sings swell with hope and then shatter with resignation. The banjo playing is straight out of Appalachia conjuring up thoughts of Jean Ritchie and The Carter Family, but also has a bit of blues influence. The songs are snapshot of Dalton at her most content; fresh escaped out of her past in Enid, Oklahoma but before she escaped too far into the New York folk scene, hard drugs, and buying into her own obscurity.