Karen Dalton - Green Rocky Road

This 1963 home recording may be an unearthed treasure to Karen Dalton’s admirers, but to me it serves as an introduction, and a rather enchanting one at that.

Recorded using the pretty basic (by today’s standards) equipment of her sound engineer friend, Joe Loop, these songs now stand as the closest thing to an actual studio album before her ’69 debut ‘It’s So Hard to Tell Who’s Going to Love You The Best’.

I haven’t heard the live recordings from the same era either, but in these home demos there’s a strong portrait of a woman with a deep love, respect and understanding of folk traditions, something that is always hard to find nowadays, over here or over there.

The recordings are very sparse and simple but there’s little interference, and Karen’s voice and her gentle guitar work, and dextrous banjo playing are presented in all their naked glory.

‘Nottingham Town’ is a familiar folk melody, borrowed later (or earlier – look it up yourself) for Dylan’s ‘Master’s of War’, and ‘Green Rocky Road’, the title track, is a beautiful reflective piece, which I recognise partly from Donovan’s 'London Town', from '64' his own unreleased demos album. Dalton’s take on the song is less pretty, perhaps, but her voice is much more mature than the young Leitch boy’s.

As part of the Greenwich Village folk scene of the time she was praised highly by contemporaries Fred Neil (the guy who wrote that ‘Dolphins’ song) and Bob Dylan (the guy who wrote that other song). That so little of her work was committed to record must surely be a conspiracy of fate’s, as her talent and strength of character are in no doubt.

As an album, ‘Green Rocky Road’ is a snapshot of a bygone era, and harks back even further. It’s a tranquil but soul-stirring collection of songs, and you definitely don’t have to be a fetid hippy and/or anti-folk superstar to enjoy it.

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