Transcript
music
“Crown Ones” off the album Stepfather by People Under The Stairs
oliver wang
Hello, I’m Oliver Wang.
morgan rhodes
And I’m Morgan Rhodes. You’re listening to Heat Rocks. Every episode we invite a guest to join us to talk about a heat rock. You know, fire, combustibles, albums that bump eternally. Today we will be deep diving together into the cult classic 1971 album by Karen Dalton, In My Own Time.
music
“Take Me” off the album In My Own Time by Karen Dalton. Sad, slow music with crooning, raspy, vibrating vocals. Take me to your darkest room Close every window and lock every door [Music fades out as Morgan speaks.]
morgan
Turn to your neighbor and say, “I thank God I don’t look like what I’ve been through.” I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard that over the years; and more than an acknowledgement of the virtue of melanin, it is meant to suggest that whatever else a close read of your backstory might reveal, pain doesn’t always show on your face. ‘Cause sometimes it shows up in your voice, as it did with Karen Dalton on her album for Paramount records, In My Own Time. Karen Dalton sounded like what she’d been through. Raspy world-weariness, longing and sadness, even on songs meant to be happy like Holland-Dozier’s “How Sweet It Is.” Karen Dalton did two things for sure on this album: uncovered pain on an album of covers, and spent those covers strumming her pain with her fingers, in blues, in folk, in gospel, and in rock. And while we are gathered here today to sing its praises, In My Own Time didn’t do much commercially, didn’t garner much fiscally—twenty thousand dollars, it’s reported—and pushed Karen deeper into the darkness, a descent that saw her leaving for the country, near Woodstock, a town where stars had been born. What she left behind: live blues and heartache, circumstances crueler than Kate, a snapshot of what pain does to the gifted, and the legacy of a career interrupted. Mae West said once, “It’s better to be looked over than overlooked,” which makes me wonder what obscurity cost Karen, the price she paid for us discovering her late, but in our own time.
music
[“Take Me” fades back in.] Take me to Siberia And the coldest weather of the winter time [Music fades out again as Oliver speaks]
oliver
In My Own Time was the album pick of our guest today, music writer Jason Woodbury. He’s perhaps best known for his work with Aquarium Drunkard, the long-running music blog that began around the same time as Soul-Sides did, in the mid-2000s, and unlike most music blogs that began in the mid-2000s, is still around. Not just surviving, but thriving. Jason heads up the site’s Transmissions podcast, as well as occasionally guest host for their SiriusXM show; and does many of their interviews and reviews, when he’s not also busy contributing to the likes of Pitchfork, Flood Magazine, and the L.A. Review of Books. Jason, welcome to Heat Rocks.
jason woodbury
Yeah, thank you guys so much for having me. I’m a huge fan of the show.
morgan
So glad to have you in the seat. So, as you know from the show, we have to ask at the beginning: why Karen Dalton, and why this album?
jason
This is a record that, it doesn’t matter how many times I listen to it, it blows my mind every time. She’s got such a unique voice. There’s so much you can hear about her character in her voice and in her music. So, as far as why I wanted to pick this one, it’s just the sort of record that I never get tired of listening to, and then never get tired of talking about with people. Just a mind-blowing record.
morgan
Tell us how you came to know this album, and if you remember purchasing this album at all, what form?
jason
It was definitely vinyl. When Light in the Attic reissued this in, I think, 2006, I had a friend and mentor named Chris Estie, who was doing publicity for Light in the Attic, and he sent me an email. “Hey, you’re gonna want to check this record out. We’re putting this lost classic out.” And this is 2006, so the “we’re putting this lost classic out” thing hadn’t been said quite as frequently as it has since then, so I was like, okay, I’ll definitely check this out. He had mentioned to me that Devendra Banhart and Nick Cave were in the liner notes, so that was all I needed to hear. As a young music fan, I was working at a record store, Zia Records in Tempe, Arizona. Kind of like an amazing time in my life, where I spent every night listening to records and watching movies, and then I would wake up the next morning and do that until I had to go into work, where I would show up and listen to records for eight hours and then go home and do the same thing.
jason
So, In My Own Time was one of those records that, when I got ahold of it, I couldn’t stop listening to it, I couldn’t stop evangelizing for it. I wanted everybody I knew to listen to this record, to listen to her voice, to check out this completely unique sounding voice. I was really big, and there was a magazine at the time called Arthur Magazine, headed up by a guy named Jay Babcock. It was a free magazine that we had on the rack at the record store, and I would pick these issues up, along with things like The Wire, or Pitchfork, or Tiny Mix Tapes, you know. Or Aquarium Drunkards and Sole-Sides. I would just go over everything listed in the magazine, and I would try to track something down, and I would find a CD or an LP and listen to it. Arthur was really focused on the freak folk thing that was really blowing up at that time, and I loved that stuff. I loved Vetiver, and Devendra Banhart, and Six Organs of Admittance, all these bands. Karen, to me, sounded absolutely as radical and strange and arcane and uncanny as any of the stuff that was coming out from that scene that was supposed to be psychedelic folk music, which, that stuff’s great too, but Karen was like— she’s the original.
oliver
Thirty years before what you’re talking about.
jason
Oh, one hundred percent. But it sounded so current to me. Stuff like Joanna Newsom, I would listen to that, and then I would listen to Karen Dalton, and I could hear the thread that was connecting these artists from across decades.
music
“Sadie” off the album The Milk-Eyed Mender by Joanna Newsom. Gentle, melancholy folk. … but it's mine to use And the seabirds where the fear once grew Will flock with a fury And they will bury… [Music fades out as Morgan speaks]
morgan
I want to take a moment to shout-out Light in the Attic, because just as a music fan, their releases have done so much for me in not making me feel silly for releases that I might have missed, but also providing all the background information that you need if you’re reviving records that people probably should have gotten but didn’t get. So I just want to take a moment. Light in the Attic has come up many, many times on the show, so I want to shout them out. Oliver has contributed to some of their releases, and just for me, as a music fan, those releases have really helped me to feel like I’m in the know without making me feel silly for having missed it first time around.
oliver
Right, just to go in this tangent, since you brought it up, Morgan. I feel like around the mid-2000s, between Light in the Attic and Numero Group. These were two— not identical by any means, but they moved in parallel in a lot of ways, and I think helped to redefine what a reissue label could do. I think that previous to that, a lot of the more extensive things you would see weren’t necessarily coming from American reissue labels. Rhino was always in the mix on some level, but not necessarily on the level of obscurity. That was more of a British thing almost. Then Numero and Light in the Attic both got their start around the same time, about fifteen years ago, and have really upped the threshold for what a reissue label can do, and the comprehensiveness they go about it. Morgan, how did you discover Karen Dalton?
morgan
You know, that’s a trip, and as I was trying to say in the intro that, in prep for the chat, listening to this album, I was like, “Well, damn. I missed this.” So the irony of coming to Karen’s cover album through a cover of Karen Dalton, which was Wall, and I actually saw that track on Pitchfork and I think I was just trying to prepare for a radio show. I was like, well, this doesn’t really go in your dance music set, but it’s still fire. It’s a cover of “Something on your Mind,” and I was like, this is beautiful.
music
“Something on Your Mind” by Wall. Slow, heartfelt, aching folk. ... you can't make it without ever even trying? And something's on your mind [Music fades out]
morgan
Lead vocalist Lyla Foy on that, and that was a revelation. Until that point I had never heard of Karen Dalton. This was my introduction, and what an introduction it was.
oliver
I think for me, I’m in the same boat as you, Morgan, which is, I didn’t listen to this album until getting ready for today’s conversation, even though—and this is the embarrassing part—I certainly knew about the reissue back in ‘06, because I was— Light in the Attic was on my radar and I was working with them. I just don’t think I ever bothered to actually listen to it, maybe because I heard it was a lost folk album, which at the time was not a phrase that was going to inherently appeal to me.
jason
Sure. Right. Understandably. [Morgan laughs.]
oliver
But that said, I feel bad for myself because I really have wasted the last thirteen years in which I could have been listening to this sooner, because—and this goes back to something, Jason, you were saying—that voice is so distinctive, and it’s what really grabs you. Even though the first song on the album, which is “Something on Your Mind,” and we’ll talk about this later, for me at least, it’s definitely one of my favorite songs. When I first put this album on earlier in the week, I was listening at the middle distance, and so it wasn’t until her cover of “When a Man Loves a Woman” comes on, and then I turned my head and was like, “what the hell is this?”
music
“When a Man Loves a Woman” off the album In My Own Time by Karen Dalton. Gentle, crooning folk. When a man loves a woman He can do no wrong He'd tell the world what a good thing he's found [Music fades out]
oliver
It’s so, and I mean this in the best possible way, it just sounds like such a weird cover of a standard from the Motown ‘60s era of soul music, that you don’t expect to hear it in this particular fashion. I immediately thought about, as a point of comparison, if we’re talking about 1971, this would have been around the same time that Laura Nyro and Labelle put out their kind of Motown-era cover album, which includes, for example— we’re going to take a listen to Nyro and Labelle doing “Jimmy Mack”, but just listen to the differences in voice between what you just heard from Dalton versus Nyro’s take.
music
“Jimmy Mack” off the album Gonna Take A Miracle by Laura Nyro and Labelle. Upbeat, fun swing. Jimmy! Oh, Jimmy Mack, when are you comin' back? Jimmy can you hear me, Jimmy? Oh, Jimmy Mack, you better hurry back! He calls me on the phone… [Music fades out as Oliver speaks]
oliver
And of course, Nyro and Labelle’s It’s Gonna Take A Miracle LP was a hit. I don’t think one can really say the same thing about Dalton’s album. And really listening to that particular cover, the first thing that came to mind is, well, I can kind of see why this probably didn’t burn up the Billboard charts back in ‘71. Because you encounter that voice and the take that she has on that song, and it’s like, what is this? This is so weird. But in a—again, to your point, Jason—in a way I think is completely enrapturing.
jason
If you look up the digital version of this record, there are some alternate takes, and in the alternate takes she is way more subdued. They’re all way pulled back. A couple of them are even in a lower register, and a little bit less— like, they don’t crack the way her voice does on the final versions. I could see the way in which those maybe more toned down versions are the more correct versions. They’re the more, um.
oliver
Palpable.
jason
Yeah, they’re all the, the things that you think to yourself. Okay, well, it needs to be in this key, and we need to play to her strength, and all this stuff. But I’m so glad that they didn’t go that route, because it’s how not safe for radio her voice is that makes the record such a powerful thing.
music
“In My Own Dream” off the album In My Own Time by Karen Dalton. Somewhat melancholy crooning folk I could be fool It took me a long time To find out [Music fades to quiet and plays softly in the background as Jason speaks]
jason
Once you kinda understand where she’s coming from, you stop hearing the sharpness of it, and you start heating all the emotion.
music
[Music swells again] My mind Is upside down I was standing on Too solid ground [Music fades out entirely]
jason
There was a tribute record to Karen with a bunch of great artists, and one of my favorite writers, Amanda Petrovich, she compared—people always compare Karen’s voice to Billie Holiday, and I understand why—she compared her voice to Kurt Cobain and Axl Rose. I was like, what a perfect description, because it is that raw, unhinged quality that really sets this record apart, I think.
oliver
This may be another tangent, but it also occurs to me that, if this album had been a much, much bigger hit, if it had done for her what Janis Joplin’s work had done for Joplin in the same era, would we feel differently about it? I always feel like Joplin gets that gentrification label, appropriation, thrown on, and, not unfairly. Do we kind of give Dalton a pass on this simply because no one remembers her, unless Joplin, who gets all of this praise and attention heaped?
morgan
That’s a good question. That’s a good point.
jason
I don’t know, I mean, we might. I certainly think that the way we hear music is, like I said earlier, so often informed by the story that accompanies it. Janice Joplin was huge. Janice Joplin was a star. But I also feel like there’s a certain— Janice was raw, and Janice was absolutely a powerhouse singer. Karen’s voice, it has another quality in there—
oliver
She’s not a belter.
jason
She’s not a belter at all—
morgan
Not a belter.
jason
—and I feel like maybe there’s a certain thing that happens when some people try to sing the blues. I don’t know a technical term to describe it, but a sort of persona adoption thing that goes on, and I don’t think Karen does that. She’s too weird, she’s too unique, you know?
oliver
Have both of you seen Ghost World?
jason
Yeah. You’re going to say Blueshammer, right?
oliver
So, Joplin is the Blueshammer scene—
jason
Blueshammer is the term I was going to say, and I was like, I don’t know if it’s okay for me to bring up Ghost World.
oliver
—and Dalton is Buscemi’s character is actually writing for, or is more likely to write for.
jason
No, you’re right, one hundred percent. Steve Buscemi’s character in Ghost World and his weird Robert Crumb mask is totally into Dalton, but he hates Janice Joplin.
oliver
Yeah, I think we just nailed it here.
morgan
[Laughing and wheezing] Just give me a minute here!
clip
Announcer (Ghost World): Don’t go away, we’ve got Blueshammer coming up in just a minute! [Music starts playing in the background.] Woman (Ghost World): If you like authentic blues, uh, you really gotta check out Blueshammer. They’re so great. Announcer: Alright, people! Are you ready to boogey? [Crowd cheers.] Announcer: ‘Cuz we gonna play some authentic, way down in the Delta Blues. So get ready to rock your world! [Upbeat rock music begins playing. Crowd starts cheering wildly.] Blueshammer Singer (Ghost World): I’ve been [inaudible] Picking cotton all day long
oliver
That Blueshammer scene really is one of the more underrated portrayals of smart music criticism—
jason
Yeah. It needs to go in a best American musical.
oliver
—it’s so meaningful in terms of, thirty seconds tells you all you really need to understand about that.
jason
No, you’re a hundred percent right. That’s legitimately one of those scenes that helped illustrate a critical point. That’s really hard to say sometimes, but that’s perfect.
oliver
I think, especially when prepping for this, it’s impossible to me at least to find anything written about Karen Dalton that doesn’t come with a long list of people that she kind of sounds like, or people who are more contemporary that sounds like her. Which I don’t think is unfair, only because when you’re encountering something this distinctive, this unique, I think where your brain goes is to try to find these linkages, however tenuous. So, whether it’s Billie Holiday— that actually wasn’t even really the first person that came to mind. Nina Simone came to mind, maybe because we had taped an episode about Nina recently. When I first heard that very first song, “Something on your Mind”, to me it sounded like an Alabama Shakes song, and Brittany Howard, except recorded forty years before we ever heard of Alabama Shakes. You mentioned Joanna Newsom gets compared to her, and it just made me think of other unique, weird voices that have remained with us, and Morgan, I know you had some thoughts on this.
morgan
Esther Philips was who came to mind for me—
oliver
Yes, totally right.
morgan
—because I think Esther Philips’ voice carries a lot of pain, and when you get to her cover of, um—
oliver
“Home Is Where The Hatred Is.”
morgan
—“Home Is Where The Hatred Is.”
oliver
Right, which we actually talked about during one of our “if you like this check out that”, I don’t even remember for who now, but we actually talked about it back then, too.
morgan
That song in particular is just dripping with pain, and her voice sounds very tired and “I’ve been through it” and I can really bear witness to what I’m talking about. This wasn’t just a song chosen for me, I’m experiencing it, this is a lived situation.
music
“Home Is Where The Hatred Is” off the album From A Whisper To A Scream by Esther Philips. A gentle, mid-tempo song with a steady drumbeat. A junkie walking through the twilight I'm on my way home I left three days ago but no one seems to know I'm gone [Music fades out]
morgan
Oof.
oliver
I think Philips’ voice is more technically precise, because she has a long background in jazz singing. It’s not as raw in the way that we’ve been talking about. But yeah, I think to your point though, around what you hear in the voice, there’s so much that gets carried in there. Morgan, besides Esther Philips, anyone else that comes to mind in terms of distinct voices that you feel like listening to Karen triggers a thought of someone else?
morgan
Well, the first name that came to mind, before Esther Philips, was Angela McCluskey of Télépopmusik. They sound almost identical on a song that Angela has called “It’s Been Done.”
music
“It’s Been Done” off the album Tylko mnie kochaj by Angela McCluskey. An up tempo song sung by a singer with a raspy, intense voice, similar to Karen Dalton. Here am I in chains of solace The moment I could win Oh it's so dumb that I'm intrigued by the thunder And the lightening comes streaming in my home [Music fades out as Oliver speaks]
oliver
It’s that rasp, which makes me think of Macy Gray too. Yet another artist that comes to mind.
morgan
Yup, and that little bit of flutter in the voices. If you take away the electronica in whatever year that came out and she was slowed down, it would be like listening to Karen Dalton again. There’s a lot of voices in that family, but Angela McCluskey came to mind. I think, you know, we were going to talk about weird voices, and voices that don’t sound like anybody else, and of course the first person that came to mind was Tiny Tim. [Jason laughs.] “Tiptoe Through The Tulips.”
jason
Tiny does not remind you of Karen Dalton?
morgan
He does not remind me of Karen Dalton.
oliver
It’s really distinct, if we’re going to take it there.
morgan
Distinct is what this is.
music
“Tiptoe Through The Tulips” off the album God Bless Tiny Tim by Tiny Tim. Upbeat ukulele music with high-pitched falsetto singing. Oh, tiptoe from the garden By the garden of the willow tree And tiptoe through the tulips with me Knee deep in flowers we'll stray We'll keep the showers away [Music fades out]
oliver
We need to get our dude Chris Molanphy back on here just to explain how did that song ever become a hit.
morgan
A huge, gigantic hit.
jason
Yeah, I mean. The thing about those voices, voices like that, that don’t sound like anything else, is we’re so conditioned to listen for certain qualities in pop music, or just things we’re hearing. I think that one of the things that happened was, you know, the behind the scenes stuff that I know, is that there was some discussion when Light in the Attic wanted to take this project on about, essentially a covers record. What is it that makes Karen Dalton an unheralded pioneer? She just recorded a bunch of other peoples’ songs. And I think that view, um.
oliver
So rockist.
jason
It’s a rockist view, and it’s a singer-songwriter centered as the ideal. I really think it’s important to note that one of the things that Peter Walker, the guitarist and songwriter who was a real close friend of Karen’s, he writes in a book that he had self-published about her that Karen really viewed herself as in the lineage of folk and blues singers, for whom—
oliver
Authorship is secondary.
jason
Authorship is very much secondary.
oliver
Right, you’re singing standards, you’re singing folktunes that have been handed down through generations, whose original authorship is not even known at that point.
jason
That’s exactly right, and so when you’re putting together a repertoire like that, when you’re putting together a body of work where other peoples’ words are just as important as your own potential words; or in the case of Karen, you’re taking words that somebody else wrote and you’re finding emotionality in them. That is obviously the key to a good cover. We all even understand that from even a rockist’s standpoint, but she was interested in doing that. The two records that she recorded featured none of her own original compositions, and she had a few, but they’re not on these. She’s finding in these standards and in these, at the time fairly recent pop hits, she’s finding in those an avenue to express some of the deepest stuff that a person can express. So, it really takes— that whole authorship thing is a dead end street in a lot of ways, and I think all of her contemporaries— Bob Dylan gets brought up an awful lot, and certainly is why that rockist trope even exists, but you look at that guy and he spent his early career singing ballads and folksongs, and he spent his last decade singing Sinatra songs. So, interpretation is a key part of what Karen’s doing. She viewed herself as a song stylist as much as a performer, you know?
oliver
Right, and we brought this up when we were talking in a previous episode: Aretha Franklin did not write most of her own music, and I’m not saying Karen’s at the same level as Aretha, but no one really stops and says, “Well, you know, Aretha didn’t really, you know, Carole King wrote that song for Aretha. Aretha didn’t write that herself.” No one cares. You know why? Because Aretha was incredible, as a performer, as a singer, as an interpreter.
jason
Yeah, John Coltrane didn’t write my favorite things, but nobody’s ever going to deny the explosion of feeling and emotion and spirituality that he brings to it.
morgan
Sure, but in Aretha’s case it’s just not even fair, because whatever she covers, you just forget. Whoever wrote it is immaterial, okay? [Oliver laughs.]
jason
I’m glad she didn’t do “Something On Your Mind”
morgan
Right, because then you’d be like, “Karen who?” [Laughs.] And it’s not even fair, but I was going to say, in terms of her interpreting the words of others, the question is does that contribute to some of the sadness on this album? Because you’re covering “In A Station” and that’s Manuel, who himself suffered from substance abuse and depression. To what extent are you bringing the ghosts of trauma past because of some of the people whose words you’re interpreting?
jason
Yeah, I think that’s clearly what she was drawn to in their words. She is honing in on those expressions of loneliness and real pain, and so I think that she was, in gathering her material— and she worked with the producer here, Harvey Brooks. She worked with him, and he was bringing her songs, and she was saying, “no, no, yes, no.” So I think that clearly what she said yes to was the stuff that she was able to hear, and read into those texts the stuff that matters to her. I think the version of “In A Station” on this album is mindblowing.
music
“In A Station” off the album In My Own Time by Karen Dalton. Intense, mid-tempo folk with steady drums and a piano. Wonder, could you ever know me? Know the reason why I live Is there nothing you can show me? Life seems so little to give [Music fades out.]
oliver
[Jason and Morgan agree emphatically as Oliver speaks.] I mean seriously, I get such strong Nina vibes. About the life story, about the same era, about some of the musical production elements to it, as opposed to reaching back to— what was a nickname for Karen Dalton? The Hillbillie Holiday? Which—
jason
Oh my God.
oliver
—bad pun, number one; and number two—
jason
Who wrote that?
oliver
I don’t— but, why would you even need to go back to compare to someone whose main heyday was forty years apart from this, as opposed to a contemporary like Nina Simone, in which both of them are doing incredible interpretive work that’s filled with a lot of pain?
morgan
A lot of pain.
jason
Yeah, Nina is definitely a very close parallel, and I’m glad you brought that up, because that’s such a— yeah, and why was Billie Holiday the touchstone? I think it probably goes back to the weird arguments about what makes somebody an authentic singer, an authentic voice. Don’t get me wrong, Billie Holiday, she is authentic and she is powerful, but apparently Dalton wasn’t a big fan of the comparison. Some people say that she wasn’t.
oliver
I’m sure. What singer likes to be compared constantly to somebody else? Who wants to be called the hillbilly anything? That said though, before we go into our break, let’s take a listen to this, which is a live performance by Dalton recorded in, I think, ‘69 or ‘70, by a French film crew that was, I’m assuming, doing some kind of documentary around the folk scene, and manage to record a 19 year old Karen Dalton singing some Billie Holiday.
music
“God Bless The Child” recorded live by Karen Dalton. Slow, emotional blues. The recording sounds old and a little tinny. Them that's got shall give Them that ain't will lose So the Bible says and it still is news Mama may have, Papa may have
oliver
We will be back with more of our conversation about Karen Dalton’s In My Own Time with our special guest, Jason Woodbury, after a word from some of our sibling Max Fun podcasts. Keep it locked.
promo
Travis McElroy: I'm Travis McElroy. Courtney Enlow: I'm Courtney Enlow. Brent Black: I'm Brent Black, and we're the hosts of Trends Like These. Courtney: Trends Like These is an internet news show where we take the stories trending on social media and go beyond the headlines. Travis: We'll give you the actual facts of the story, and not just the knee-jerk reactions. Brent: Plus we end every episode with a ray of hope that we call the Wi-Five of the week. Travis: So join us every Friday on Maximum Fun. Courtney: Or wherever you get your podcasts. Brent: Trends Like These. Real life friends talking internet trends.
promo
[Upbeat rock plays in the background.] Announcer: Dead Pilots Society brings you exclusive readings of comedy pilots that were never made, featuring actors like Patton Oswalt— Patton Oswalt: So the vampire from the future sleeps in the dude’s studio during the day, and they hunt monsters at night. It’s Blade meets The Odd Couple! [Audience laughs] Announcer: —Adam Scott and Jane Levy— Jane Levy: Come on, Cory. She’s too serious, too business-y. She doesn’t know the hokey-pokey. Adam Scott: Well, she’ll learn what it’s all about. [Audience laughs.] Announcer: —Busy Philipps and Dave Koechner. Dave Koechner: Maybe this is family. Busy Philipps: My uncle Tal, who showed his weiner to Cinderella at Disneyland, is family. Do you want him staying with us? [Light audience laughter.] Dave: He did stay with us, for three months. Busy: And he was a delight! [Audience laughs harder.] Announcer: A new pilot every month, only on Dead Pilots Society from Maximum Fun.
morgan
And we are back on Heat Rocks talking Karen Dalton and In My Own Time with Jason Woodbury of Aquarium Drunkard.
oliver
We’ve been talking a lot about Karen Dalton’s voice, but I think we should spend a little bit of time talking about the music and the production on this album. It’s not like it’s just her standing up there and doing an acoustic set. The music on this is fantastic. Jason, you’ve been mentioning that this was produced by bassist Harvey Brooks, who had played with Dylan, played with The Doors, Miles Davis. So he certainly was very conversant in the variety of different styles that you also see reflected in the song choices on here. I couldn’t help but notice that this album was originally released— I guess it was a joint release between Paramount but also Just Sunshine, which was the record label started by Michael lang, who put out Woodstock. You’re going to be hearing his name a lot later this year because of the 50th anniversary of Woodstock.
jason
Not to mention the Woodstock 50.
oliver
Yes, that too, and this was the same label that, a couple years after releasing this Karen Dalton album, I think in ‘73 or ‘74, put out Betty Davis. So, Just Sunshine seemed to have a thing for quirky, female, genre-less artists of that era. But I think it’s worth talking a little bit about the fact that this was a really good team of players and well-produced and this is not an album that is— again, it’s not just someone standing in a studio with a twelve-string. This is a fully, well-produced, studio-sessioned album, and I think it’s rich for that, those qualities.
jason
Yeah, her previous record, It's So Hard to Tell Who's Going to Love You the Best, which I think did come out in ‘69, that’s more like what you’re talking about. That’s more spare. There’s some playing on that as well, but it’s a lot more stripped down, and I think it was snuck into another session in the middle of the night or something. This very clearly, she’s working with a pretty killer band. Everybody’s playing amazingly on it. Beyond Brooks’ bass playing, which is really one of my favorite elements on the record, it opens with his bass, and the tone of his bass, it’s one of the— it gives me goosebumps every time, the way it comes out on, almost like a strumming drone.
music
“Something On Your Mind” off the album In My Own Time by Karen Dalton. Soulful, deep music with a strong bassline accompanied by a light guitar. Yesterday any way you made it was just fine… [Music fades down and plays quietly as Jason speaks]
jason
There’s a lot of R&B and soul on this record, and I think that helps break it out a little bit of the folk designation as strictly as one might apply it. But there’s country on it, too. There’s gospel, as you mentioned, Morgan. Then of course, a blues element as well. Very heavy on the blues.
music
[Music swells louder] …. you can't make it without ever even trying? And something's on your mind, isn't it? [Music crossfades into “Take Me” as Oliver speaks]
oliver
One of my favorite songs on here is the song “Take Me”, which is a great example of that.
music
“Take Me” off the album In My Own Time by Karen Dalton And it would be just like spring in California The day you said you'd be mine [Music fades out as Morgan speaks]
morgan
So, in terms of the instrumentation on this album, of course you got Karen Dalton, banjo. Shout-out to banjo. That doesn’t get brought up a lot on Heat Rocks. Shout-out to banjo. Richard Bell on piano. Jason already mentioned Harvey Brooks, bass and arrangements. Amos Garrett on guitar. John Hall, guitar solo on “In My Own Dream”. Daniel Hanken on guitar. Bill Keith, pedal steel guitar— that’s come up on another episode. Did Raphael Saadiq bring up pedal steel guitar? What was he talking about? Whatever instrument we’ve put in the background. Which instrument was he—
oliver
No, no. It was the thumb piano.
morgan
Thumb piano.
oliver
We’ve gotten heavy into kalimba of late on this show. [Jason laughs.]
morgan
There’s no kalimba on this album, but shout-out to kalimba.
oliver
That’s what this needed. It needed kalimba.
morgan
Exactly.
oliver
That would’ve been taking it to the next level.
morgan
Extra. John Simon on piano. Greg Thomas, drums. Dennis Whitted, drums. Bobby Notkoff, violin. Hart McNee, tenor saxophone. Marcus Doubleday, trumpet, and Robert Fritz, clarinet. Shout-out to all those musicians that made these ten tracks come to life.
jason
Yeah, the pedal steel is such a fascinating element of this record. It is one of those sounds that, due to whatever kind of weird record industry politics, was mostly considered a country instrument; but you hear it on this record and it fits right in there so beautifully. I don’t know.
oliver
And if I’m not mistaken, pedal steel came from Hawaii, so it’s not like its roots are particularly white to begin with, anyway.
jason
No, absolutely, you’re right.
oliver
Or maybe I’m thinking of the slide guitar, which is similar but not quite—
jason
Well, they’re— you have like, lapped steel. It’s like a whole—
oliver
—thing onto itself.
jason
I’m sure there’s some.
morgan
Either way, kalimba’s not on here. [Oliver and Jason laugh.] Whatever else is on here, kalimba is not. Shout-out to kalimba.
music
“Take Me” fades back in. Somewhere, if you'd just show me a sign Of love, I could bear any loss [Music fades out]
oliver
While we’re talking about “Take Me”, the other thing worth noting, that this is a cover song. It’s a cover song of a George Jones and Tammy Wynette original.
music
“Take Me” off the album We Go Together by George Jones and Tammy Wynette. A softer, more country version of the song. Take me to your most barren desert A thousand miles from the nearest sea The very moment I saw your smile It would be like heaven to me There's not any mountain too rugged to climb [Music fades out as Oliver speaks]
oliver
So, Jason, if you had to pick a fire track off of this LP, what would you go with?
jason
You know, I love so many songs on this record; but I’d have to go with “Something On Your Mind”. I mean, it’s just like—it’s the one that, for me, just speaks to the kind of magic that this record holds. And it’s so late-night sounding, it’s so spooky—
oliver
It’s a great album opener, too. It’s a great first track.
jason
I mean, again, like I said, the way that bass drone comes in, and there’s a restraint to it. Lyrically, sonically, that’s the one for me that, that’s the fire track. There’s lots of great songs on this record, but that’s the one—
morgan
So many.
jason
—but that’s the one that I think is going to live forever.
oliver
This is tough for me, too, because I think I have an A1 and Ab choice here. But this, “Something On Your Mind”, especially because it is that first song off this album. My favorite moment off the album comes about twenty seconds into the song, which is right after you first hear Dalton’s first, and you already have that, “wait, what is this?” and it’s also right when the chords change.
music
“Something On Your Mind” off the album In My Own Time by Karen Dalton. Yesterday any way you made it was just fine So you turned your days into night time Didn't you know, you can't make it without ever even trying? And something's on your mind, isn't it
oliver
So yeah, just how this song opens, when you first get introduced to her voice. To me, this is just the moment that I love, love, love on this LP. Either of you have a favorite moment, or Morgan, do you have a fire track and a favorite moment?
morgan
Yes. My favorite track is “One Night of Love”. That’s by Joe Tate of the Soul Searchers. I love it because I think it’s, this is a lazy adjective, but I think it’s thick. It’s different than the rest of the songs on there, because to me, it’s fuller than the rest of the songs on there. It brings something more to the table, and I kept going back to that one. I think I’ve been spoiled because I came to the title track through somebody else, and so, I’m not going to say I prefer that version, but it didn’t make this track the favorite. But if we could hear a little bit of “One Night of Love”.
music
“One Night of Love” off the album In My Own Time by Karen Dalton. An up tempo song with rocking drums and a guitar. I gave him all my money All of my good loving too Oh, when I'm gone He don't even mention my name It's got me down Down to the ground
morgan
There’s more people involved. It feels like there’s more people involved on that song, that it’s not just Karen, and I think at parts this album gets so heavy that I want to go a little bit more up tempo, and this gave me that.
oliver
Jason, I think you have a favorite moment off this LP too, and it goes back to one of the things that Morgan just said about shouting out the banjo. [Morgan laughs.]
jason
Yeah, I think “Same Old Man” is a really interesting case, and I think it’s maybe my favorite moment in a weird way for the exact opposite of what you liked about having everybody on that track. This is where it feels like it’s just her, and maybe it’s similar to what we would have seen her do on some folk club stage in Greenwich village or something. But there’s an oddly avante garde feel to this one. There’s a little bit of the drone going on, and I think it reminds me of the connection between, say, Appalachian music, and the more avante garde stuff of guys like Harry Partch or something like that, where you realize there’s this, like— the thing that really gets me about this record in general is the kind of cultural conversation that’s happening on it between all these different forms, and you hear her do this angular, weird Appalachian banjo reggae, and you’re reminded this stuff’s all connected. It’s not the song forms or the idioms that are actually divided, it’s people deciding what categories something goes in versus another. To me, that’s a weird, spooky seance of a song that feels so— I just really like it. It weirds me out, and it puts me in such a strange state of mind. I really appreciate that about it.
music
“Same Old Man” off the album In My Own Time by Karen Dalton. Fast banjo accompanied by Karen’s voice and slightly eerie “Oooh”s quietly in the background. It's the same old lady, hanging out the wash Standing in the rain, in her mackintosh Same old lady standing in the rain And I thought New York was going insane
oliver
The other song, I mentioned earlier that it was hard for me to pick my absolute favorite, because there’s really two songs in contention, and maybe appropriately enough, they’re the first song and the last song on the album. The last song being “Are You Leaving For The Country” which was a song written by Dalton’s then-husband, Richard Tucker. This goes back to the point you were making earlier, Jason, that people describe this as a song of covers; but in this case I’m pretty sure no one else had recorded “Are You Leaving For The Country”. I mean, her husband wrote the song, so she was probably the first person to perform it. So even though she didn’t get writing credit for it, it’s still more or less her song. I don’t want to get too far off on that part. It is such a beautiful, such a haunting, it is such an alluring tune, especially as the last song that it leaves you with. It just really lingers in this incredibly sublime way.
music
“Are You Leaving For The Country” off the album In My Own Time by Karen Dalton. Slow, gentle country. Are you leaving for the country? I know a little country town Where dogs are sleeping in the cold And flagpoles fall down [Music fades out as Oliver speaks]
oliver
I mean, I’m a city boy, but this song’s got me ready to head out.
morgan
Move out there?
oliver
Yeah. Probably not for very long. Just a visit. [Morgan laughs.] I’d still come back. But it’s enough, it makes me want to head out there.
jason
“I’m Leaving For The Country (For A Short Stint)”
morgan
Yeah, for a vacation.
jason
You’re leaving for a short stint in the country.
oliver
I don’t think that’s what Karen meant though.
jason
No.
morgan
But there is so much longing and sort of a subdued wailing in her voice.
music
[Music fades back in] Do you feel like something's not real? Let the Spirit move you again Are you leaving for the country? You say the city brings you down Leave the iron cloud behind And feel the circus moving on [Music fades out again]
jason
There’s a photo of her and her then-husband singing with Bob Dylan that’s in, I think, it’s in the first album, in the liners when it was reissued. She sang a lot with him as a duo, so again it gets to that thing you were saying, where it’s not, you know, maybe she didn’t write the words down, but you get a sense that she’s in the song in such a real way. She sings that one with such a particular sadness, and they didn’t stay married, so the leaving is very accentuated in that song.
oliver
Right. Someone went to the country, but not both of them, so.
music
[Music fades back in again. Instruments play as Karen hums along to the tune.] [Music fades out as Morgan speaks.]
morgan
As we are recording this, we are also getting some tweets about this; and one of them came from Brent Sirota that said, “Go find her live album, Cotton Eyed Joe. It is paint-peeling, dark night of the soul stuff.” Any thoughts about Cotton Eyed Joe?
jason
Man, it’s incredible. It was recorded, I believe, at the Attic, which was a club in Colorado. I would absolutely recommend tracking that down. There’s a box set coming out, supposed to be coming out this year. You can check out the fine folks at Forced Exposure, they have it. They have a listing for it that includes that live set for the first time on vinyl, and I believe a set—another live thing—on vinyl as well for the first time. Her live stuff, there’s as much of it as there is studio records, just by record of the fact that she hated going into the studio, she hated to record, she had to have her arm twisted to go in and record anything. She hated it. So, live, I think she was maybe more comfortable, although from what I understand, she didn’t love playing live either. There’s a really great quote you can find where somebody said something to the tune of her ideal concert would be a couple thousand people that were dead silent, that she could turn away from and play with her back to them. That was her ideal. So she wanted people to hear her music. She didn’t want to deal with any of the other elements that come along with that. She wasn’t a particularly social person, she wasn’t a particularly outgoing person. She did want people to hear what she did, so I think she would be very gratified to know that there has been a tremendous resurgence and people paying attention. She wasn’t wired to go the pop star route in any way. She wasn’t even wired to go the rock star route. That’s a tough place to be in, but I think it speaks to her particular temperament.
morgan
What does this album tell us about Karen, besides the stuff that’s written about her, besides the stuff that we’ve heard about her. What does this album tell people about Karen, that they might— in your opinion, what should this tell people about Karen that they might not know?
jason
I think that what this album says about Karen, first and foremost, is how she viewed music, and American music particularly, as sort of a continuum, and how she was very interested in fashioning her idea of a canon, a canon that was for the time. We’re talking early ‘70s, late ‘60s, so there’s lots of cross-genre pollination happening. There’s lots of psychedelic music incorporating folk music and the other way around. I think that her distillation of all these disparate genres is a lot more holistic and a lot more emotionally rooted. So I think that what this record says about her, that I think isn’t always touched on in the sad stories of her very kind of brutal existence, is how I think she was interested in crafting an American folk music canon that was inclusive of pop and blues and soul and R&B and country; and that to her, none of these things were necessarily different things. They’re all tributaries of the same river. I think that, as a—I’m going to use a word that gets used a lot—as a curator, I think she had a lot of very defined sensibilities. And I don’t think that you often hear the word curator thrown around about Karen Dalton, but I think she was a pretty masterful one.
oliver
Well, if you had to describe this album, In My Own Time, in three words, Jason, what would you go with?
jason
I’d say haunting. I’d say empathetic, and first and foremost, brave. She was willing to just put it all out there. She was willing to, with that completely unique rasp, she put it all on the line, and she was unafraid to go places that people don’t want to go, and go there in a way that most people don’t choose to go. She was pretty Karen Dalton about the whole thing.
music
“When A Man Loves A Woman” off the album In My Own Time by Karen Dalton. When a man loves a woman I know exactly how he feels… [Instrumentals slide to a stop, almost dropping out entirely] 'Cause that's the way you've always been to me [The drums flourish as the instrumentals kick up again. After a moment, the music begins to fade out as Oliver speaks.]
oliver
If you liked this week’s album, which was of course Karen Dalton’s In My Own Time, we have some other listening recommendations for you. Jason, you want to start us off?
jason
Yeah, this is an artist that is not exactly like Karen—which, I guess it would be hard to find an artist that is exactly like Karen—but I would recommend, just because it’s the other thing that I’ve been listening to nonstop alongside Karen to get ready for this, I’d recommend the self-titled Judee Sill record. Judee recorded for Asylum Records, and similar to Karen, sort of lived a rough life, so I feel like maybe they’re kindred spirits in that regard. Musically, it’s a different thing, but it’s very similarly cosmic in an earth-y way, and Judee is one of my favorite voices, one of my favorite songwriters, one of my favorite people to speak about the weird mysteries of faith in a completely idiosyncratic way. So I would recommend Judee Sill. Check out “Jesus Was A Cross Maker”, or “Crayon Angels”, or something like that.
music
“Jesus Was A Cross Maker” off the album Judee Sill by Judee Sill. An upbeat, up tempo song. ... earthly desire dividing me He's a bandit and a heart breaker Oh, but Jesus was a cross maker Yes, Jesus was a cross maker Sweet silver angels over the sea...
oliver
I would go with Valerie June’s debut album from 2013, Pushin’ Against A Stone. Another incredibly distinctive voice, and I think what really seals it is not just about the voice, but really on that on June’s album you have this mix between Appalachian folk and southern blues and rock and soul influences in a way that I think is to be very reminiscent of what Dalton does on her album.
music
“Workin’ Woman Blues” off the album Pushin’ Against A Stone by Valerie June. Up tempo folk. I go to work and I'll be back later I go to work said I'd be back later Cause I've working like a man y'all Cause I've been working all my life yeah All my life y'all All my life yeah
morgan
My pick would be Big Mama Thornton, sassy mama, going back to 1977. That’s blues, Texas blues, west coast blues, juke joint blues. Similar sad circumstances, so while we’re in there, with the exception of Valerie June, who is off to a great life.
oliver
Yeah, she’s doing good, to be clear.
morgan
So far, so good. Big Mama Thornton carried with her not just the sadness of coming of age and coming to prominence in her time, but having her songs reinterpreted on a very massive level and not seeing the proceeds, and this is a little bit late in her career, but you hear, much like her live album, you hear the pain, you hear the regret, you hear the sadness, and this reminds me of Karen Dalton.
music
“Sweet Little Angel” by Big Mama Thornton. Slow, bluesy jazz. Sweet little angel I love the way he spreads his wings Sweet little angel
oliver
And on that note, that will do it for this episode of Heat Rocks with our special guest, Jason Woodbury. Plug what you’re working on, where can people find you?
jason
People can find me on Twitter @JasonPWoodbury. I think I’m on most social media as just Jason P Woodbury, but of course, check out AquariumDrunkard.com.
morgan
Please check that out.
oliver
And your monthly podcast.
jason
Yeah, check out Transmissions. Aquarium Drunkard’s Transmissions. It’s on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, TuneIn, Stitcher, all the stuff. We do monthly sets of interviews and weird conversations and playlists and kind of whatever is floating our boat, and you can check out Aquarium Drunkard on Patreon. Search patreon.com/aquariumdrunkard. We’re completely independent at this point, and independent media is not particularly easy to sustain.
oliver
Nope.
jason
So, if you’re at all interested in what we do at Aquarium Drunkard, go to the Patreon and chip in. You get free, cool stuff. We’re working on a lot of really cool physical items, but on top of that, you get bonus playlists and notes and all sorts of cool stuff.
morgan
I have to shout-out Aquarium Drunkard, because when I discovered it, I think I discovered it four years ago, it was just like walking into a library of music information. So thank you for all the content there, it has really been helpful to me, and there’s just some interest factoids and pieces on there for music fans and music junkies and music nerds. I very rarely refer to myself as a nerd, but that site made me nerd out, so thank you for it.
oliver
Well, along similar lines, because Aquarium Drunkard and Soul Sides started around the same time, so we were very much familiar with one another throughout the golden era of blogging, which now feels like a very long time ago, the first decade of the 2000s, and in fact I kind of forgot about this, but we had collaborated in I think 2010 on a gospel funk mixtape. I went to see if the link was still up, but alas the link, it was uploaded to Mediafire, which, RIP to all of those upload sites which came and went in the pre-Soundcloud and whatever era. It just reminded me that I should probably either see if I even have a copy of that, or maybe we just need to do a volume 2.
morgan
Let me get that, though.
jason
Is the tracklist still on the site?
oliver
The tracklist is still up there, yeah.
jason
Okay, so we can, it can be stitched together.
morgan
Send me those hits though, you know how I feel about gospel.
oliver
You’ve been listening to Heat Rocks with me, Oliver Wang, and Morgan Rhodes.
morgan
Our theme music is “Crown Ones” by Thes One of People Under The Stairs. Shout-out to Thes for the hookup.
oliver
Heat Rocks is produced by myself and Morgan, alongside Christian Duenas, who also edits, engineers, and does the booking for our shows.
morgan
Our senior producer is Laura Swisher, and our executive producer is Jesse Thorn.
oliver
We are part of the Maximum Fun family, taping every week live in their studios in the West Lake neighborhood of Los Angeles, where you might be able to find one night of love, or at least someone with something on their mind. One last thing, here is a teaser for next week’s episode, which features guest Luz Mendoza of Y La Bamba talking with Morgan and I about Nina Simone’s album, To Love Somebody.
oliver
I’m wondering for you, especially as a singer but also as a songwriter, listening to this, whether it was the first time or revisiting it now all these years later, what do you take from Nina Simone that might have some influence on your own craft?
luz mendoza
Vulnerability. Honesty. Transparency. No fucking around— I mean, no—no messing around.
oliver
You can swear, it’s alright.
luz
Um, just to the point… really talking about real issues. When I’m faced, or when I’m in the presence of such a strong energy, if I’m listening to music or reading about her or just thinking of her, um, I really—I feel like, familiar. It’s a familiarity. It encourages me on my path, and it’s just this really raw honesty, that is like, I don’t wanna—it’s like, beyond the word appreciating.
About the show
Hosted by Oliver Wang and Morgan Rhodes, every episode of Heat Rocks invites a special guest to talk about a heat rock – a hot album, a scorching record. These are in-depth conversations about the albums that shape our lives.
Our guests include musicians, writers, and scholars and though we don’t exclusively focus on any one genre, expect to hear about albums from the worlds of soul, hip-hop, funk, jazz, Latin, and more.
New episodes every Thursday on Apple Podcasts or whatever you get your podcasts.
Subscribe to our website updates for exclusive bonus content (including extra interview segments, mini-episodes, etc.)
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