It's So Hard To Tell Who's Going To Love You The Best

Light in the Attic

LITA 045

LP Black

$20 ~~$28~~

Features new all-analog mastering by Kevin Gray at Cohearent Audio, direct from the original analog tapes
Pressed at RTI
Includes liner notes by Brian Barr
Featuring unseen photos by legendary photographer Joel Brodsky
LP housed in an expanded gatefold jacket

Description

“My favorite singer in the place was Karen Dalton. She had a voice like Billie Holiday’s and played the guitar like Jimmy Reed.” – Bob Dylan

Karen Dalton's 1969 Capitol debut is finally back in print! Light in the Attic is thrilled to present a brand new edition of this heart-wrenching & bluesy introduction to the intoxicating world of Dalton and her deep well of musical secrets.

World-weary and filled with the blues, Dalton’s unsurpassed interpretive depth and emotional range were like no other. Recorded for Capitol in 1969, It’s So Hard To Tell Who's Going To Love You The Best spans generations of classic American songwriting–covering classics by Lead Belly, Fred Neil, and Tim Hardin. While no longer with us in the physical, Karen’s growing musical presence is stronger than ever and worthy of re-examination by both the converted and the uninitiated alike. This new re-release serves as the definitive, all-analog version of Dalton’s stunning debut, featuring remastered audio from the original Capitol masters, the original 1969 artwork in an expanded gatefold jacket, unseen photos by album photographer Joel Brodsky, and an essay interviewing Karen’s friends and music collaborators, from album producer and bassist Harvey Brooks to musician Peter Stampfel of the Holy Modal Rounders.

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Artist Bio

The late Karen Dalton has been the muse for countless folk rock geniuses, from Bob Dylan to Devendra Banhart, from Lucinda Williams to Joanna Newsom.

“My favorite singer in the place was Karen Dalton. She had a voice like Billie Holiday’s and played the guitar like Jimmy Reed.” – Bob Dylan

Legendary singer Lacy J. Dalton actually adopted her hero’s surname as her own when she started her career in country music. Karen Dalton had that affect on people – her timeless, aching, blues-soaked, Native American spirit inspired both Dylan & The Band’s “Katie’s Been Gone” (on The Basement Tapes) and Nick Cave’s “When I First Came To Town” (from Henry’s Dream).

Recorded over a six-month period in 1970-71 at Bearsville, In My Own Time was Dalton’s only fully planned and realized studio album. The material was carefully selected and crafted for her by producer/musician Harvey Brooks, the Renaissance man of rock-jazz who played bass on Dylan’s Highway 61 Revisited and Miles’ Bitches Brew. It features ten songs that reflected Dalton’s incredible ability to break just about anybody’s heart – from her spectral evocation of Joe Tate’s “One Night of Love,” to the dark tragedy of the traditional “Katie Cruel.” Known as a great interpreter of choice material, Dalton could master both country and soul genres with hauntingly pining covers of George Jones’ “Take Me” and Holland-Dozier-Holland’s “How Sweet It Is.”

"Karen was tall, willowy, had straight black hair, was long-waisted and slender, what we all wanted to look like. And her blend of influences – the jazz of Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday, the immersion of Nina Simone, the Appalachian keen of Jean Ritchie, the R&B and country that had to seep in as she made her way to New York from Oklahoma – created a ‘voice for the jaded ear.’” - Lacy J. Dalton

Learn more about In My Own Time and its 50th anniversary: