WHERE MUSIC LISTENS TO YOU

Take me in your darkest room, Karen my dear

Posted about 1 year ago
Time to put your quiet hats on, Moggers. I ran across this track on Jesse Jarnow's blog the other day and I gotta say that I CANNOT get enough of this song. There's something so sad and so sublime in her singing and phrasing....from allmusic:A cult singer, 12-string guitarist, and banjo player of the New York 1960s folk revival, Karen Dalton still remains known to very few, despite counting the likes of Bob Dylan and Fred Neil among her acquaintances. This was partly because she seldom recorded, only making one album in the 1960s -- and that didn't come out until 1969, although she had been known on the Greenwich Village circuit since the beginning of the decade. It was also partly because, unlike other folksingers of the era, she was an interpreter who did not record original material. And it was also because her voice -- often compared to Billie Holiday, but with a rural twang -- was too strange and inaccessible to pop audiences. Nik Venet, producer of her debut album, went as far as to remark in Goldmine, "She was very much like Billie Holiday. Let me say this, she wasn't Billie Holiday but she had that phrasing Holiday had and she was a remarkable one-of-a-kind type of thing.... Unfortunately, it's an acquired taste, you really have to look for the music."Karen Dalton "Take Me" (from In My Own Time, 1971)Take me in your darkest roomClose every window and bolt every doorThe very first moment I heard your voiceI'd be in darkness no moreTake me to the most barren desertA thousand miles from the nearest seaThe very moment I saw your smileIt would be like heaven to meThere's not any mountain too rugged to climbNo desert too barren to crossDarlin' if you would just show a signof love, I could bear with all lossTake me to SiberiaAnd the coldest weather of the winter time,And it would be just like spring in CaliforniaAs long as I knew you were mine

Comments (7)

  1. Anonymous says you're right! what a seductive voice! so aching and haunting...
    Permalink posted 05/14/2008
  2. Anonymous says she's got a Billie Holiday vibe to her... me likey... oh sorry *jameson* didn't realize you were ::having a moment:: with Karen in this, the darkest room ;)
    Permalink posted 05/15/2008
  3. Anonymous says didn't you notice the tie on the doorknob!!!!! haha.
    Permalink posted 05/15/2008
  4. Anonymous says I was just so excited about this introduction - I must have totally missed the tie... as usual... MY BAD ;) heheh
    Permalink posted 05/15/2008
  5. Anonymous says Yeah, the Billy Holiday comparison is apt, but in phrasing, I'd add Nina Simone, who did one of the few Dylan covers that was up to the original (Desolation Row). Think I gotta get a Dalton CD soon. BerkeleyBob
    Permalink posted 05/15/2008
  6. Anonymous says Good call on the Nina Simone as well !!!
    Permalink posted 05/15/2008

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