Karen Dalton In My Own Time Numbered Limited Edition 180g 45rpm 2LP, 12" Vinyl EP, 2 7" Vinyl Singles & CD

TAS Rated 4.5/5 Music, 4.5/5 Sonics in the September 2022 Issue of The Absolute Sound!

Karen Dalton's 1971 album, In My Own Time, stands as a true masterpiece by one of music's most mysterious, enigmatic, and enduringly influential artists. Light in the Attic is honored to celebrate the 50th anniversary of In My Own Time with the definitive edition of this monumental classic.

Featuring Dalton's interpretations of songs like "Are You Leaving For The Country", "When A Man Loves A Woman", "Katie Cruel" and her posthumously recognized signature performance, "Something On Your Mind", is available in a bonus-filled, 50th anniversary Super Deluxe Edition, which expands exponentially upon Light in the Attic's 2006 reissue of the album, co-produced by Nicholas Hill.

The 50th Anniversary Super-Deluxe Edition features the newly remastered (2021) In My Own Time album, presented on three sides of 45-RPM, 180-gram vinyl pressed at Record Technology Inc. (RTI), with the fourth side showcasing alternate takes from the album sessions.

The Super Deluxe package also includes the previously unreleased audio from her rare, captivating performance, Live At The Montreux Golden Rose Pop Festival, May 1st, 1971. This is the first time this audio has been made available in any physical format - presented on 180-gram 12-inch vinyl, pressed at Third Man Record Pressing, and featuring a stunning etching of Dalton by acclaimed artist Jess Rotter on the B-Side.

Accompanying the bonus record is a replica playbill from The Montreux Golden Rose Pop Festival, 1971, meticulously arranged and compiled from vintage source material by Darryl Norsen.

In addition to the bonus 12", the set contains a CD of all tracks included in the package and two 7-inch singles, featuring previously-unreleased live recordings captured at Germany's Beat Club in 1971, both pressed at Third Man Record Pressing and housed in tip-on jackets.

All audio has been newly remastered by Dave Cooley, while lacquers were cut by Phil Rodriguez at Elysian Masters. A 20-page booklet - featuring rarely seen photos, liner notes from musician and writer Lenny Kaye, and contributions from Nick Cave and Devendra Banhart - rounds out the package, which comes housed in a special trifold jacket, individually foil-stamped and numbered in a strictly limited worldwide edition of 2,000 copies.

The Oklahoma-raised Karen Dalton (1937-1993) brought a range of influences to her work. As Lenny Kaye writes in the liner notes, one can hear "the jazz of Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday, the immersion of Nina Simone, the Appalachian keen of Jean Ritchie, [and] the R&B and country that had to seep in as she made her way to New York."

Armed with a long-necked banjo and a 12-stringed guitar, Dalton set herself apart from her peers with her distinctive, world-weary vocals. In the early '60s, she became a fixture in the Greenwich Village folk scene, interpreting traditional material, blues standards, and the songs of her contemporaries, including Tim Hardin, Fred Neil, and Richard Tucker, whom she later married. Bob Dylan, meanwhile, was instantly taken with her artistry. "My favorite singer in the place was Karen Dalton," he recalled in Chronicles: Volume One (Simon & Schuster, 2004). "Karen had a voice like Billie Holiday and played the guitar like Jimmy Reed."

Those who knew Dalton understood that she was not interested in bowing to the whims of the record industry. On stage, she rarely interacted with audience members. In the studio, she was equally as uncomfortable with the recording process. Her 1969 debut, It's So Hard to Tell Who's Going To Love You The Best, reissued by Light in the Attic in 2009, was captured on the sly when Dalton assumed that she was rehearsing songs. When Woodstock co-promoter Michael Lang approached Dalton about recording a follow-up for his new imprint, Just Sunshine, she was dubious, to say the least. The album would have to be made on her own terms, in her own time. That turned out to be a six-month period at Bearsville Studios in Woodstock, NY.

Producing the album was bassist Harvey Brooks, who played alongside Dalton on It's So Hard to Tell Who's Going To Love You The Best. Brooks, who prided himself on being "simple, solid and supportive," understood Dalton's process, but was also willing to offer gentle encouragement, and challenge the artist to push her creative bounds. "I tried to present her with a flexible situation," he told Kaye. "I left the decisions to her, to determine the tempo, feel. She was very quiet, and I brought all of it to her; if she needed more, I'd present options. Everyone was sensitive to her. She was the leader."

Dalton, who rarely performed her own compositions, selected a range of material to interpret - from traditionals like "Katie Cruel" and "Same Old Man" to Paul Butterfield's "In My Own Dream" and Richard Tucker's "Are You Leaving For The Country". She also expanded upon her typical repertoire, peppering in such R&B hits as "When A Man Loves Aa Woman" and "How Sweet It Is". In a departure from her previous LP, Dalton's new recording offered fuller, more pop-forward arrangements, featuring a slew of talented studio musicians.

While '70s audiences may not have been ready for Dalton's music, a new generation was about to discover her work. In the decades following her death, a slew of artists would name Karen Dalton as an influence, including Lucinda Williams, Joanna Newsom, Nick Cave, Angel Olsen, Devendra Banhart, Sharon Van Etten, Courtney Barnett, and Adele. In the recent acclaimed film documentary Karen Dalton: In My Own Time, Cave muses on Dalton's unique appeal: "There's a sort of demand made upon the listener," he explains. "Whether you like it or not, you have to enter her world. And it's a despairing world." Peter Walker, who also appears in the film, elaborates on this idea: "If she can feel a certain way in her music and play it in such a way that you feel that way, then that's really the most magical thing [one] can do." He adds, "She had a deep and profound and loving soul...you can hear it in her music."

It's difficult to listen to Karen Dalton's music casually. As Nick Cave recounted in a recent documentary, when he heard Dalton's 'Something On My Mind' one day while driving, he had to pull over because the music and the haunting quiver of her voice made him cry so much. The two records that Dalton recorded in the late '60s and early '70s have left countless listeners and her fellow artists shaken. Though she never got the success she deserved during her life (she died in 1993), Dalton is being more thoroughly appreciated these days. Proof positive is this deluxe re-release of her second album In My Own Time. The package is glorious. The remastered version of the album was cut at 45 RPM for a better range of sound, and it is augmented by a selection of live recordings and outtakes. Also included are two 7"s, a CD version with all the same material, and a booklet featuring contributions from Cave, Devendra Banhart and Lenny Kaye. It's a dream to spin these records and to rejoice in the unworried decay of her singing voice as she takes on traditional folk tunes, Motown classics and blues standards alike.

Karen Dalton was unique. No one before and few after have been able to integrate jazz inflections into a roots context so completely... If you are a completist and a fan you will undoubtedly want a copy of this deluxe edition, which stands as the ultimate representation of Dalton's best work. A labor of love, Light in the Attic Record's lavish production makes a strong case for just how serendipitously special In My Own Time was.