Drag City Rec.
Carol Kleyn : Love Has Made Me Stronger (UK,1976/re.2011)****
In 1969 Carol Kleyn at the University of California Santa Barbara met Bobby Brown, known for his bizarre hippie-folk album “The Enlightening Beam of Axonda” (1972), who became her mentor, and with whom she made, with the help of some visionary Jon Lazell, a lot of home-made instruments that would define Bobby’s first album later. From him was given a harp on her 21st birthday. Together they would travel and perform on the west coast at renaissance fairs and festivals. She also toured with Gregg Allman after that. In 1976 she released her first solo LP, which has now been reissued.
There’s a small influence from the acoustic Joni Mitchell, noticeable in the free excursions and the high notes in her voice, when singing like a free bird, she therefore had something of the so many Californian hippie chicks, at the same time she distinguishes herself with a strong honesty and natural elegance, and of course her harp playing too. Very new is her use of harp as the main instrument for many songs, different from the usual acoustic guitar use inspirations of other songwriters, the melodies can be somewhat different ; it can be associated somewhat with dulcimer minstrel atmospheres. No wonder she also performed at Rennaissance fairs. Nice to hear also is one harp based instrumental (4), where you clearly hear her own vision on the harp, song based but different. Other songs are with acoustic and electric piano, with an occasional bluesier influence. I am curious about her other two releases from 1980 and 1983.
