Light in the Attic Rec. 
Karen Dalton : In My Own Time (US,1971,re.2006)***°°
Because her first official album is so wonderful, I want to warn for a bit of caution on this second, lesser known album, for especially some songs of the second part especially suffers from some of the studio standards of its time, probably because the producer, Harvey Brooks, wanted to stretch the limits to push her into mainstream pop territory with rhythm & blues standards rather than understand her choice of music and interpretation skills from the fundaments of her own true origins, a result which seems at first Karen didn’t seem to have objected, for she was (as the booklet says) “tired of downplaying her life”. Never the less some of these songs make her just a voice instrument for rhythmically arranged pop music, a more sparsely arranged song like “Katie Cruel” (with just banjo and electric violin) much more stands out to its core. When later another album was discussed she no longer showed interest and withdrew from the scene, which by the way not only directed towards electric rock, but also had became destructive for its drugs, tobacco and alcohol abuse. Her true roots lie in Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holliday and Nina Simone, and also, Jean Ritchie, with another shared influence coming from her partly Cherokee origins (through her mother), that which bring depth and honesty to her performances and appearances. What she was in the end, Lenny Kaye ends in his notes was the effect of like from “a canary in a coal mine”, as she did not seem to be able to maintain there in that area with her sort of sensitivity.
The digipack alone looks wonderful, and the booklet shows love and respect, and with some valuable info about how she kept a distance with her talent at first, and came to her first and then this album. Nick Cave who wrote some other notes in which he said he preferred this second album to the first for a certain development, but I think it is the same development which pointed towards a sort of dead end too.
