If the name Carolyn Hester doesn't ring a bell, she was one of the original girl singers of the late 50s/early 60s folk revival; she was married for a time to the iconic Richard Farina, and apparently she was boinking Bob Dylan at some point (Dylan played on her third album, produced by the legendary John Hammond).
The song above, from 1968, comes from her attempted psychedelic album move; it bombed, obviously, and she's been more or less a marginal cult figure ever since. "Holy" Greil Marcus pretty much nailed the reason why in his classic Mystery Train -- Hester, he wrote, was "gorgeous, but hopelessly untalented."
Of course, if for some reason you're so perverse of ears as to want to hear the rest of the record, you can download it -- along with much, much else -- over at the fabulous redtelephone66.
7 comments:
Oy. This is the first I've heard of Hester & Dylan boinking, but she did give him a pivotal boost by having him play on her third album.
Let's not forget that Joan Baez herself, the queen of folk, made some hilariously bad missteps musically during the mid- to late-60s. Music was changing so fast, anyone who wasn't in the lead was trying to catch up, often with unintentionally hilarious results.
And showing cleavage was all the rage in the late 60s -- have you ever seen the cover of the first (pre-Lennon connection) Elephant's Memory album? It showed the group, naked, with carefully placed daubs of body paint. Their original lead singer was quite an attractive young lady, with a rather voluptuous figure.
I only bring this up because her cousin was a close friend of mine in high school, and actually more beautiful than her more famous cousin.... ah, horny teenage memories....
Ah, here it is:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/images/B0001XAPEW/ref=dp_image_0?ie=UTF8&n=5174&s=music
Carolyn had a nice set of ta-tas, that's for sure.
Wow.
I will admit that if I had seen that album in the rack (you should pardon the expression) at Sam Goody in 1968, I most likely would have bought it.
I like this. Does that make me a bad person? Sounds like much of the acid folk stuff of the time.
KC:
I know, it's hardly the worst. I was just snarking....
:-)
I will admit that if I had seen that album in the rack (you should pardon the expression) at Sam Goody in 1968, I most likely would have bought it.
heh. I'm hip.
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