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DALTON

Karen Dalton

Shuckin' Sugar - 2025 Reissue

    Previously unreleased Karen Dalton performance featuring seven never-before-heard songs

    In 1962, Karen summoned Richard Tucker to join her in Colorado, extolling the healthier lifestyle and plentiful gigs at Boulder folk club The Attic. Upon his arrival, the pair solidified their personal and professional relationship, riding horses in the mountains and performing as a duo at parties and venues throughout Denver and Boulder. Stories of the spell they conjured – and rumours of tapes! – have circulated among friends and musicians who witnessed them, but until now, no recorded evidence had turned up.


    TRACK LISTING

    Trouble In Mind
    If You're A Viper
    When First Unto This Country
    Shiloh Town
    Shuckin' Sugar Blues
    Everytime I Think Of Freedom
    Ribbon Bow
    Blues Jumped The Rabbit
    Lonesome Valley
    When I Get Home
    In The Pines
    Katie Cruel

    After being out of stock for years finally the debut release of Habibi Funk by Tunisian band Dalton is back in stock including an updated artwork and booklet.

    This is the story of the release: Dalton's "Alech" single was our first release as a label in 2015. In the years before we had started to get into Arabic records and we came across a Moroccan singer called Fadoul and after some time we decided to try to find him to get his blessing to re-release his music. This search eventually took years and in the end we learned that Fadoul had passed many years ago but we managed to find his family and license an album from them. Sometime during this search we came across a copy of Dalton's single and we immediately fell in love with it. While it was only a 7" single with 2 songs it was the perfect mix. An upbeat and infectious a-side, paired with a mellow and soulful b-side. While the search to learn about Fadoul took us years, Dalton's band leader Fawzi Chekili was just one online search away and within minutes we found his profile on social media. We reached out to him presenting the idea of a reissue and he was with it from the get go. Over the years to come we have met him a few times in Tunis and he has told us the story of the band:

    Dalton was a band from Tunis, the capital of Tunisia. They came together as a band around 1968 when most of the members studied together at the University of Tunis. Fawzi Chekili studied English literature, though he didn't graduate as after his first seat he started to focus more on his music. Back in Tunis there was a community of musicians and eventually he met Ridha who studied French literature at the same time and together they decided to form a band, this was the moment Dalton was born. The members changed frequently in the beginning until the key members came together: Fawzi Chekili on guitar, piano and vocals, Ridha Kouhen on bass guitar, Mustapha Rehouma and sax and percussion, Sadok Gharbi on trumpet and vocals and Skander Alim on drums and vocals.

    They were active in the local scene, playing music that was heavily influenced by American soul and funk and rock'n'roll. Fawzi Chekili recalls that it was bands like "Chicago", "Blood, Sweat & Tears", "Average White Band" and "Billy Cobham" that they listened to at the time and that left a big impression on them.

    Eventually they realized that if they wanted to keep on going as a band they needed to make sure they were able to play shows frequently which would guarantee them a certain income. After some shows here in there they eventually got lucky. In the early 70s the band got a regular gig at a beach hotel called Sahara Beach Resort on the coastline of Tunisia. It was a huge compound spread through 3 major buildings. During peak season it allowed 3000 guests to stay there at the same time. They signed a six month contract which eventually kept on getting renewed for a couple of years and during that time they would play every single night of the tourist season. While the hotel gig required the band to play sets leaning towards tourist entertainment, the regular work helped put some money into the band's accounts. Using those funds the band was able to travel to Rome to record their one and only 7" single release "Alech" around 1971/1972. While the b-side "Soul Brother" sounds like a Tunisian version of modern soul / AOR with it's English lyrics and lush arrangements, the title track "Alech" is the one that will get every party started. An infectious 3/4 rhythm, a great horn arrangement and brillantly layered vocals that made us think of Brazillian music or the Georgian groove band Gaya.

    The band eventually dismantled in the mid 70s and returned briefly as a new group with new members in the late 1970s under the name Carthago. You can listen to their music on another Habibi Funk release. Fawzi Chekili is still active as a renowned musician in the Tunisian jazz scene and remains active recording and playing concerts both in Tunisia and internationally. Ridha Kouhen, his co-founder in Dalton sadly passed away in a car crash in the 1980s.

    TRACK LISTING

    1. Alech
    2. Soul Brother

    Karen Dalton

    In My Own Time - 50th Anniversary Super Deluxe Edition

      ● Definitive edition of Karen Dalton’s 1971 Masterpiece. Non-Returnable.
      ● Two 180-gram, 45 RPM LPs cut from new 2021 transfers and pressed at RTI, featuring bonus tracks from the original album sessions
      ● 12” 180-gram, 45 RPM EP: Live at The Montreux Golden Rose Pop Festival (May 1971), newly remastered (2021) and previously unreleased in any format. B-side includes a beautiful etching of Karen, illustrated by renowned artist Jess Rotter.
      ● Previously unreleased 7” single: Live at Beat Club, Germany (April 1971)
      ● Repro of 1971 French edition 7” single: Something On Your Mind b/w One Night Of Love
      ● Both 7” singles pressed at Third Man Pressing and housed in old-style tip-on jackets
      ● 20-page booklet featuring unseen photos and liner notes by Lenny Kaye, plus contributions from Nick Cave and Devendra Banhart
      ● Replica Playbill for Montreux performance
      ● CD of all tracks
      ● Housed in a special, expanded trifold jacket
      ● Limited to 2,000 sequentially foil numbered copies worldwide
      ● Includes a 18”x24” fold-out movie poster of the acclaimed documentary film Karen Dalton: In My Own Time, illustrated by artist Matt McCormick

      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,” will be available in a variety of formats, including 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 50th Anniversary Super-Deluxe Edition also includes an 18”x24” fold-out movie poster of the acclaimed documentary film Karen Dalton: In My Own Time, illustrated by artist Matt McCormick. Directed by Robert Yapkowitz and Richard Peete and executive produced by Light in the Attic, Wim Wenders and Delmore Recording Society, the film chronicles the life, music, and legacy of Dalton and features interviews with family, friends, collaborators, and a variety of artists, including Peter Walker, Nick Cave, and country singer Lacy J. Dalton. Angel Olsen lends her voice to the film as the principle narrator, reading aloud from Dalton’s personal journal.

      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 a 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.”


      TRACK LISTING

      1. Something On Your Mind
      2. When A Man Loves A Woman
      3. In My Own Dream
      4. Katie Cruel
      5. How Sweet It Is
      6. In A Station
      7. Take Me
      8. Same Old Man
      9. One Night Of Love
      10. Are You Leaving For The Country
      11. Something On Your Mind (alternate Take)
      12. In My Own Dream (alternate Take)
      13. Katie Cruel (alternate Take)
      14. One Night Of Love - Live At Beat Club, Germany, April 21, 1971
      15. Take Me - Live At Beat Club, Germany, April 21, 1971
      16. Something On Your Mind - Live At The Montreux Golden Rose Pop Festival, May 1, 1971
      17. Blues On The Ceiling - Live At The Montreux Golden Rose Pop Festival, May 1, 1971
      18. Are You Leaving For The Country - Live At The Montreux Golden Rose Pop Festival, May 1, 1971
      19. One Night Of Love - Live At The Montreux Golden Rose Pop Festival, May 1, 1971

      Karen Dalton

      Green Rocky Road

        Another chapter in the ever evolving story of Karen Dalton. These are home recordings, taped by Joe Loop, as was the double live album, "Cotton Eyed Joe", released last year. The "Green Rocky Road" consists of recordings made by Karen herself at her Boulder home on reel-to-reel. It sounds like the album Dalton would have made in 1963 had she been given the opportunity then. Here are the first takes of "Ribbon Bow", "Katie Cruel" and "In The Evening".. and a more complete testimony of Karen's repertoire on banjo.

        Karen Dalton

        Cotton Eyed Joe

          Megaphone Music releases a double album of previously unheard Karen Dalton live recordings from 1962. Recorded at The Attic (Boulder) by Joe Loop in October 1962 and featuring Karen Dalton solo on vocals, 12-string guitar and banjo. These recordings are first of all an unexpected treat as we thought we'd never hear more than Karen's hugely acclaimed studio albums "It's So Hard To Tell Who's Going To Love You The Best" and "In My Own Time". Karen Dalton met Joe Loop in Boulder, in 1962. Colorado was a hotbed of folk music and people from both coasts knew about it. Folk singers would stop off in Denver and Boulder en route to California and New York. The sparse population of the area welcomed some company at a time when young nonconformists were personae non gratae in most states. It was a cheap place to live, Boulder had a large University and both cities had very active folk entrepreneurs.


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