View basket “High Kings Of Tara” has been added to your basket. Troubadour Dorothy Carter SKU: DC908 Barcode: 0781484090816 26.00 £26.00 Genre: Folk Label: Drag City Released Date: 30th August 2024 Buying Format: 1LP Out of stock Back Order Add to your Wishlist Description Product Info Drag City present the first official reissue of Dorothy Carter’s 1976 album debut, her folk-music exegesis, ‘Troubadour’. In her lifetime, Dorothy, a self-made traveling musician and folklorist, brought forth masterful evocations on hammered dulcimer and psaltery from a myriad of times and places. Her music was played, produced and sold outside of that era’s mainstream music distribution. It’s been 20 years since Dorothy’s passing – but thanks to last year’s reissue of her second album, ‘Waillee Waillee’ (1978), and this edition of ‘Troubadour’, her music is surging forward ever more powerfully. 2035 will mark the centennial of her birth; the mythos and arcana she pursued in relative obscurity is now inspiring an audience larger than Dorothy ever knew. At the time of that centennial, some will, no doubt, look back to the good old days of the early 20s, when they first heard her music. Others, like ‘Troubadour’ reissue producer Eric Demby, can look back to a childhood spent off the grid: the early 1970s in rural Maine, and later on, in Boston – wherever his freewheeling father brought the family, at one point or another, there too was Dorothy, as she lived and breathed, playing her hammered dulcimer. Her presence was always friendly and warm, yet ‘ethereal’ – her mind far away, her focus seemingly deep within the music, the instruments and the world from which they’d come. As for the world from which she came: following a childhood spent around New England, Dorothy travelled abroad for her higher education. She found herself in the late 1950s in Mexico, intent on becoming a nun at the Cuernavaca monastery. Instead, she fell in with a group of expats including David Demby (Eric’s father), his soon-to-be-wife Constance (her moment of New Age musical breakthrough still three decades hence) and aspiring artist and musician Bob Rutman. These were her people, looking for their place in the world. From Mexico City, they made it back up to New York, to Greenwich Village, where Rutman opened an art and ‘happenings’ gallery while Dorothy delved deep into the mystic things of traditional music and sounds, living the bohemian life while bringing up two dearly loved children with her itinerant lifestyle. As the 60s became the 70s, Eric recalls, “She was always coming from somewhere or on her way somewhere else, transporting instruments and folklore from Eastern Europe, Appalachia, and beyond that felt ancient and unearthed, which she would channel into our universe.” The early 70s found everyone living up on the farm up in rural Maine; it was here that Rutman, Constance, Dorothy and some others formed Central Maine Power Company, a troupe of almost feral improvisers playing on a combination of self-made and found instruments, with live video feedback to boot. Self-documentation wasn’t on their minds; simply being was enough. And so they were for several years, playing at planetariums around the northeast and even MoMA and the nascent World Trade towers. In 1976, Dorothy had been playing music for decades, but had yet to record any of it. That year, she went to Cambridge’s Studio B with Rutman and friend Steve Baer at the console. Constance and Sally Hilmer accompanied her. The performances captured there were released later that year as Troubadour. In addition to hammered dulcimer and psaltery, Dorothy played the flute and sang. She chose songs from all over: Appalachian folk tunes, old and ancient psalms and hymns, Scottish, Irish, French and Israeli melodies, with a few of her own songs for good measure. The songs flow together effortlessly under Dorothy and friends’ hands in a syncretic space that we can identify today as a garden of world musics – a highly energized, alternately meditative and proselytic recital whose vitality has only burgeoned in the decades since it appeared. As it should be – the music of Dorothy Carter is akin to a portal, linking her and us with the eternal. This edition of ‘Troubadour’ reproduces the original album package, adding an insert adorned with additional photos of Dorothy and her collection of instruments, as well as notes from Eric Demby exploring the era – his childhood – from a vantage point of some 50 years. This reissue is a long-held family dream come true, and it is dedicated in loving memory to Bob Rutman, Constance Demby, David Demby and Dorothy Carter. Artist Dorothy Carter Genre Folk Label Drag City Buying Options 1LP Format 1LP Condition New Country UK Track Listings Troubadour Song Binnorie Troubadour Songs on the Psaltery Make a Joyful Sound Lark in the Morning Balinderry Tree of Life Visiting Song The King of Glory The Morning Star Ukrainian Carol The Cuckoo Masquerade Shirt of Lace Share this On Facebook On Twitter Via Email More from Folk Nearly New View Product Quick View Jan Erik Lundqvist Leonard Cohen Auf Schwedisch Folk | Meyer Records | 1LP Released 15th April 2022 £15.00 Add to basket Reserve View Reservations Jan Erik Lundqvist Leonard Cohen Auf Schwedisch £15.00 Genre: Folk Label: Meyer Records SKU: nn240604 Formats: 1LP Released Date: 15th April 2022 Reserve View Reservations Read More Add to basket View Product Quick View Roo Panes Quiet Man Folk | CRC Records | 1LP Released 15th June 2018 £17.00 Back Order View Pre/Back Orders Roo Panes Quiet Man £17.00 Genre: Folk Label: CRC Records SKU: CRC057LP Formats: 1LP Released Date: 15th June 2018 Read More Back Order View Pre/Back Orders View Product Quick View Weather Station, The What Am I Going To Do With Everything I Know Folk | Fat Possum | 12", EP/Mini Album Released 15th April 2022 £15.00 Back Order View Pre/Back Orders Weather Station, The What Am I Going To Do With Everything I Know £15.00 Genre: Folk Label: Fat Possum SKU: FP17691 Formats: 12", EP/Mini Album Released Date: 15th April 2022 Read More Back Order View Pre/Back Orders View Product Quick View Emily Barker Sweet Kind Of Blue (Indies Only) Folk | Everyone Sang | 180g, 1LP, Coloured Vinyl Released 12th May 2017 £20.00 Back Order View Pre/Back Orders Emily Barker Sweet Kind Of Blue (Indies Only) £20.00 Genre: Folk Label: Everyone Sang SKU: ES153LPB Formats: 180g, 1LP, Coloured Vinyl Released Date: 12th May 2017 Read More Back Order View Pre/Back Orders View Product Quick View Pete Seeger Where Have All The Flowers Gone? 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