View basket “This Side” 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 Steve Turner Braiding Folk | Fellside | 1LP Released 20th January 2015 £2.00 Add to basket Reserve View Reservations Steve Turner Braiding £2.00 Genre: Folk Label: Fellside SKU: NN73531 Formats: 1LP Released Date: 20th January 2015 Reserve View Reservations Read More Add to basket View Product Quick View Arlo Guthrie Alice’s Restaurant: Original MGM Motion Picture Soundtrack (50th Anniversary Edition) Folk | Omnivore | 2LP Released 23rd August 2019 £24.00 Back Order View Pre/Back Orders Arlo Guthrie Alice’s Restaurant: Original MGM Motion Picture Soundtrack (50th Anniversary Edition) £24.00 Genre: Folk Label: Omnivore SKU: 0816651017393 Formats: 2LP Released Date: 23rd August 2019 Read More Back Order View Pre/Back Orders View Product Quick View Kathryn Williams Crown Electric Folk | One Little Independent | 1LP, Includes Download Code Released 15th October 2013 £15.00 Back Order View Pre/Back Orders Kathryn Williams Crown Electric £15.00 Genre: Folk Label: One Little Independent SKU: TPLP1189 Formats: 1LP, Includes Download Code Released Date: 15th October 2013 Read More Back Order View Pre/Back Orders View Product Quick View Joanna Newsom Divers Folk | Drag City | 2LP, Gatefold Sleeve Released 20th October 2015 £24.00 Back Order View Pre/Back Orders Joanna Newsom Divers £24.00 Genre: Folk Label: Drag City SKU: DC561 Formats: 2LP, Gatefold Sleeve Released Date: 20th October 2015 Read More Back Order View Pre/Back Orders View Product Quick View Hack-Poets Guild Blackletter Garland Folk | One Little Independent | 2LP, Coloured Vinyl Released 10th March 2023 £28.00 Add to basket Reserve View Reservations Hack-Poets Guild Blackletter Garland £28.00 Genre: Folk Label: One Little Independent SKU: TPLP1690 Formats: 2LP, Coloured Vinyl Released Date: 10th March 2023 Reserve View Reservations Read More Add to basket View Product Quick View Izaak Opatz Extra Medium Folk | Mama Bird Recording Co. | 1LP, Coloured Vinyl Released 8th July 2022 £18.00 - £19.00 Select options Izaak Opatz Extra Medium £18.00 - £19.00 Genre: Folk Label: Mama Bird Recording Co. 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