Karen Dalton: It's So Hard To Tell You Who's Going To Love You The Best

Enigmatic singer/guitarist Karen Dalton made only two albums in her long musical career, which began in the '60s and ended with her retirement from music and eventual death in 1993. Dalton's second and last record, In My Own Time, came out in 1971—that ought to give you an idea of how hesitant she was to allow her music to be recorded—and that's a horrible shame: Listening to this reissue of 1969's It's So Hard To Tell Who's Going To Love You The Best, you can't help but be instantly taken aback by her stunningly evocative voice. In her time, Dalton was routinely hailed as something along the lines of "The Billie Holiday of folk/blues," and the comparison is more apt than you might expect: Her rich, expressive voice possessed depth and humanity, with the clarity of a trumpet. That the end of Dalton's life revolved around a sad mixture of depression, drugs and alcohol only adds to the mystique of this incredible record; from start to finish, it's an essential document full of remarkable, beautiful music.