Sharecroppers Troubadour

Drag City presents the first official reissue of Dorothy Carter’s 1976 debut album, her folk-music exegesis: Troubadour. 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. Today’s announcement comes with a visualizer for the first single, “The King of Glory”, a hypnotic hymn hammered by Dorothy evoking western medieval music.

What these sound recordings attempt to do is to bring you face-to-face — or, perhaps more appropriately, sound to-heart — with actual works of the troubadours and, occasionally, of others in their circle of influence. The task is daunting for so many reasons: songs got written down decades, even centuries, after their dates of creation; only about ten percent of the original melodies survive; and most direct knowledge of how performers worked out their interpretations at the time has been lost. We know nothing whatsoever about the singing style, or about the techniques of instrumental accompaniment that may have been employed. These performances, therefore, of necessity, reflect a confluence of musicological and philological knowledge with performers' instincts and intuitions, as all of these tendencies interacted with each other at a specific moment in history, the late twentieth century.

Carole King and James Taylor reuniting isn’t quite a monumental reunion – they never were an official performing entity, so they never had a falling out, appearing on-stage and on record from time to time since their ‘70s heyday – but it is a notable one, particularly when they choose to perform at the Troubadour, the L.A. venue so crucial at the start of their stardom, backed by such fellow veterans of the SoCal singer/songwriter scene as guitarist Danny Kortchmar, bassist Leland Sklar, and drummer Russell Kunkel, musicians who supported them the last time they co-headlined the club back in 1971…

Heaven knows, the Scotsman born Donovan Leitch was ripe for ridicule, even when he was hitting the charts with regularity. He was the ultimate flower child, and his airier pronouncements made cynics want to tighten up those love beads around his neck. Listening to Troubadour, however, it's striking how versatile, melodic, and agreeable most of his material sounds decades after "Mellow Yellow" has faded into a jaundiced yellow. Clearly under the sway of Bob Dylan early on in his career, Donovan nevertheless was capable of directing his reverence into something as enchanting as "Catch the Wind." Amping up as the '60s progressed, he assembled a series of psychedelic-pop classics, including "Season of the Witch," the "Hey Jude"-like sing-along "Atlantis," and the uncharacteristically driving "Hurdy Gurdy Man" (the latter features three-quarters of what was to become Led Zeppelin providing stellar support). This two-disc anthology may be more Donovan than some desire, but the booklet, seven previously unreleased tracks, and expansive perspective it provides makes it a more-than-worthy overview for those who take their paisley folk-rock with a beatific smile.

Producer Audie Ashworth introduced some different instruments, notably vibes and what sound like horns (although none are credited), for a slightly altered sound on Troubadour. But J.J. Cale's albums are so steeped in his introspective style that they become interchangeable. If you like one of them, chances are you'll want to have them all. This one is notable for introducing "Cocaine," which Eric Clapton covered on his Slowhand album a year later.