Info: Carolyn Hester: 60's Folksinger

Subject: Carolyn Hester: 60's Folksinger
From: GUEST,Zack in N.D.
Date: 15 Feb 05 - 10:20 PM

I just discovered the music of Carolyn Hester. Good singer and guitar player. Didshe have a career similar to Joan Baez and Judy Collins fame-wise? What were her peak career years? Any Catters see her live?

Zack

Subject: RE: Carolyn Hester: 60's Folksinger
From: jimmyt
Date: 15 Feb 05 - 10:29 PM

Zack, read the thread "Lesser Known folk groups" that is presently active and you will find a number of references to Carolyn Hester. I just read it   jimmyt

Subject: RE: Carolyn Hester: 60's Folksinger
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 15 Feb 05 - 10:43 PM

I have one album at least here. It's simply in her name--Carolyn Hester--and is put out by Tradition Records, TLP 1043. Notes on the back are a glowing recommendation by someone named Stacey Williams.

Her voice is very nice in the songs that let her use her range. (The liner notes rave about House of the Rising Sun, but I wasn't as impressed as he/she was.

SRS

Subject: RE: Carolyn Hester: 60's Folksinger
From: GUEST,Mark Cohen away from home
Date: 15 Feb 05 - 11:04 PM

I have this vague memory that she's been a guest here on Mudcat in the past. Of course, these days my vague memories tend to be just that. I'll try a search if I get a chance.

Aloha,
Mark

Subject: RE: Carolyn Hester: 60's Folksinger
From: chris nightbird childs
Date: 16 Feb 05 - 12:18 AM

I've heard of her quite a bit, but I've never heard her music. I think Dylan played harp on her first record. I'm not sure if they have any of her albums on disc yet. If they do, I'd like to get one...

- Chris

Subject: RE: Carolyn Hester: 60's Folksinger
From: Peace
Date: 16 Feb 05 - 12:34 AM

Here's one view.

Google

Carolyn Hester

Lots there on the page that comes up.

Subject: RE: Carolyn Hester: 60's Folksinger
From: Genie
Date: 16 Feb 05 - 03:31 AM

One of the songs I loved most on Carolyn's self-titled album back in 1961 was "Blackjack Oak." Wonderful song, based on "John Brown's Body."

At the time I thought she had a very unusual voice, kind of sounding like an old lady, much as Dylan sounded like a little old man to me when I first heard him. LOL
Neither one sounds "old" to me now, but both did have out-of-the-ordinary sounds and styles.

Other songs I loved on Carolyn's first album were "Lindo Capulio De Alalia" (sp?), Jaime, Malagueña Salerosa, Ribbon Bow, and "go 'Way Fr om My Window."

She's a very special singer, IMNSHO.

Genie

Subject: RE: Carolyn Hester: 60's Folksinger
From: GUEST,Robb T.
Date: 16 Feb 05 - 09:34 AM

Carolyn was/is a very special singer. I discovered her music when buying Judy Collins Cd's on Amazon.com years ago.

You can hear samples of Carolyn's work there. Joan Baez took over the 'Folk Queen' crown it seems in the early 60's, and they had similar song selections. I still don't understand why she didn't become a household name like Joan. Maybe different management/promotion and public acceptance had role.

Subject: RE: Carolyn Hester: 60's Folksinger
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 16 Feb 05 - 10:59 AM

Brucie, thanks for that link. I agree with that assessment of her voice. I listened to side one of the album I have here and I couldn't fault her ability to hit all of the notes she was aiming for, but there was something missing in the delivery, a resonance, perhaps, that Baez and Collins definitely have have. Hester seens to have been throughly into the mix of folk music activity going on at the time. One wonders if Peter Paul and Carolyn would have been the same kind of superstars in the field without the strength in Mary's voice that Carolyn doesn't have. It's all about choices. I'm glad to see that she is still singing and networking. I hope she has made a decent living at it all of these years!

SRS

Subject: RE: Carolyn Hester: 60's Folksinger
From: chris nightbird childs
Date: 16 Feb 05 - 11:09 AM

Wow! Thanks Bruce! On CMT of all places...

Subject: RE: Carolyn Hester: 60's Folksinger
From: EagleWing
Date: 16 Feb 05 - 01:24 PM

"What were her peak career years? Any Catters see her live?"

With encouragement from Tom Paxton she has recently ,ade a come back. Saw her at the "National Forest Folk Club" on the Leicestershire/Derbyshire boder about a year ago. She's still superb - in fact IMO she's as good as she's ever been.

Frank L

Subject: RE: Carolyn Hester: 60's Folksinger
From: EagleWing
Date: 16 Feb 05 - 01:25 PM

Incidentally, I think all or most of her albums are now available as CDs. I have a superb one she has made all of Tom Paxton material. Brilliant!!

Frank L. (again)

Subject: RE: Carolyn Hester: 60's Folksinger
From: PoppaGator
Date: 16 Feb 05 - 02:00 PM

Carolyn Hester was Richard Farina's first wife; Farina was notable both as a singer/songwriter and a novelist ("Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up To Me"), and recorded a couple of decent albums with his second wife, Mimi Baez Farina (Joan's sister).

Carolyn appears on the video of the Bob Dylan 50th Anniversary Concert (subject of a thread here a few months ago), singing harmony with Nanci Griffin (Griffith?) on "Spanish Boots of Spanish Leather," which they had recently recorded as a duet on an album of Nanci's.

Bob Dylan's first appearance on a record was, indeed, as a backup harmonica player on a Carolyn Hester album.

Ms. Hester may not have attained the same level of stardom as Joan Baez, Judy Collins, Mary Travers, and Joni Mitchell, but she got there first (i.e., she started prforming and recording a year or two earlier than any of those others) and ~ irrelevant as it might be ~ she was the best-looking of the bunch, an absolute beauty (even at 60+ years old on the Dylan concert video).

Subject: RE: Carolyn Hester: 60's Folksinger
From: GUEST,Carter W.
Date: 16 Feb 05 - 02:16 PM

Joan and Carolyn looked alike when Miss Hester sported her natural brown hair color in the early 60's.

Subject: RE: Carolyn Hester: 60's Folksinger
From: Sir Roger de Beverley
Date: 16 Feb 05 - 03:07 PM

And Buddy Holly played on her first recordings (unfortunately still unreleased in the UK after all these years.)

R

Subject: RE: Carolyn Hester: 60's Folksinger
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 16 Feb 05 - 03:18 PM

I disagree with assessment on link provided by Brucie. Carolyn had/has a fabulous voice. A terrific wide range, AND a palette of amazing sounds to draw on that Baez could never hope to match; for example, Baez could never sing - or dream of singing - Dink's Song in the amazing manner of Carolyn. And, of course, SHE was a star before Baez. Had she been handled correctly she could have become a major voice in the acoustic movement. She had it all; the looks "drop dead gorgeous", the voice and the personality.

Subject: RE: Carolyn Hester: 60's Folksinger
From:
Date: 16 Feb 05 - 03:19 PM

Hester does a fabulous version of "Once I Had a Sweetheart" - one of the best I've heard. She still tours. I believe she was recently at a club in San Jose, California, and sounded good from what I heard.

Subject: RE: Carolyn Hester: 60's Folksinger
From: Michael S
Date: 16 Feb 05 - 03:30 PM

There's a fair amount on Ms. Hester in "Positively 4th Street," the gossipy but fascinating (to me) account of personal tales from the sixties folk boom by David Hajdu.

For trivia buffs, the Stacey Williams who wrote the liner notes on Hester's Tradition album was actually the late Robert Shelton. He was then a music critic for the New York Times who earned extra cash writing notes. Of course, in the newspaper he'd review the same artists whom he praised on album jackets, hence the need for a liner note pseudonym. He wrote a glowing Times review of a 1961 Dylan club performance that many still credit with jump-starting Dylan's career. He later published the Dylan biography No Direction Home.

---Michael S

Subject: RE: Carolyn Hester: 60's Folksinger
From: Peace
Date: 16 Feb 05 - 03:35 PM

I like Carolyn's voice on much she did. Just as I like Baez's voice on much she does. However, I have to agree with most people who have posted here that like the rest of us, she shines on some stuff and doesn't on other stuff. She was well-respected in the 1960s, and although I never had the chance to meet her or hear her live, she was 'up there' with the names of the time.

BM

Subject: RE: Carolyn Hester: 60's Folksinger
From: PoppaGator
Date: 16 Feb 05 - 04:05 PM

Oooh ~ didn't know CH had been a "bottle blond." Her hair was completely white by the time of the Dylan-concert video.

Subject: RE: Carolyn Hester: 60's Folksinger
From: pdq
Date: 16 Feb 05 - 04:55 PM

Trying to raise Carolyn Hester to the status of 'first folk diva' seems a bit unfair to Barbara Dane.

Barbara Dane had a full LP out in the public arena in 1957. Hester may have recorded that same year, but she had nothing released until 1961, therefore not able to really 'influence' that many people. She was also a featured player at the first Newport Folk Festival in 1959, the year that Joan Baez was only a suprise guest.

Subject: RE: Carolyn Hester: 60's Folksinger
From: GUEST,Linda Goodman at work
Date: 16 Feb 05 - 06:00 PM

I believe there was a long article on her just in the last month in the newspaper here. (Jan or Feb 2005) I think she may have been appearing in the Washington, DC area. I didn't read the article, but if you check the Washington Post website, you might be able to find the article. (or maybe it was the NY Times??). I THINK it was the Post. The Washington Post's website is www.washingtonpost.com.

Subject: RE: Carolyn Hester: 60's Folksinger
From: GUEST,Willie-O
Date: 16 Feb 05 - 06:32 PM

Met her in 89 at Kerrville Tx. Lovely woman in every way. Certified earth mother with gray braids and an interest in American native spirituality and issues. Having heard a little of her early 60's stuff, I'd say her style was really rooted in Texas old-time then and maybe didn't go uptown with trends...considering the people she ran with, I really don't know why.

Most telling anecdote in the Hajdu book Michael S mentioned was how she pulled a gun on Richard Farina (his own gun) after he had been mean to her in a restaurant. He deserved it. That's just the way the girls are from Texas. The word "feisty" comes to mind.

W-O

Subject: RE: Carolyn Hester: 60's Folksinger
From: GUEST,Carter W.
Date: 16 Feb 05 - 07:41 PM

Pictures from the 60's, current tour schedule, contact and more can be seen at www.CarolynHester.com

Subject: RE: Carolyn Hester: 60's Folksinger
From: chris nightbird childs
Date: 16 Feb 05 - 09:38 PM

Judging from what I read in Hajdu's book and others on the period, they only went after Baez when Hester couldn't munipulated. She was 'out' in the scene for a few years before people started comparing Baez to her...

- Nightbird

Subject: RE: Carolyn Hester: 60's Folksinger
From: GUEST,Philippa
Date: 17 Feb 05 - 04:51 AM

From www.washingtonpost.com
"The Ballad Of Carolyn Hester; Four Decades After Stardom Passed Her By, She's Singing Her Heart Out"; [FINAL Edition]
Bob Thompson. The Washington Post. Washington, D.C.: Jan 12, 2005. pg. C.01

Subjects:   Folk music, Musicians & conductors
People:   Hester, Carolyn
Document types:   Feature
Dateline:   CAMBRIDGE, Mass.
Section:   STYLE
ISSN/ISBN:   01908286
Text Word Count   2045
Document URL:   

Abstract (Document Summary)
In the late '60s and early '70s, she went through a rock phase. She and pianist-record producer David Blume formed a group called the [Carolyn Hester] Coalition, about whose album the less said the better. "You can only get it on eBay," Hester says.

"I think she's had the best of both worlds," [Nanci Griffith] says of Hester's career-motherhood combination. Hester agrees. But as the ...

[to read more one has to purchase access]

Subject: RE: Carolyn Hester: 60's Folksinger
From: GUEST
Date: 17 Feb 05 - 05:28 AM

Is there a way to view her website without having to download yet ANOTHER damn plug-in? I use Firefox 1.0 and even with enabling Java & JavaScript (which I usually keep switched off) I can't get anything to come up except a blank page which says I need the plug-in to see the site. What ARE these things? I see this notice all over the net but don't want to dump any more cyber-baggage into my puter than it already has, especially when I don't know exactly what it is I'm downloading or whether I can truly get rid of it afterwards.

Any other way to see CH's website (apart from using IE which I don't trust and which intentionally doesn't have Windows XP's Service Pack 2)?

Subject: RE: Carolyn Hester: 60's Folksinger
From: GUEST
Date: 17 Feb 05 - 05:29 AM

Sorry - "Guest" is me, using the back-door to the Cat as I couldn't get in the usual way and it seems to be anonymous -

Bonnie Shaljean

Subject: RE: Carolyn Hester: 60's Folksinger
From: GUEST,SRS
Date: 17 Feb 05 - 10:25 AM

I try to get that Washington Post article through the university for you.

Subject: RE: Carolyn Hester: 60's Folksinger
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 17 Feb 05 - 01:29 PM

Found via Factiva and posted here for scholarly purposes:

The Ballad Of Carolyn Hester; Four Decades After Stardom Passed Her By, She's Singing Her Heart Out

Bob Thompson
Washington Post Staff Writer
2,136 words
12 January 2005
The Washington Post
FINAL
C01
English
Copyright 2005, The Washington Post Co. All Rights Reserved

Close your eyes and you're not in 2005 any more.

You're in a coffeehouse within harmonica range of Harvard Square. There's a guitar being strummed, a beautiful young woman singing. You're back in 1961, with the great American folk boom approaching its peak. Perhaps it's the night the scraggly kid shows up from New York. He's hoping the beautiful young woman can get him a gig, or at least bring him up for a song or two.

John F. Kennedy is president. There are Freedom Riders in Mississippi. The kid, Bob Dylan, will soon record his first album. And Carolyn Hester, Queen of the New York Folk Singers, is playing at Club 47.

Open your eyes and she's still singing, high cheekbones framed by a mane of white hair, high notes still hit in a sweet soprano voice:

Well, if somehow you could pack up your sorrows,

And give them all to me.

Well, you would lose them, I know how to use them,

Give 'em all to me.

The song could bring tears if the melody weren't such a catchy one -- and if Hester, on this frozen January night, weren't smiling so widely as she sings.

Carolyn Hester is the proud protagonist of a classic American tale. Call it "How a Star Was Almost Born." It's a story about ambition, talent, competition and the hottest musical trend of the day. You could tell it about hip-hop or punk rock or even classical opera, but in this case it's set amidst the intense, short-lived romance with traditional folk music that swept the nation from the late 1950s until the Beatles invaded in 1964.

In a winner-take-all culture, the biggest names crowd out other talent. There can be just one King at a time, or one Boss, or, in the case of the '60s folk revival, one Joan Baez, who was anointed on a Time cover in November 1962. Baez remains the female folk icon (with apologies to Judy Collins) whose name non-folkies are most likely to know.

Yet the pecking order is always clearer in retrospect, and there was a time when a lot of people thought Carolyn Hester would be The One.

"At the beginning, she was the queen of folk music -- long before Baez and Collins came along," says DJ Dick Cerri, a moving force behind the Washington-based World Folk Music Association. Last year the group gave Hester its lifetime achievement award. Saturday she'll play the Birchmere as part of WFMA's 20th annual benefit concert. Tonight she's in Annapolis at 49 West.

"Carolyn was a contender, no doubt about it," the late folk and blues singer Dave Van Ronk told journalist David Hajdu, author of "Positively 4th Street," a few years back. "Beauty, talent, charm -- she had it all."

"She was a huge star at the time in Texas," says Grammy-winning contemporary folk-country artist Nanci Griffith, a longtime admirer who stood in line for Hester's autograph in Austin around 1963 or 1964. "I've always been in awe of her."

What happened?

The answer is complicated, as these things tend to be in real life as opposed to legend. But a plot element to watch is another classic: the showbiz marriage gone wrong.

Hester was born in Waco, Tex., in 1937. Her parents moved to Washington to work for the government in 1939 -- she wore her little white boots on the train ride and remembers making snowmen on the Library of Congress lawn. But by the time she was in high school the family was in Dallas, which is where her musical life began.

She got a church choir scholarship that paid for voice lessons. Her father bought her a Sears guitar that made her fingers bleed. A teacher loaned her an album by a folk singer named Susan Reed; having a female role model fueled her ambition. When she graduated from high school, she turned down a college scholarship and headed east.

Her mother did her best to lure her home. She sent a postcard to Norman Petty, Buddy Holly's producer, who had a recording studio in the Southwest. This led to Hester's first album and a connection with Holly himself, but it didn't keep her away from New York.

She was starting to perform in Greenwich Village. Van Ronk saw her first at Gerdes Folk City -- a lovely brunette with a three-octave range. "My God, she tore the place apart," he said.

Before long she was venturing out of town. In Washington, she played the old Showboat Lounge. In Boston, a folk revival hotbed, Joan Baez came to hear her. The younger singer was "maybe 17," Hester recalls, and just beginning to be known. After the show, at Baez's request, the two sang "Virgin Mary Had One Son" together.

Back in New York, New York Times critic Robert Shelton asked Hester out to dinner. During the course of the evening, Hajdu reports, he introduced her to "a lean, dark fellow with longish black hair and a fiery glare." This was the Irish Cuban charmer Richard Farina, an advertising copywriter and would-be novelist, who said he'd come to see her next time she played in town.

He did.

Eighteen days later, they got married.

She sang "Once I Had a Sweetheart" at the reception.

More than four decades after that -- after Farina dropped her for Baez's sister Mimi; after Richard and Mimi became a well-known folk singing duo; after he finished a novel called "Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me"; after he died in a motorcycle accident while celebrating its 1966 publication; and after Mimi died of cancer in 2001 -- Hester still sounds a bit startled by the force of nature who blew so suddenly in and out of her life at such a critical time.

"That was my turn to live with the whirlwind," she says.

Carolyn Hester "is one of the nicest people you'll ever know," Dick Cerri says. As such, she's relatively forgiving of Farina and the gossip-worthy psychodrama that threatened to derail her career. "I knew early on that I was in trouble," she says, "and I cried every day." But still: "I wouldn't trade it."

Yet to consider the course of the Farina-Hester whirlwind, in the light of her Almost-Stardom, is to wonder how far off track she was blown.

On their first date, her would-be Svengali told her she ate too much and would lose her nice figure if she kept it up. After they were married, he got mad at her for practicing while he was trying to write. Worst of all, he was determined to insert himself into her career. He learned to play a dulcimer she'd given him and started to join her onstage when he could. Eventually he headed for London, where he wasn't known as Carolyn Hester's husband and where he started to have some success.

"He had his work, his writing, and I got to type the manuscripts," she told Hajdu. "I had my music, and he had to have that, too."

To this day, she's irked by one small but symptomatic encroachment: Farina claiming credit for Bob Dylan's big break.

After Dylan showed up that time in Cambridge, looking for work, she invited him to share the stage at Club 47. She also asked him to play harmonica on her first major-label album, on Columbia. The contact helped Dylan get his own Columbia deal.

There's one other thing she wants to correct for the record.

Yes, it's true that she pointed Farina's pistol at him in a Paris hotel room and told him to stay away from her. This was after he had become infatuated with Mimi Baez, who was 16 at the time and living with her parents in France. Yes, it was the same pistol he had insisted Carolyn smuggle across the French border strapped to her back -- at the risk of 20 years in prison -- because, he claimed, he was afraid an Irish Republican Army connection might come back to haunt him.

But hey: She never took the safety off.

It was obvious that her marriage was over. Still, she typed the first 90 pages of her husband's novel before she flew home to arrange a Mexican divorce.

The divorce came through in 1963. In May 1964, Hester made the cover of the Saturday Evening Post. But that was a year and a half after Baez's Time cover, and besides, the Beatles had already done "The Ed Sullivan Show."

In 1965, Hester filled New York's Town Hall. But she had to produce the concert herself, and besides, that was the year Dylan went electric.

The folk boom was over. And Carolyn Hester wasn't The One.

Folk music didn't suddenly disappear -- folkish types such as James Taylor and Joni Mitchell would soon get very big indeed. But like Dylan, they were singer-songwriters, not just interpreters of traditional material -- a distinction that became increasingly important. Eventually Hester would start writing her own songs, but this requirement did not play to her strengths.

In the late '60s and early '70s, she went through a rock phase. She and pianist-record producer David Blume formed a group called the Carolyn Hester Coalition, about whose album the less said the better. "You can only get it on eBay," Hester says.

Around the time of Woodstock, she and Blume got married. They moved to California and had two daughters. Eventually Blume gave up the record business and settled into a copy editing job at the Los Angeles Times. Hester put what was left of her career on hold to stay home with the kids.

Talk about your classic story lines.

"You wouldn't advise a young lady to quit anything for 10 years," she says, "but in my case, that was just the way it was going to be, that's all."

She kept her hand in a bit. Every year she'd go back to Texas for the Kerrville Folk Festival, where she took younger singers like Nanci Griffith under her wing. Griffith returned the favor, once she got big herself, by inviting Hester on tours and to recording sessions.

In 1992, she finally made it to Madison Square Garden -- as part of a Bob Dylan 30th anniversary bash.

"I think she's had the best of both worlds," Griffith says of Hester's career-motherhood combination. Hester agrees. But as the girls got older (they've got their own group, the RBIs, with their own debut CD), she was able to work more. There have been some CDs on small labels, with the most recent being a Tom Paxton tribute put out by an English outfit called Road Goes On Forever.

Now, with Almost-Stardom in the rearview mirror and Blume on keyboard -- "as an orchestra, he's very inexpensive," she jokes -- she's back on the road herself.

Club 47 has long since changed its name; it's been Club Passim for years, and it's moved a few blocks from its original Cambridge location. There are no Carolyn Hester CDs for sale in any of five nearby music stores, though you can find plenty of Joan Baez and Judy Collins. There's no Carolyn Hester vinyl, for that matter, though you might think you'd hit a gold mine when you see a sign for a boutique called Hootenanny.

Turns out it's a clothing store with a midwinter sale, and the cacophonic music it's playing is definitely not folk.

Never mind. Here's Carolyn Hester in person, a few weeks from her 68th birthday, white hair gleaming in the Passim spotlights, big smile taking years off her age. Twenty-somethings like Nelly Furtado should look so good 40 years from now.

"If you think I'm trying to make you sing, you're right," Hester tells the 50-odd assembled listeners after she opens with "Pack Up Your Sorrows" -- a Richard Farina tune, as it happens -- then moves on through "Flatlands of Texas" and starts in on "You Never Break Even in Love."

A bit later, there are technical difficulties.

"Is that a mess?" she asks Blume, who's trying to help her out.

"No -- it's not perfect, but it's not a mess," he tells her.

"Story of my life," says the contender who was almost a queen.

Subject: RE: Carolyn Hester: 60's Folksinger
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 17 Feb 05 - 01:33 PM

There were two Factiva hits on "Carolyn Hester." Here is a little bit from the other, one of those "out and about" things called "The Circuit" in the Jan. 14,2005 Washington Post:

Fri.It's a weekend of smooth and classy R&B as Harold Melvin's Bluenotes perform at Blues Alley (202-337-4141) through Sunday. . . . The World Folk Music Association gets together for a two-night event at the Birchmere (for tickets, call 202-362-2225). Friday performers include Buskin & Batteau, the Limeliters, David Mallett, Modern Man and Noel Paul Stookey. Saturday's lineup includes Oscar Brand, the Brothers Four, Bill Danoff, Steve Gillette & Cindy Mangsen, Carolyn Hester & David Blume, the Highwaymen, Christine Lavin, Tommy Makem, Schooner Fare and Side by Side.

Subject: RE: Carolyn Hester: 60's Folksinger
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 17 Feb 05 - 01:37 PM

I have to admit that this discussion has me interested in hearing more of her recordings. Her voice may or may not have been equal to Baez and Collins, but that doesn't mean she can't (as the article says) "sing her heart out" and get admiration and respect for her work.

Thanks for calling Hester to our attention, Zack. And thanks, all, for the links back to other Mudcat discussions and external sources.

SRS

Subject: RE: Carolyn Hester: 60's Folksinger
From: Bill Hahn//\\
Date: 17 Feb 05 - 04:29 PM

She also is the proprietor of a club in L A that focuses on traditional (folk) dancing.

I had the pleasure and honor of having her on my program about 2 yrs ago. A wonderul and open person in talking about her life and her music.

On the photo section of Mudcat you can see a shot of her taken about 2 yrs ago at the Bottom Line in NYC w/Tom Paxton and yours truly.

Bill Hahn

Subject: RE: Carolyn Hester: 60's Folksinger
From: Folkie101
Date: 17 Feb 05 - 04:44 PM

Hi Bill H.

Did Carolyn take guitar lessons, or is she self-taught? Also, did she ever become friendly with Joan and Mimi Baez in the sixties?

cheers,
Folkie

Subject: RE: Carolyn Hester: 60's Folksinger
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 17 Feb 05 - 05:07 PM

Here is Bill H's photo. Tom Paxton, Bill Hahn, Carolyn Hester.

Subject: RE: Carolyn Hester: 60's Folksinger
From: Bill Hahn//\\
Date: 17 Feb 05 - 05:11 PM

Folkie101: I cannot be definitive about how she learned guitar---the old memory is getting cloudy I guess. As to the other question---yes, she actually remained friendly with Mimi even after the breakup of her own marriage.   She also, prior to her breakup, helped Richard F with the writing of his book.


Bill Hahn

Subject: RE: Carolyn Hester: 60's Folksinger
From: chris nightbird childs
Date: 17 Feb 05 - 11:36 PM

The story of her & Farina is the same as Baez & Dylan. Some would say the men won... Granted, i think Dylan had more talent than Farina & Hester had more than Baez.

Subject: RE: Carolyn Hester: 60's Folksinger
From: GUEST,Barb T.
Date: 18 Feb 05 - 10:26 PM

"Carolyn Hester At Town Hall" is my favorite CH record.

Subject: RE: Carolyn Hester: 60's Folksinger
From: Bill Hahn//\\
Date: 18 Feb 05 - 11:57 PM

Don't you just love that last track on it?

Bill Hahn

Subject: RE: Carolyn Hester: 60's Folksinger
From: GUEST,Barb T.
Date: 19 Feb 05 - 02:30 AM

Love it Bill....and just about all the other tracks too.

Subject: RE: Carolyn Hester: 60's Folksinger
From: Thomas Stern
Date: 29 Sep 09 - 05:27 PM

for a discography of Carolyn Hester, I need catalog numbers
for her albums released in Canada (QUALITY label), and
the UK (PYE label).
Thanks, Thomas.

Subject: RE: Carolyn Hester: 60's Folksinger
From: Art Thieme
Date: 29 Sep 09 - 05:53 PM

What a great face and persona! Photos of CH simply radiated heat.
But I had a hard time with her voice and presentation.

Joan and Judy were much more able. Much better voices too---by far.

I opened a show for Mimi Farina at the club called Amazin' Grace in Evanston, Illinois -- in a wooden structure right in the middle of the Northwestern Univ. campus --- and got a huge crush on Mimi. Remembering it feels very nice---even now.

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: Carolyn Hester: 60's Folksinger
From: oldhippie
Date: 29 Sep 09 - 06:13 PM

Carolyn Hester was my introduction to folk music, I was loaned her LP "That's My Song" and was hooked. Her voice to me is more beautiful than the other period female folkies. I saw her live once, many years ago, at a festival. Glad to hear that she's actively performing again. If she tours the east coast again, I'd certainly go see her.

Some of her music has been released on CD, but not all. And, I am still awaiting the material with Buddy Holly to surface.

Her daughters Karla and Amy Blume are continuing the family musical tradition, they formed an indie group called the RBIs. Check them out on myspace.

Subject: RE: Carolyn Hester: 60's Folksinger
From: RTim
Date: 29 Sep 09 - 06:51 PM

I always loved the song - Hate that rain....

Would love to hear it again.

Tim Radford

Subject: RE: Carolyn Hester: 60's Folksinger
From: ButterandCheese
Date: 29 Sep 09 - 07:55 PM

We Dream Forever (2009)
Carolyn Hester
with Amy and Karla Blume

We Dream Forever WDFCD-001 (CD)

Here

Subject: RE: Carolyn Hester: 60's Folksinger
From: Jack Campin
Date: 29 Sep 09 - 08:57 PM

Following links from her site, I came across a sample of a Sephardic song that she titled "Los Bibilicos" on her recording. The tune is that of "La rosa enflorece", which is a lot better known these days. Anybody got Hester's words?

Subject: RE: Carolyn Hester: 60's Folksinger
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 30 Sep 09 - 04:14 AM

Art Thieme might think that Joan and Judy had better voices than Carolyn BUT Carolyn was by far the most interesting singer of the three! For example, imagine Joan singing Dink's Song and then listen to Carolyn's version. No contest!

Subject: RE: Carolyn Hester: 60's Folksinger
From: Thomas Stern
Date: 30 Sep 09 - 06:40 AM

The SEPHARDIC MUSIC web-site has a clip of Los Bibilicos:
Los Bibilicos - Carolyn Hester

Still looking for catalog numbers for Carolyn's QUALITY releases
in Canada, and PYE releases in UK.

Best wishes, Thomas.

Subject: RE: Carolyn Hester: 60's Folksinger
From: Jack Campin
Date: 30 Sep 09 - 07:35 AM

Yes, that's where I found it.

But it's only part of what she sings, and as I said it seems to have a different text than the one I know. Was her full text printed on the LP? Where did she get it?

Subject: RE: Carolyn Hester: 60's Folksinger
From: Joe Offer
Date: 30 Sep 09 - 10:18 AM

Hi, Jack- we had quite a discussion of that song in the thread on Swallow Song (same tune), written by Hester's ex-husband Richard Fariña. Hester's lyrics are posted in that thread. Apparently, "Los Bilbilicos" is an extra verse to "La rosa enflorece," not a completely different song.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: Info: Carolyn Hester: 60's Folksinger
From: oldhippie
Date: 30 Sep 09 - 02:35 PM

Thomas - I have one Caroyn Hester UK pressing, but it's on EMBER #CW138, title: "Thursday's Child Has Far To Go"; it's a reprint of a Tradition LP. The LP label has a date of 1971.

Subject: RE: Info: Carolyn Hester: 60's Folksinger
From: Thomas Stern
Date: 30 Sep 09 - 03:20 PM

Thanks oldhippie(?)


Need catalog nr.for TOWN HALL ONE on Canadian QUALITY
Need catalog nr.for COALITION: MAGAZINE UK PYE Records

for her 2ndt Columbia album THIS LIFE I'M LIVING, I have a UK catalog
number: CBS REALM RM 52338 - however this was issued 1n 1966, a few years later than the initial release - TWO QUESTIONS - is there a
CBS UKissue from 1963? Is the REALM issue complete 12 tracks, or
has it 10 tracks like the Odyssey reissue?

Thanks!
Best wishes, Thomas.

Subject: RE: Info: Carolyn Hester: 60's Folksinger
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 30 Sep 09 - 03:47 PM

I bought Carolyn's CBS ( Bob Dylan album ) in the UK in 1963. Of course, CBS was the name Columbia used in the UK.

Subject: RE: Info: Carolyn Hester: 60's Folksinger
From: oldhippie
Date: 30 Sep 09 - 05:32 PM

OK, Thomas, here's more info from my LPs. I have one self titled on CBS #BPG 62033 (CL 1796)which has the same 12 tracks as the debut Columbia LP but a different cover pic. Label is dated 1962.
I also have a Dot LP DLP#3638, "Carolyn Hester at Town Hall" distributed by Pye Records Ltd, London There are three copyright dates on the label, 1964, 1965, 1966 back of LP states concert from 1965. The side 1 tracks are the same as side 1 of the US Town Hall 1 LP; the side 2 tracks are selections from US Town Hall 2 LP.

Subject: RE: Info: Carolyn Hester: 60's Folksinger
From: Thomas Stern
Date: 30 Sep 09 - 06:07 PM

Hi oldhippie,
Thanks for this - are you able to provide a scan of the DOT jacket?
and/or complete track list. Surprised they used the same catalog
number for an essentially different album. Given the copyright
dates including 1964 - I wonder if any of the tracks are from
the studio album which came out in 1964?
If the inner sleeve has listings of other albums, there might
be additional information that would be useful.
Thanks again!
Cheers, Thomas.

Subject: RE: Info: Carolyn Hester: 60's Folksinger
From: oldhippie
Date: 02 Oct 09 - 07:29 AM

Thomas, sent you a PM - e-mail me off list.