THE MESMERIZING GRIEF OF KAREN DALTON’S “KATIE CRUEL” & HOW THE APPARITIONS OF THE CHORUS RESEMBLED THE SINGER’S OWN DOWNFALL.

Up the alley of “a folk singer unlike anyone else you’ve ever heard before” we arrive (inevitably) at the complicated, complex figure of Karen Dalton. Virtually all her singing can pierce you, yet her most distinctive work, the traditional folk song “Katie Cruel,” will carve deep into your being. If you’re brave enough to give a damn, the tune will absolutely shatter your invulnerability. No small part of that reaction will owe to the song’s elusive, riddling chorus. Ascertaining its meaning may resemble the impossible feat of trying to catch echoes with your hands, yet may be crucial to comprehending the entireties of Dalton’s tragic demise.


an all-too-brief bio

After leaving Oklahoma in the early 1960s, the part-Cherokee, part-Irish Dalton became a fixture in the Greenwich Village folk scene. Bob Dylan famously referred to her as his favorite singer. Perhaps the most nourishing thing about Karen Dalton’s career is that she cut a reluctant pose when it came to “success” — unwilling or unable to clamber aboard the “ladder of fame.” Handfuls of tragedies (such as heartbreaking stories involving her two estranged children) contrast with the irresistible virtuosity of her music, though ultimately, she drifted into obscurity. Dalton passed away in 1993 near Woodstock, New York. A heroin addict, she had likely acquired AIDS through sharing needles. Some of her recordings and live performances from the 1960s and 1970s have been reissued, underscoring their persistent vitality. Over the last several years, at least three documentaries (film and audio) have accompanied a resurgence of interest in her music.


more on “katie cruel”

The traditional American folk song “Katie Cruel” (sometimes titled “Katy Cruel”) may date back to the eighteenth century. A 1939 work, Folk Songs of Old New England, as presented by folklorist Eloise Hubbard Linscott, situates the tune among the region’s historical “ballads, folk songs, and ditties.” Linscott further describes “Katie Cruel” as a marching song favored during the Revolutionary War. She offers notated music alongside an array of lyrics.

Dalton recorded the song at least five or six times, often accompanying herself on banjo. In some of these versions, she whistles. The most famous rendition of “Katie Cruel,” however, pairs Dalton’s vocals and banjo with the violin of Bobby Notkoff. This recording, captured on the 1971 album In My Own Time, ought to puncture the thickest, most world-weary veneers. Where Dalton may have whistled on solo renditions, Notkoff instead enters on violin, just bursting with reverence for the song’s elegiac carpentry. It could be argued that both he and Dalton understood the song equitably.

A few critics have approached Dalton’s performances of the song. One writer, Rick Moody, correctly characterized “Katie Cruel” as Dalton’s “signature tune,” yet misapprehended Notkoff’s role in the song. He deems the effort “an intrusive fiddle.” Another writer, Barney Hoskyns, offers a welcome improvement. In designating Dalton’s recording of “Katie Cruel” as being both “darkly chilling” and “terrifying[ly] beautiful,” Hoskyns acknowledges the accompaniment of Notkoff’s “spooky electric violin.” And by “electric” he may suggest “plugged in,” or reminiscent of high voltage, or both.

dalton’s lyrics

Here are Dalton’s lyrics for your consideration as you absorb the song. We suggest you especially meditate on the two iterations of the chorus.

     When I first came to town
     They called me the roving jewel
     Now they’ve changed their tune
     (And) call me Katie Cruel

     Through the woods I am going
     Through the boggy mire
     (And) straightway down the road
     Till I come to my heart’s desire

     [Chorus]
     If I was where I would be
     Then I’d be where I am not
     Here I am where I must be
     Where I would be, I cannot

     When I first came to town
     They bought me drinks aplenty
     Now they’ve changed their tune
     (And) hand me the bottles empty

     [Chorus]
     If I was where I would be
     Then I’d be where I am not
     Here I am where I must be
     Where I would be, I cannot

At first appearing in town as an attractive drifter, namely, “the roving jewel,” the speaker subsequently traverses the woods and bogs as an outsider. No longer receiving free “drinks aplenty” at the tavern, the speaker has been callously nicknamed “Katie Cruel.” In an equally damaging turnabout, she is the recipient of empty bottles, a gutting twist of mockery. “Katie Cruel” traffics in both estrangement and the tides of isolation. The potent mystery of the song revolves around whatever led to the “changed tune” of the townspeople. What had the speaker done, to deserve the withdrawal of their kindliness? She’s not being stoned to death, as in Shirley Jackson’s famous short story, “The Lottery,” but she is being shunned to death. 

and the chorus?

The oppositional values of the lyrics may correlate with Dalton’s own clashing presences. She was Dylan’s favorite singer, on the one hand, yet didn’t succeed as a popular musician. As “the roving jewel,” Dalton arrived in Greenwich Village and became a fixture during the American folk revival, but years later, by then largely forgotten by her community, she grappled with the vagaries of addiction and terminal illness. Her physical appearance, though marred by missing teeth, was undeniably beautiful. Dalton therefore resembles the character she sings about, in “Katie Cruel.” That she listed too deeply into the fictional world of the song and began to resemble (or embrace) its outcome, cannot be conclusively thrown aside. The lyrics are mournful without specifically mentioning death, yet the tune obviously conjures the acids of loss through the devastating grief of the music.

Dalton, of course, did not invent “Katie Cruel.” She adapted the lyrics from the tune’s traditional form. It may be helpful to compare the 1939 anthologized chorus (from New England) with the chorus that Dalton frequently recorded, as there are minor differences:

      Oh, that I was where I would be
     Then should I be where I am not
     Here I am where I must be
     Where I would be, I cannot
     —Linscott, 1939

     If I was where I would be
     Then I’d be where I am not
     Here I am where I must be
     Where I would be, I cannot
     —Dalton, 1971 (among other times)

The most important word in both renditions — given its repetition — might be the indistinct locator, “where.” The speaker, accordingly, searches for footing. “If I was where I would be” relies heavily upon the conditional word, “would.” It imagines an impossible alternative journey, or era, and in doing so, confers a gloomy sense of irony on the ensuing line: “Then I’d be where I am not.” Dalton alleges a certain inescapability when she sings “Here I am where I must be,” that is, in the world of being dubbed Katie Cruel and trudging the desolate landscape as an outcast. “Where I would be, I cannot” trails off, cementing the singer’s demise. Since Dalton “cannot” situate herself in the place “where [she] would be,” the listener, of a sudden, apprehends the doom, the blow the singer cannot overcome.


coda

“Katie Cruel” drifted towards Karen Dalton perhaps from the distant days of the Revolutionary War. She embraced the tune and made it the “jewel” of her repertoire. She may have even resembled the “roving jewel” she sang about, enduring multiple tragedies akin to those revealed in the lyrics. The chorus itself doesn’t merely reinforce these tragedies, but deals in multiple presences. It may conjure the way Dalton’s song hovers about us now, preparing each of us for that solitary “going,” the way we would be and the way we must be, as the late-day sunshine glances off our fingertips and the love, like a fierce echo, escapes our grasp.

sources of information:

BBC audio documentary Sweet Mother KD (2016).
The Guardian article on the 2021 Karen Dalton documentary film.
Barney Hoskyns. Small Town Talk. Da Capo Press, 2016.
Eloise Hubbard Linscott. Folk Songs of Old New England. The MacMillan Co., 1939.
“Rick Moody on Karen Dalton.” icon. Amy Scholder, editor. Feminist Press, 2014.
Washington Post article on Dalton’s mysterious life (and 2021 documentary).
Wikipedia page for Karen Dalton.

Discographic information for “Katie Cruel.” Karen Dalton, In My Own Time, fourth track. Traditional lyrics, arranged by Karen Dalton. Recorded in New York, 1970-1971. Released 1971 on Paramount Records. Dalton: banjo, vocals; Bobby Notkoff: violin. Dalton recorded other versions of the song at other times and performed it often during live appearances.

Karen Dalton was also featured in our “Unassailable Vocalists” post from 2017.

THE UNASSAILABLE VOCALISTS OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY: TEN WOMEN AND TEN MEN WHOSE VOICES INHABITED THE ESSENTIAL QUALITIES OF THE HUMAN CONDITION—DESPAIR AND JOY AND THE IMPULSE TO SING—LIKE NO OTHER MUSICIANS OF THEIR ERA.

Barbara Dane

When a friend restated the simple question—“Who is the best singer?”—that her mother had recently posed, I chuckled at the burden of having to develop a response. Far too many locales, styles, eras, people, and tunes jumbled themselves. The friend, a formidable singer herself, had replied “Freddie Mercury” to her mother, perhaps owing to a Queen song she’d just overheard. In fairness, I love a question both fundamental and fundamentally unanswerable, as this one. Quite a few people can sing, by the way. So, to repurpose a phrase, I pressed my ear to many hundreds of exemplary numbers.  

Too, I required a framework. I chose the twentieth century since it has concluded for the most part. (I leave the twenty-first century to its inhabitant critics.) It felt inequitable to compare men and women together, thus I opted to develop a separate list for each. “Critical acclaim” would be necessary for inclusion but not “star status.” I rejected singers whose catalogues presented “same-y” or saccharine. Character, roughened voice, pioneering sound, and jarring delivery all appealed to me. I hardly resisted a song that “ripped my heart out” (to borrow another phrase.)

If I studied a variety of styles, including jazz, rock, folk, country, blues, soul, and R&B, I left opera, easy listening, and other niches to inhabitant critics. Rather than be “an island” I allowed the counsel of others to penetrate the cold, unforgiving veneer of my soul. Published lists, however, such as the Rolling Stone Magazine “100 Greatest Singers of All Time,” often disappointed me. I tended to reject a vocalist who recorded flippant material, but not a singer who presented with a (classically) lovely voice. Tammy Wynette’s “Stand By Your Man” is just such a (classically) lovely song. 

Rev. Gary Davis

The representative record for each singer (accompanying the lists) may be the one you’d expect, or if not, then a solid starting point. Some of these musicians—Karen Dalton and Rev. Gary Davis, for example—might not appear on any other lists of this nature. Good. Investigate these marvelous artists with my blessing. And why, Dear Reader, should my list reinforce any others? (Nota bene: Twelve of my twenty singers did not appear on the Rolling Stone extravaganza.) Here we have a scatting, haunting, versatile, steaming, scuffling, powerful, sensitive, trailblazing, salty, enchanting group—and that’s just the women. The men will add the candors of gravel, work-fat vernacular of sinew, law-breaking impulses of restlessness, transcendence of zen, and gyration of dialect.

Freddie Mercury did not make my list. Tina Turner did not make my list. Patsy Cline did not make my list. Marvin Gaye did not make my list. They’re all very fine vocalists. But this gathering concerns itself with “unassailable” qualities. By that, I mean the shadow in the voice, how it burrows into reason long after it has burrowed into stark emotional discharge. How it may glide or stagger between the stations of crisis and (however naked) the stations of distrustful calm. Some of these vocals peaked like trumpets. Some negotiated new terrain where the words of a song (necessarily) gave way to sound-play. Some voices burned free of rooftops and treetops and fingertips, like late-day sunlight in early winter.

To me, each of these unassailable singers could answer my friend’s mother’s unanswerable question. Enjoy.  

Mahalia Jackson

The Ten Unassailable Female Vocalists of the Twentieth Century (with Representative Record + Year Recorded)

Betty Carter (“Sounds (Movin’ On)” 1980)

Karen Dalton (“Katie Cruel” 1971)

Barbara Dane (“Special Delivery Blues” 1957)

Aretha Franklin (“Respect” 1967)

Billie Holiday (“Strange Fruit” 1939)

Mahalia Jackson (“Keep Your Hand on the Plow” 1955)

Nina Simone (“Feeling Good” 1965)

Bessie Smith (“Down Hearted Blues” 1923)

Kitty Wells (“It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels” 1952)

Tammy Wynette (“Stand by Your Man” 1968)

Next 5: Ella Fitzgerald, Janis Joplin, Jean Ritchie, Koko Taylor, Sister Rosetta Tharpe.

Van Morrison

The Ten Unassailable Male Vocalists of the Twentieth Century (with Representative Record + Year Recorded)

Louis Armstrong (“Heebie Jeebies” 1926)

Ray Charles (“I’ve Got a Woman” 1954)

Rev. Gary Davis (“Samson and Delilah” 1961)

Bob Dylan (“Like a Rolling Stone” 1965)

Roscoe Holcomb (“On Top of Old Smokey” 1961)

Robert Johnson (“Hell Hound on My Trail” 1937)

John Lennon (“Imagine” 1971)

Little Richard (“Long Tall Sally” 1956)                       

Van Morrison (“Brown Eyed Girl” 1967)

Elvis Presley (“Heartbreak Hotel” 1956)

Next 5: Johnny Cash, Sam Cooke, Howlin’ Wolf, Lead Belly, Jimmie Rodgers.

 Kitty Wells

Discography / Women

Betty Carter: “Sounds (Movin’ On)” from The Audience with Betty Carter (Bet-Car Records, 1980)

Karen Dalton: “Katie Cruel” from In My Own Time (Paramount Records, 1971)

Barbara Dane: “Special Delivery Blues” 1957 from Trouble in Mind (San Francisco Records, 1957)

Aretha Franklin: “Respect” b/w “Dr. Feelgood” (Atlantic, 1967)

Billie Holiday and Her Orchestra: “Strange Fruit” b/w “Fine and Mellow” (Commodore, 1939)

Mahalia Jackson: “Keep Your Hand on the Plow” from The World’s Greatest Gospel Singer (Columbia, 1955) [Arguably a more stirring rendition recorded live, with Duke Ellington; see: Duke Ellington Live at Newport 1958 (Columbia)]

Nina Simone: “Feeling Good” from I Put a Spell on You (Philips, 1965)

Bessie Smith: “Down Hearted Blues” b/w “Gulf Coast Blues” (Columbia, 1923)

Kitty Wells: “It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels” b/w “I Don’t Want Your Money, I Want Your Time” (Decca, 1952)
Tammy Wynette: “Stand by Your Man” b/w “I Stayed Long Enough” (Epic, 1968)

Roscoe Holcomb

Discography / Men

Louis Armstrong: “Heebie Jeebies” b/w “Muskrat Ramble” (OKeh, 1926)

Ray Charles and His Band: “I’ve Got a Woman” b/w “Come Back” (Atlantic, 1954)

Blind Gary Davis: “Samson and Delilah” from Harlem Street Singer (Prestige Bluesville,1961) [Arguably a more stirring rendition recorded live; see: Rev. Gary Davis “Samson and Delilah (If I Had My Way)” from The Reverend Gary Davis at Newport (Vanguard, 1968)]

Bob Dylan: “Like a Rolling Stone” from Highway 61 Revisited (Columbia,1965)

Roscoe Holcomb: “On Top of Old Smokey” from The Music of Roscoe Holcomb and Wade Ward (Smithsonian Folkways, 1962)                                                             

Robert Johnson: “Hell Hound on My Trail” b/w “From Four Until Late” (Vocalion, 1937)

John Lennon: “Imagine” from Imagine (Apple Records, 1971) [Arguably better performances with the Beatles, including, for example, “A Day in the Life” (1967), “Come Together” (1969), and “Revolution” (single version, 1968)]

Little Richard: “Long Tall Sally” b/w “Slippin’ and Slidin’ (Peepin’ and Hidin’)” (Specialty, 1956)

Van Morrison: “Brown Eyed Girl” b/w “Goodbye Baby (Baby Goodbye)” (Bang Records, 1967)

Elvis Presley: “Heartbreak Hotel” b/w “I Was the One” (RCA Victor, 1956)

Sources for discography: 45cat, Allmusic, Discogs, Smithsonian Folkways, Wikipedia. 

Betty Carter

Also See

Louis Armstrong: “Am Pluto Waterly Yours”

The Top 25 Most Important American Musicians

Jump Around: Top 25 Greatest Jump Blues Songs

The Shakers Era: Nearly Forgotten Rowdy Music

John Coltrane: Energy Kick