vinylfanatics.com

**It's So Hard To Tell Who's Going To Love You The Best: The Haunting Voice That Time Almost Forgot**

In the pantheon of American folk music, few voices have carried as much mystery and raw emotional power as Karen Dalton's weathered, bourbon-soaked alto. Her 1969 debut, "It's So Hard To Tell Who's Going To Love You The Best," stands as one of the most criminally overlooked masterpieces of the folk revival era – a collection so intimate and devastating that it feels like eavesdropping on someone's most private confessions.

Before this album emerged from the Greenwich Village folk scene, Dalton had already become something of a legend among her peers. Bob Dylan famously declared she was his favorite singer, and Fred Neil – who wrote several songs she'd later immortalize – considered her interpretation of his work superior to his own. Born in Texas and raised in Oklahoma, Dalton was of Cherokee and Irish descent, carrying within her voice the weight of both traditions. She'd arrived in New York's folk mecca in the early '60s, where she became a fixture at clubs like the Gaslight and Cafe Wha?, mesmerizing audiences with her unique 12-string guitar style and that voice – a instrument that seemed to channel decades of heartbreak and hard living.

The album's musical palette draws from folk, blues, and early country traditions, but Dalton's approach transcends genre classification. Her guitar work, fingerpicked with a delicate precision that belies its emotional intensity, creates sparse, haunting arrangements that give her voice maximum space to roam. Producer Nick Venet wisely kept the production minimal, allowing Dalton's natural reverb – that ghostly echo that seemed to emanate from some deep well of experience – to remain untouched.

The title track, a Tim Hardin composition, showcases everything magical about Dalton's artistry. Her phrasing is conversational yet otherworldly, as if she's singing these words for the first time while simultaneously having lived with them forever. When she stretches the word "best" into a multi-syllabic meditation on longing, it's pure vocal alchemy. Equally stunning is her interpretation of "Reason to Believe," which she recorded before Rod Stewart made it famous. Where Stewart's version rocks with optimism, Dalton's reading is a masterclass in world-weary resignation, each line delivered with the weight of someone who's tested faith and found it wanting.

Perhaps most remarkable is her take on "In a Station," another Tim Hardin gem that she transforms into something entirely her own. The song becomes a meditation on isolation and connection, with Dalton's voice floating over her fingerpicked accompaniment like smoke in an empty room. Her version of the traditional "Katie Cruel" is equally mesmerizing, connecting her directly to the ancient ballad tradition while making it sound thoroughly contemporary.

The album's power lies in its contradictions: it's simultaneously fragile and indestructible, intimate yet universal, rooted in tradition yet utterly unique. Dalton's voice carries the DNA of Billie Holiday's emotional directness, the mountain music of her Oklahoma childhood, and something entirely her own – a quality that makes listeners feel they're hearing secrets not meant for public consumption.

Following this debut, Dalton would release only one more studio album during her lifetime – 1971's "In My Own Time" – which, while excellent, couldn't quite capture the raw magic of her debut. A final collection, "Cotton Eyed Joe," appeared posthumously in 2007, compiled from various recordings and sessions that showed her continuing to evolve artistically even as personal demons consumed her.

Dalton's legacy has grown considerably since her death in 1993. Musicians from Lucinda Williams to Devendra Banhart have cited her influence, and her recordings have found new audiences through reissues and streaming platforms. What seemed like commercial failure during her lifetime now reads as artistic purity – she was simply too real, too uncompromising for the music industry of her era.

"It's So Hard To Tell Who's Going To Love You The Best" remains her masterpiece, a document of an artist at the peak of her powers, unaware she was creating something that would outlive her by decades. In an age of auto-tuned perfection, Dalton's perfectly imperfect voice reminds us that the most beautiful sounds often come from the most broken places. This is essential listening for anyone who believes music should leave scars.