Troubadour

Singer, Mediæval Bæbes founder and master hummer dulcimer and psaltery player, Dorothy Carter is getting a posthumous reappraisal of late. Last year, her second album, Waillee Waillee, was released through New York's Palto Flats label to wide acclaim [a featured reissue in Songlines #195, March 2024], and now Chicago's Drag City is giving Carter's debut, Troubadour, its first-ever reissue. More than just a player, Carter was an insatiable music historian, and Troubadour is a melting pot of global heritage styles – Appalachian folk, French Medieval dance numbers, Scottish murder ballads and Jewish hymnals. On ‘Make a Joyful Sound’, her voice provides the perfect foil to the deftly plucked dulcimer melodies – situated somewhere between Neil Young and Joanna Newsom, the gravel and otherworldly quality of her singing stands out against the bright, fluid lines of her instrument. Carter lends her vocals to a handful of other tracks, including hymns ‘Tree of Life’ and ‘The King of Glory’, alongside Appalachian standards, ‘The Cuckoo’ and ‘Shirt of Lace’. Primarily though, the songs are instrumental, showcasing Carter's dexterity and virtuosic talents. The approach to this reissue has been to keep it clean and simple. The tracklist is unchanged and the extra production is almost imperceptible, bar a necessary touch of polish that makes Carter's music shine brighter than ever.