Carolyn Hester

Carolyn Hester

Carolyn Hester (born January 28, 1937 in Waco, Texas) is an American folk singer and songwriter. She was an important figure of the early '60s folk music revival.

Hester's first album was produced by Norman Petty in 1957. In 1960, she made her second album for the label run by the Clancy Brothers, thrusting Hester into the thick of the folk revival. She became known for such standards of the movement as "The House of the Rising Sun" and "She Moved Through the Fair".

Hester was one of many young Greenwich Village singers who rode the crest of the '60s folk wave to brief international recognition, and appeared on the cover of the May 30, 1964 issue of the Saturday Evening Post. According to Don Heckman of the Los Angeles Times, Hester was "one of the originals--one of the small but determined gang of ragtag, early-'60s folk singers who cruised the coffee shops and campuses, from Harvard Yard to Bleecker Street, convinced that their music could help change the world." Hester was dubbed "The Texas Songbird," and was politically active, spearheading the controversial boycott of TV's Hootenanny when Pete Seeger was blacklisted from it.

In 1960, Hester met a struggling songwriter and novelist named Richard Fariña. They married 18 days later, and according to biographer David Hajdu, their brief, rocky marriage was cultivated and exploited by Fariña in a calculated attempt to gain fame and notoriety. They separated after less than two years. (Fariña would soon marry Mimi Fariña, who was the younger sister of one of Hester's chief competitors, Joan Baez.)

In 1961, Hester met an unknown, 19-year-old newcomer named Bob Dylan, who had an engaging harmonica style, and Hester invited him to play on her third album, on the Columbia label. Her producer, John H. Hammond, quickly signed Dylan to the label.

However, while other performers of the early 1960s folk revival made great strides forward in sales and influence--including Dylan, Baez, and Collins--Hester remained relatively obscure. She turned down a chance to form a folk trio with Peter Yarrow and Paul Stookey, offered by manager Albert Grossman; that position went to Mary Travers, and the trio found stardom as Peter, Paul & Mary. Though she collaborated with Bill Lee and Bruce Langhorne, she stuck exclusively to traditional material, falling behind the folk curve. In the late 1960s, unable to succeed as a folk-rock artist, she explored psychedelic music as part of the Carolyn Hester Coalition before largely drifting out of the business.

Hester has disputed Hajdu's depiction of her marriage to Fariña, and of supposed exaggerations in his description of the relationships between Dylan, Baez, Hester, and the Fariñas. Hester denies that Farina was as close to Dylan as some rock historians claim, and strongly disputes that Fariña was in any way responsible for Dylan’s success, as Hajdu insinuates.

Hajdu also suggested that Hester had an ongoing rivalry with Joan Baez and her sister Mimi. To this day, Hester maintains that she didn't--and doesn't--know Joan very well, and that they were never rivals, personally or professionally.

In 1969, Hester married jazz pianist/producer/songwriter David Blume, composer of The Cyrkle's 1966 Top 40 hit "Turn Down Day," and together they formed the Outpost label. They also started an ethnic dance club in Los Angeles, and in the 1980s, she returned to recording and touring. She performed Bob Dylan's "Boots of Spanish Leather" at Dylan's 30th Anniversary Tribute Concert at Madison Square Garden in 1992. In 1999, Hester released a Tom Paxton tribute album. She appeared on A&E's Biography of Bob Dylan in August 2000. David Blume died in the spring of 2006. Hester still owns and operates the dance club, and continues to perform and tour.

Discography

• Scarlet Ribbons (1957) (Coral, LP)
• Carolyn Hester (1960) (Tradition, LP)
• Carolyn Hester (1961) (Columbia, LP)
• This Life I'm Living (Columbia, LP)
• That's My Song (Dot, LP)
• Carolyn Hester at Town Hall, one (Dot, LP)
• Carolyn Hester at Town Hall, two (Dot, LP)
• The Carolyn Hester Coalition (Metromedia, LP)
• Magazine (Metromedia, LP)
• Music Medicine (Outpost, cassette)
• Warriors of the Rainbow (Outpost, LP & cassette)
• From These Hills (1999) (Road Goes On Forever, CD)
• A Tribute to Tom Paxton (2000) (Road goes On forever, CD)

CD Reissues of Early Work:

• Carolyn Hester (1994) (Sony) CD reissue of Carolyn Hester on the Columbia label.
• Carolyn Hester at Town Hall (1994) (Bear Family) CD reissue of both Town Hall albums.
• Dear Companion (1995) (Bear Family) CD box set reissue of Carolyn Hester on Columbia, This Life I'm Living and That's My Song with outtakes and alternate recordings.
• Texas Songbird (1995) (Road Goes On Forever) CD reissue of Warriors of the Rainbow and Music Medicine.
• The Tradition Album (1995) (Road Goes On Forever) CD reissue of Carolyn Hester on the Tradition label with four new tracks.
• The Tradition Years (1996) (Empire Musicwerks) CD remaster of Carolyn Hester on the Tradition label.
• The Carolyn Hester Coalition (2008) (Phantom Sound & Vision) CD remaster of original Metromedia LP.
• Magazine (2008) (Phantom Sound & Vision) CD remaster of original Metromedia LP.

Further reading

• The Washington Post, "The Ballad of Carolyn Hester: Four Decades After Stardom Passed Her by, She's Singing Her Heart Out," January 12, 2005, pg. C1, by Bob Thompson
• Ballad Tree, "Negatively 4th Street: A Talk With Carolyn Hester," Hugh Blumenfeld, July 22, 2001
• VHI - Carolyn Hester bio

External links

• Official website