DOROTHY CARTER - Troubadour

Drag City presents the first official reissue of Dorothy Carter's
1976 album debut, her folk-music exegesis, Troubadour. In her
lifetime, Dorothy, a self-made traveling musician and folklorist,
brought forth masterful evocations on hammered dulcimer and
psaltery from a myriad of times and places. Her music was played,

produced and sold outside of that era's mainstream music dis-
tribution.

It's been 20 years since Dorothy's passing-but thanks to last
year's reissue of her second album, Waillee Waillee (1978), and
this edition of Troubadour, her music is surging forward ever more
powerfully. 2035 will mark the centennial of her birth; the mythos
and arcana she pursued in relative obscurity is now inspiring an

audience larger than Dorothy ever knew. At the time of that cen-
tennial, some will, no doubt, look back to the good old days of the

early '20s, when they first heard her music.
Others, like Troubadour reissue producer Eric Demby, can look
back to a childhood spent off the grid: the early '70s in rural Maine,
and later on, in Boston-wherever his freewheeling father brought
the family, at one point or another, there too was Dorothy, as she
lived and breathed, playing her hammered dulcimer. Her presence
was always friendly and warm, yet "ethereal"-her mind far away,
her focus seemingly deep within the music, the instruments and
the world from which they'd come.
As for the world from which she came: following a childhood
spent around New England, Dorothy traveled abroad for her higher
education. She found herself in the late 1950s in Mexico, intent on
becoming a nun at the Cuernavaca monastery. Instead, she fell
in with a group of expats including David Demby (Eric's father),
his soon-to-be-wife Constance (her moment of New Age musical
breakthrough still three decades hence) and aspiring artist and
musician Bob Rutman. These were her people, looking for their
place in the world.

From Mexico City, they made it back up to New York, to Green-
wich Village, where Rutman opened an art and "happenings" gal-
lery while Dorothy delved deep into the mystic things of traditional

music and sounds, living the bohemian life while bringing up two
dearly-loved children with her itinerant lifestyle.

As the '60s became the '70s, Eric recalls,
"She was always coming from somewhere or on
her way somewhere else, transporting instruments
and folklore from Eastern Europe, Appalachia, and
beyond that felt ancient and unearthed, which she
would channel into our universe."
The early '70s found everyone living up on the farm up in rural
Maine; it was here that Rutman, Constance, Dorothy and some
others formed Central Maine Power Company, a troupe of almost
feral improvisers playing on a combination of self-made and found
instruments, with live video feedback to boot. Self-documentation
wasn't on their minds; simply BEING was enough. And so they were
for several years, playing at planetariums around the northeast and
even MoMA and the nascent World Trade towers.
In 1976, Dorothy had been playing music for decades, but had
yet to record any of it. That year, she went to Cambridge's Studio
B with Rutman and friend Steve Baer at the console. Constance
and Sally Hilmer accompanied her. The performances captured
there were released later that year as Troubadour. In addition to
hammered dulcimer and psaltery, Dorothy played the flute and
sang. She chose songs from all over: Appalachian folk tunes, old
and ancient psalms and hymns, Scottish, Irish, French and Israeli
melodies, with a few of her own songs for good measure.
They all flow together effortlessly under Dorothy and friends'
hands in a syncretic space that we can identify today as a garden
of world musics-a highly energized, alternately meditative and
proselytic recital whose vitality has only burgeoned in the decades
since it appeared. As it should be: the music of Dorothy Carter is
akin to a portal, linking her and us with the eternal.

This edition of Troubadour reproduces the original album pack-
age, adding an insert adorned with additional photos of Dorothy

and her collection of instruments, as well as notes from Eric Demby
exploring the era-his childhood-from a vantage point of some 50
years. This reissue is a long-held family dream come true, and it is
dedicated in loving memory to Bob Rutman, Constance Demby,
David Demby and Dorothy Carter.

Vinyl release of Dorothy Carter - Troubadour. Released through DRAG CITY and available on LP.