In My Own Time

In My Own Time is the second and last album the mercurial singer Karen Dalton ever cut. Following It's So Hard to Tell Who's Going to Love You the Best, producers Michael Lang and Harvey Brooks (Dalton's longtime friend and the bassist on both her records) did something decidedly different on In My Own Time (titled after the slow process of getting the album done — in Dalton's relaxed and idiosyncratic manner of recording), and the result is a more polished effort than her cozy, somewhat more raw debut. This time out, Dalton had no trouble doing multiple takes, though the one chosen wasn't always the most flawless, but the most honest in terms of the song and its feel. The album was recorded at Bearsville up in Woodstock, and the session players were a decidedly more professional bunch than her Tinker Street Cafe friends who had appeared on her first effort. Amos Garrett is here, as is Bill Keith on steel, pianist John Simon, guitarist John Hall, pianist Richard Bell, and others, including a star horn section that Brooks added later.