Dylan Debut Is Icing on Hester’s Cake

Bob Dylan collectors will welcome the release in CD of Carolyn Hester’s 1962 debut album for Columbia Records because the legendary singer-songwriter made his recording debut playing harmonica on the collection.

But folk music fans know that the real treat is Hester’s voice, which combined an engaging folk conviction and purity with what one critic at the time described as “an arrestingly beautiful tone.”

Hester was born in Waco, Tex., and grew up listening to folk and country music. The latter influence is especially obvious on her version of “I’ll Fly Away,” which opens the album, titled “Carolyn Hester.”

“My grandparents were folk singers and they still sing a lot of old songs,” she said in the album’s original liner notes. “Then I heard a lot of country music in Dallas--and my father adored the Grand Ole Opry.”

After moving to New York in 1955 to study at the American Theatre Wing, she found more immediacy and satisfaction in folk music than in the theater, and she was soon committed to music full time.

While appearing at Greenwich Village clubs in the early ‘60s, Hester met Dylan, then a young songwriter with an engaging harmonica style, and invited him to play on her first Columbia album. The job led to an introduction to Hester’s producer, John Hammond, who soon afterward signed him to the label.

The selections on the 1962 album (which also features bassist Bill Lee, Spike’s dad) reflect the range of Hester’s musical interests--from a touch of the blues (“Dink’s Song”) to Spanish music (“Los Bibilicos”) to gospel. The package also includes previously unreleased alternate takes of “I’ll Fly Away” and “Come Back, Baby.”

After years of relative inactivity, Hester, a Los Angeles resident, appeared at Dylan’s 30th Anniversary Tribute Concert at New York’s Madison Square Garden in 1992, triggering a surge of activity.

Germany’s Bear Family Records last year released a double-length CD of her 1965 Dot Records “Town Hall” live-in-concert albums and is planning a July release of more of her Columbia and Dot sides.

Road Goes on Forever Records, a British label, is packaging for release around May her most recent two albums, 1986’s “Warriors of the Rainbow” and 1982’s “Music Medicine,” which have not been available on CD.

Throughout the various albums, Hester has sung with a warmth and grace that makes you understand why she was regarded as one of the most vital and appealing of the many acclaimed singers in the ‘60s’ golden age of American folk music.