Anthology Recordings to release Karen Black: Dreaming Of You 1971-1976

Anthology Recordings will release Dreaming Of You 1971 - 1976 by Karen Black on July 16th. Karen Black: Dreaming of You 1971-1976 gathers for the first time the best of her recordings, many done with two of the era’s most prestigious producers, Bones Howe and Elliot Mazer. Produced by Cass McCombs and meticulously restored from the original tapes, the album’s 15 tracks are a holistic depiction of Black’s dreamy, introspective and earnest musical identity. The single I Wish I Knew The Man I Thought You Were is out now.

Black and Cass McCombs met in 2008 through a mutual friend, when he was in the midst of tracking his 2009 album Catacombs and Black recorded some guest vocals. The pair became fast friends. They collaborated again on Brighter! from McCombs’ 2013 album Big Wheel and Others, and also wrote toward a solo album for Black. “She’d given me all of her poetry and I was trying to work them into some kind of meter that would work as songs” McCombs says. They were able to record two of them before she died, I Wish I Knew The Man I Thought You Were and Royal Jelly.

A first preview of the collection is out now in I Wish I Knew The Man I Thought You Were, one of two songs Black and McCombs wrote together in 2012. The song is a devastating account of the power dynamic between professor and student based on Black’s experience at Northwestern University in the ‘60s. “I wish I knew the man that I thought you were / He’d tell me not to trust the man you are,” she sings staidly over featherlight reverberations of acoustic guitar, bass, drums, and pedal steel, stirring a sense of distant memory and lingering hurt. “Karen and I met working on my song 'Dreams Come True Girl.' We became friends after that and she showed me her poetry and we talked about making an album together. I adapted 'I Wish I Knew The Man I Thought You Were' from one of her poems, based on a personal experience of hers during college,” explains McCombs. “We only got through a few songs together before she departed but I kept the idea of finishing a record together and unearthed a moldy box of tapes from her garage. Among these tapes were audio from all parts of her life, including the early 70s recordings that comprise most of the album. It was my honor to be the archivist and custodian of these recordings, songs that leap out with the markings of her indelible spirit.”

Karen Black was boundless. An actor, screenwriter, poet, visual artist and unyielding creative spirit, she was a prominent figure in the American New Wave, portraying a host of tender and labyrinthine women on screen. Karen Black starred in many influential movies like Easy Rider (1969), Five Easy Pieces (1970) and The Great Gatsby (1974). Karen Black passed away in August 2013.