Anthology Recordings has released 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.
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.