Karen Black

I always liked the movies of Karen Black back in the 1970's. She seemed to love playing weird, off-beat and eccentric characters. She was good at it. She had a career of over 50 years and was acted in more than 200 films and television shows.

I first saw her in Easy Rider and she must have impressed Jack Nicholson because she got the lead Five Easy Pieces and his film Drive, He Said I loved her in Robert Altman's Nashville that came out in 1975. I started to loose interest in her after her series of performances in some not so good horror films but she became established as a cult horror icon throughout the rest of her career. She passed away in 2013. 

Today I was listening to her recently released album Dreaming of You (1971-1976). I knew that she had done some singing in the 1970's but never heard any of it outside of her movies. Music was always a small but significant part of her career. She had some music writing credits for the film Nashville. In 2009 I became aware of the singer songwriter Cass McCombs and got his album Catacombs when I was surprised to see that Karen Black sang backup vocals on one of the tracks and it was a very good effective song. She sounded great. The song was Dreams-Come-True-Girl.

The new album from her was produced by Cass McCombs and released in July 2021 It was restored from the original tapes that were found in long missing boxes. The album sounded great and I'm looking forward to hearing it again soon.

The video of Dreams-Come-True-Girl where she makes a wonderful appearance in the last verse.