CAROLINE DOCTOROW: The Simple Life, in Music
“Dreaming in Vinyl,” Caroline Doctorow’s latest release, is a fitting metaphor for the approach she has taken to a life in music. With songs by the likes of Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, Donovan, John Lennon and Paul McCartney, and Randy Newman, as well as two of her own, the collection recalls the pop-music and folk revival’s peak years in the 1960s.
“Dreaming in Vinyl” reached No. 2 on a folk radio airplay chart compiled from nationwide playlists in October and November, a feat Ms. Doctorow celebrated in a Dec. 4 performance at the Stephen Talkhouse in Amagansett that featured guest artists including Hugh Prestwood, a member of the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame. Her recording of Mr. Dylan’s “Time Passes Slowly,” from “Dreaming in Vinyl,” was the No. 4 song on the same playlists in October.
“I feel incredibly gratified, at this time in my life, that it charted so well,” she said recently. “It did that for two months in a row so far. I’ve never had that happen, and I have been at this a while.”
Seamlessly fitting among the covers, which include “Across the Universe” by the Beatles and Donovan’s “Turquoise,” are Ms. Doctorow’s “To Be Here” and “That’s How I’ll Remember You,” the latter written for her father, the novelist E.L. Doctorow, who died last year.
“I wanted to try, at least, to hold myself to the standards of some of the great ’60s and ’70s folk and folk-pop albums I grew up listening to on vinyl,” the Bridgehampton resident said last week. “That was such a life-changing medium, vinyl. This happened to all my friends, too: You listened to these albums over and over, learned about life, fell in love, learned how to play guitar, learned stories of different cultures and times. It was literally a world unto itself. The whole concept came to me slowly, ‘dreaming in vinyl’ — that’s what I was doing.”
“Then,” she said, “I didn’t want to not contribute songs, so the first track, ‘To Be Here,’ is my reflecting back on my childhood.” Her father’s death, she said, spurred memories of a family road trip to California, where Mr. Doctorow had been hired to teach at the state university’s Irvine campus. “In the car were my parents, three kids, a large dog, and a parakeet,” she recalled. “I was remembering how my parents lived in the moment then. Even though we didn’t have much money, they seemed to have time, and a lust for life, and a bravery.” With “That’s How I’ll Remember You,” she said, “I hope other people can relate to it as well. I tried not to be too specific in my imagery.”
Like several prior releases, “Dreaming in Vinyl” was co-produced by Pete Kennedy, a multi-instrumentalist who also recorded, mixed, mastered, and provided string arrangements. The 10-song album was recorded at Narrow Lane Studios, the Bridgehampton studio they share. The relationship has proven fruitful: Their first collaboration, a collection of songs by Richard and Mimi Fariña, “was really a career-advancing album for me,” Ms. Doctorow said. Several have followed that 2009 release, including an album of songs by Mary McCaslin, and she and Mr. Kennedy have co-produced recordings by South Fork-based musicians including Fred Raimondo, Job Potter, Jeff Bragman, and Dick Johansson.
Ms. Doctorow plays about 120 shows a year, she said, traveling often to the fertile folk scenes of the Hudson Valley and Connecticut, and, last summer, to the Woody Guthrie Folk Festival in Okemah, Okla. “I’m loving the traveling, loving playing the folk festivals,” she said. “I’m just trying to simplify my life more and more. I started to do that about two years ago, really stripped away a lot of the noise in my life. That seems to be working beautifully for me, because I can get to the thoughts that are important, the lyrics and sounds that are important. Just working hard at my craft, doing vocal exercises, practicing guitar, keeping my health as much as any of us can control that. Living the simple life.”
“Dreaming in Vinyl” may see a sequel, she said. “I would like to follow up this record with one that takes the concept perhaps a little further. It seems to be one people really enjoy. The interesting thing about recording songs that others have recorded is that you are triggering memories in people. For instance, I know how I feel when I hear a Donovan song: I think very pleasant, almost bittersweet things. In a little bit of a way, you’re cheating as a singer and recording artist — in a wonderful way — in that you’re gaining the listener’s personal history. You can’t always achieve that with a new song. I guess if you want to call it nostalgia, that’s okay with me. That concept interests me: where the person’s mind is going, how they were when they first heard it.”
Upcoming gigs include a set opening for the Kennedys, featuring Mr. Kennedy and his wife, Maura, on Jan. 15 at 3 p.m. in the Gillespie Room at the Long Island Museum in Stony Brook. She will perform at the Turning Point in Piermont, N.Y., on Jan. 21, and at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of the South Fork’s meetinghouse in Bridgehampton, in a benefit for the Bridgehampton Childcare Center, on March 3.
Her overarching goal, she said, “is just to get better. The other part is that I love sharing these stories and songs that perhaps people haven’t heard before. I just realized this the other day — I love everything about the music business. I love to tour, record, write songs, and perform for people. I don’t like everything that’s happened to the music business, which is another issue, but I still enjoy the challenge of trying to solve those problems and be clever in how to go about this.”
Recent developments in the political realm notwithstanding, “personally I feel the happiest I’ve ever been, just pursuing my music, hanging with my family. We don’t know what tomorrow will bring, but I certainly don’t think I’ll be quitting any time soon.”