Biography
A Seattle native endowed with a crystalline soprano, a deft hand on the harp, and an ear for otherworldly melodies, Carol Kleyn grew up in Washington state and first encountered music through school-band oboe and piano lessons. In 1969 she relocated to the University of California at Santa Barbara, where the surrounding counterculture quickly absorbed her and she enrolled in a Poetry and Song course led by Kenneth Rexroth. An assignment for that class prompted her to compose and present her initial pair of original songs to fellow students. Around the same time she befriended activist and experimental musician Bobby Brown, who fashioned distinctive instruments of his own design; Kleyn assisted him by fashioning pickups and handling live sound. On her twenty-first birthday Brown presented her with a harp, which she then taught herself to play. Half a year later an invitation to a Summer Solstice event led her to write a piece the morning of the performance; the audience response was strong enough to demand an encore.
She committed fully to performing, appearing at coffeehouses, folk venues, renaissance fairs, street corners, parks, and private gatherings across California. Although she occasionally encountered figures such as Graham Nash, Jimmy Page, Roger Miller, and Irving Azoff, her nearest approach to wider recognition occurred when Gregg Allman caught her set and engaged her for intermission slots on a solo tour. Choosing not to pursue a label deal, she financed her own sessions and in 1976 cut Love Has Made Me Stronger at a modest Seattle facility, releasing it on her self-established Lyra Records imprint. Two further independent albums followed—1980’s Takin’ the Time and 1983’s Return of the Silkie—before family responsibilities prompted her to pause her career while raising three children.
Over the years her privately pressed discs acquired cult status among enthusiasts of 1970s freak-folk and outsider recordings. In 2011 Drag City Records arranged to reissue Love Has Made Me Stronger, marking Kleyn’s first conventional label agreement. The same partnership made the title track of Return of the Silkie available as a digital single, directing proceeds to relief efforts after the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami in northeastern Japan. The following year Drag City continued the reissue series with Takin’ the Time, produced by sonic explorer Bobby Brown, known for the cosmic-psych landmark The Enlightening Beam of Axonda.
She committed fully to performing, appearing at coffeehouses, folk venues, renaissance fairs, street corners, parks, and private gatherings across California. Although she occasionally encountered figures such as Graham Nash, Jimmy Page, Roger Miller, and Irving Azoff, her nearest approach to wider recognition occurred when Gregg Allman caught her set and engaged her for intermission slots on a solo tour. Choosing not to pursue a label deal, she financed her own sessions and in 1976 cut Love Has Made Me Stronger at a modest Seattle facility, releasing it on her self-established Lyra Records imprint. Two further independent albums followed—1980’s Takin’ the Time and 1983’s Return of the Silkie—before family responsibilities prompted her to pause her career while raising three children.
Over the years her privately pressed discs acquired cult status among enthusiasts of 1970s freak-folk and outsider recordings. In 2011 Drag City Records arranged to reissue Love Has Made Me Stronger, marking Kleyn’s first conventional label agreement. The same partnership made the title track of Return of the Silkie available as a digital single, directing proceeds to relief efforts after the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami in northeastern Japan. The following year Drag City continued the reissue series with Takin’ the Time, produced by sonic explorer Bobby Brown, known for the cosmic-psych landmark The Enlightening Beam of Axonda.
Albums
