If you like: Bridget St John, Karen Dalton, Robert Lester Folsom, Kathy Heideman, you will be delighted with this compilation.
About: First known for her bouncy 1966 hit “Walkin’ My Cat Named Dog,” singer/songwriter, experimental musician, teacher, and painter Norma Tanega had a longer and more complex career than that song might suggest. Though the title track of her 1966 album was a whimsical mix of Greenwich Village folk and mainstream pop, the signs that she was an individualistic artist were already in the sardonic tone of “You're Dead” and “Hey Girl,” her subversive take on Lead Belly’s “In the Pines.” When her early success wasn’t repeated, she continued to make music on her own terms, whether writing songs for her lover Dusty Springfield or collaborating with Blossom Dearie in the early ‘70s, adding touches of psych rock to her 1971 album I Don’t Think It Will Hurt If You Smile, or creating avant-garde sounds with later projects such as Ceramic Ensemble, Hybrid Vigor, and Baboonz. By the 2010s, Tanega was recognized as a free spirit and innovator, with artists such as Yo La Tengo, They Might Be Giants, and Thee Oh Sees adding her songs to their repertoires. *^{Heather Phares}
A favorite track: A Street That Rhymes at 6 AM