I'd like to meet:
Carolyn Hester, the Texas Songbird, began the year 2003 with a January East Coast tour highlighted by concerts in New York City and Annapolis and an appearance at the World Folk Music Assn.'s annual concert weekend in Alexandria, Va. There, host Dick Cerri presented her with the group's Lifetime Achievement Award. Another multi-city tour of England, including an appearance at the annual Bob Dylan Festival in Northampton took place in May. A tour of North Carolina followed in June. Highlights of recent years included a midsummer club and concert tour from Montreal to Miami; the Kerrville Folk Festival, and her October 2001 participation in an L.A. benefit concert for the victims of the September 11th attack. Back in August 2000, Carolyn was seen on A&E's "Biography" of Bob Dylan, this after having added two new areas, Spain and Scandinavia, to her European concert agenda. She participated in the 1999 Folk Alliance's Phil Ochs Tribute at the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland. Meanwhile, in the late '90s, she completed several tours of the United States (including Hawaii) and Central Europe.At the end of 1998, Carolyn was a special guest on a Nanci Griffith Tour, participated in Griffith's Elektra CD "Other Voices, Too" and was included in Griffith's first book, "The Making of Other Voices." During the previous year, Carolyn introduced Lucy Kaplansky and fellow Texan Ann Armstrong to audiences in the U.K. She also appeared at South by Southwest in Austin.In concert these days she is singing many of the songs from her well-received new "A Tribute to 'Tom Paxton" CD and the popular "From These Hills" album, both on Road Goes On Forever Records. At a previous WFMA concert, she presented the annual Kate Wolf award to Nanci Griffith, and the two native Texans sang together. At the end of the year, Carolyn co-hosted the Kerrvillle Music Awards with Ray Wylie Hubbard, having sung and played at the 1998 Kerrville Folk Festival in May.It was Carolyn's 1992 appearance at Bob Dylan's 30th Anniversary Tribute Concert at New York's Madison Square Garden that solidly reaffirmed her stature in American folk music. New York City—Greenwich Village in particular—is where Carolyn began her career as one of the young singers who rode the crest of the 1960s folk wave to international recognition. And it was there that she met Dylan, then a young singer-songwriter with an engaging harmonica style, which, Carolyn decided, she wanted to hear on her first album for the Columbia label (recently re-released as a Columbia/Legacy CD). She invited Dylan to play on her LP—his first appearance on record—and introduced him to her producer, John Hammond, who quickly signed Dylan to the label.To this day, Carolyn is a dynamic singer with a repertoire of Southwestern-flavored originals and long-standing favorites. (She can be heard on Nanci Griffith's Grammy-winning album, titled "Other Voices/Other Rooms," on a Tom Paxton song she popularized: "I Can't Help but Wonder Where I'm Bound.") Her "Ascending Woman," was a featured reprint in Sing Out! magazine. She's been on the board of the Kerrville (Texas) Folk Festival. Among her credits are two Edinburgh Folk Festivals and many European tours and festivals.During the great folk music revival, Carolyn made the cover of the May 30, 1964, Saturday Evening Post. Her Town Hall debut resulted in two live albums, recently remastered into one CD by Bear Family. Her recordings and TV appearances have made vast new audiences aware of her energy, and beautiful music. Carolyn's influence on folk music has been chronicled in many books: "On Record" by John Hammond; "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right—Bob Dylan, the Early Years" by Andy Gill; "Bob Dylan: An Intimate Biography" by Tony Scaduto; "No Direction Home," Robert Shelton's Dylan biography; "Faces of Folk Music" by Gahr and Shelton; "Bringing It All Back Home," Robbie Wolliver's Folk City History; "The Judy Collins Songbook"; Milt Okun's "Something to Sing About"; Rod Kennedy's "Music From the Heart," and "Texas Rhythm, Texas Rhyme" by Larry Willoughby.