Dory of the Blues

She released a handful of astonishingly honest and harrowing albums in the 70s, yet commercial success always eluded Dory Previn. She talks to Jonathan Wingate about love, loss and life with mythical kings and iguanas

Subjected to electric shock therapy, held hostage at gunpoint by her father, loved by Lennon, Dylan and Tennessee Williams, Dory Previn was the singer-songwriter who lived a life every bit as disturbing as her songs would suggest. Her music sounded utterly unlike the folk pop of younger confessional contemporaries like Laura Nyro and Janis Ian – a twist of ragtime and swing was often laced with the sort of self-deprecating, self-obsessed humour Woody Allen specialised in.

Dory Previn is the last great female singer songwriter of the 70s yet to be properly recognised for what she is. She released half-a-dozen perfectly formed albums of raw introspection between 1970 and 1976. After her recording career finished, despite a distinct lack of media exposure, her name was kept alive by a coterie of obsessive admirers.

More recently, her music has been given greater prominence and lent deeper resonance by the vocal support of a who’s who of hip that includes Björk, Nick Cave and Jarvis Cocker. The former Pulp frontman even went as far as to include Previn’s The Lady With The Braid amongst his recent Desert Island Discs. After all these years, and against all the odds, it would seem likely that Dory Previn will ultimately receive the recognition she deserves in her own lifetime.

Born on the stroke of midnight on …

by Jonathan Wingate
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