Carla Rotolo

Carla Rotolo (March 5, 1941 - August 25, 2014) was an artist, folksinger and folk music researcher.

Rotolo was the first child of Joachim Rotolo and Mary (Pezzati) Rotolo who were union activists. Her mother Mary was a writer and editor for several union newspapers her father would paint worker murals.

Like her mother Rotolo was a political activist but also followed in her father's footsteps who was an artist. As an artist, she painted, drew and sculpted. She also worked as a set decorator for many off Broadway plays and shows in New York. Her younger sister Suze would often join her.

In the early 1960s Rotolo was an assistant to the eminent folklorist and musicologist Alan Lomax. She would accompany him on his excursions down South to record remote folk singers. Rotolo helped with the 1960 release of twelve folk albums for the Prestige International Records label.

She was involved with the Greenwich Village folk scene and was friends with Dave Van Ronk, dated the noted folk singer Paul Clayton and knew many of the movers and shakers of Greenwich Village. Rotolo appears in the Alan Lomax documentary Ballads, Blues and Blue Grass which was released in 2012.

In 1961 Rotolo was an enthusiastic fan of the then-unknown folksinger Bob Dylan. According to author Robert Shelton, Rotolo "came up with an idea to help record Dylan and some other unknowns". Shelton continued, "that because, of the urgings of the Dylan coterie in general, Carla in particular, and my interest in reviewing, Mike Porco booked Bob into Folk City for two weeks."

Rotolo would sometimes sing three-part harmony with Van Ronk and Dylan. She introduced her seventeen-year-old sister Suze to Dylan early on which led to a three-year relationship. Rotolo did all she could to promote Dylan. She introduced him to important people and helped him with his research into folk tunes. Dylan would spend hours during the day and night listening to and examining her vast collection of records and books.

Dylan would eventually repay her with his 1964 song "Ballad in Plain D", labeling her as the "parasite sister", after Rotolo came to her sister's aid as Suze and Dylan were breaking up, in Rotolo's apartment. Although she found the accusation tedious and stupid, since she was always employed and far from a parasite she had done a lot to help out the young Bob Dylan including letting him sleep on her couch, the label was to follow her for the rest of her life.

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