Carolyn Sue Hester (born January 28, 1937) is an American folk singer and songwriter.
According to Don Heckman of the Los Angeles Times, Hester was "one of the originals—one of the small but determined gang of ragtag, early-'60s folk singers who cruised the coffee shops and campuses, from Harvard Yard to Bleecker Street, convinced that their music could help change the world."
Hester, dubbed "The Texas Songbird," was politically active, spearheading the controversial boycott of the television program Hootenanny when Pete Seeger was blacklisted from it.
In 1961, Hester met Bob Dylan and invited him to play on her third album, her first on the Columbia label.
Hester collaborated with Bill Lee and Bruce Langhorne, but she concentrated exclusively on traditional material.
In the late 1960s she explored psychedelic music as part of the Carolyn Hester Coalition before taking time off to raise her two daughters.
[2] In 1969, Hester married the jazz pianist-producer-songwriter David Blume, the composer of The Cyrkle's 1966 Top 40 hit "Turn Down Day."