Call her music Americana roots—some blues, some psychedelic rock, some bluegrass, some swing, some country. Whatever it is, it's always a beautiful toe-tapping melody. Not bad for a 61-year-old deaf lady. "My eardrums were deformed when I was born and it's been a chronic problem all of my life," Karen explains. "I didn't respond to thunder when I was a child, but I thought the sound of the fluid moving back and forth in my ear was a monster plodding its way toward me." Karen grew up on a smal ...