Karen Black, the great ’70s New Hollywood actress who starred in movies like Five Easy Pieces, Easy Rider, The Great Gatsby, and Nashville, died of cancer in 2013. Black was also a musician who collaborated with elusive folk-rock wanderer Cass McCombs a few times, singing on his songs “Dreams Come True Girl” and “Brighter!” And for the past three years, McCombs has been compiling and co-producing Dreaming Of You (1971-1976), a new collection of Black’s best studio and demo recordings meticulously restored from dusty original tapes with the help of Black’s husband Stephen Eckelberry and restoration engineer Tardon Feathered.

“Karen and I met working on my song ‘Dreams Come True Girl.’ We became friends after that and she showed me her lyrics and we talked about making an album together,” McCombs says. “I adapted ‘I Wish I Knew The Man I Thought You Were’ from her lyrics, based on a personal experience of hers during college. We only got through a few songs together before she departed but I kept the idea of finishing a record together and we unearthed a moldy box of tapes from her garage. Among these tapes were audio from all parts of her life, including the early ’70s recordings that comprise most of the album. It was my honor, together with her husband Stephen Eckelberry, to be the archivist and custodian of these recordings, songs that leap out with the markings of her indelible spirit.”

“I Wish I Knew The Man I Thought You Were,” out today, is one of two songs that McCombs and Black recorded together in 2012. “She’d given me all of her poetry and I was trying to work them into some kind of meter that would work as songs,” McCombs explains. Inspired by Black’s time at Northwestern University in the ’60s, “I Wish I Knew The Man I Thought You Were” is about the power dynamic between a professor and a student. “I wish I knew the man that I thought you were/ He’d tell me not to trust the man you are,” Black sings. Listen below.

Dreaming Of You (1971-76) is out 7/16 on Anthology Recordings. Pre-order it here.