Archive for December, 2009

(Review from allmusic)

Despite her Latin heritage, Joan Baez probably wouldn’t have been encouraged by her 60s record label, Vanguard, to sing an entire album in Spanish. At A&M Records, however, it was a different story and “Gracias a la Vida” (“Here’s to Life”) was released in 1974.

Baez demonstrates an affinity for Mexican folk music on such obvious choices as “Cucurrucucu Paloma,” but it’s no surprise that, a year after the assassination of leading nueva cancion folksinger Victor Jara in a military coup in Chile, an atrocity that shocked the American folk community, she has not backed away from her political commitments. There is “Guantanamera”, a song that may have been a Top Ten U.S. hit for the Sandpipers in 1966, but that has political implications, as Pete Seeger has been reminding listeners for more than a decade. There is a Spanish version of “We Shall Not Be Moved” (“No Nos Moveran”) with a lengthy spoken introduction. There are songs like “El Preso Numero Nueve” (“Prisoner Number Nine”; repeated from 60s Joan Baez) and “Esquinazo del Guerrillero” (“The Guerillas Serenade”). And, inevitably, there is a song of Jara’s, “Te Recuerdo Amanda” (“I Remember You Amanda”), which the slain singer wrote for his mother. But then there is also “Dida”, a wordless duet with Joni Mitchell.

Throughout, Baez demonstrates her mastery of Spanish singing over authentic arrangements while attempting to stir up her Spanish-speaking listeners just as she does their English-speaking compatriots.

Line-up:
- Joan Baez / guitar, vocals
with
- Sally Stevens / guitar
- Jim Hughart / Bass
- Edgar Lustgarten / Cello
- Lalo Lindgron / Harp, Harmonica
- Andrea Willis / Back vocals
- Jackie Ward Singers / Back vocals
- Milt Holland / Percussion

Track List:
01. Gracias a la Vida – 3:35
02. Llego con Tres Heridas – 2:15
03. La Llorona – 3:40
04. El Preso Numero Nueve – 3:24
05. Guantanamera – 3:52
06. Te Recuerdo Amanda – 2:33
07. Dida – 3:33
08. Cucurrucucu Paloma – 4:30
09. Paso Rio – 0:56
10. El Rossinyol – 3:04
11. De Colores – 2:28
12. Las Madres Cansadas – 2:57
13. No Nos Moveran – 3:41
14. Esquinazo del Guerrillero – 2:41

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(Review from rateyourmusic.com, allmusic, wikipedia)

Baez’s 13th studio album was released in March 1973.

Side one is on par with his previous recordings of early 70s. It contains one of Baez’s best original songs, “A Young Gypsy” and two by her sister, “Mary Call” and “Best of Friends”.

The side-long title track on the other hand may be a bit challenging for the casual fan. It is a twenty minutes plus collage of sounds, words and -all the same- a sung chorus (They say that the war is done/But where are you now my son?) recorded duringen a week-long Christmas bombing campaign Baez and the peace delegation survived in Vietnam. Included on the recording are the voices of her companions; Barry Romo, Michael Allen and human rights attorney Telford Taylor.

Track List:
01. Only Heaven Knows (Ah, The Sad Wind Blows) – 2:36
02. Less Than A Song – 3:29
03. A Young Gypsy – 3:37
04. Mary Call – 3:34
05. Rider Pass By – 4:14
06. Best Of Friends – 3:05
07. Windrose – 3:43
08. Where Are You Now, My Son? – 21:44

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(Review from allmusic, amazon)

With Blessed Are…, Joan Baez found herself with a hit single on the charts. That song, a cover of Robbie Robertson’s “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down,” is just one of the many surprises on Blessed Are…

Once again using some of Nashville’s finest pickers and songwriters, Baez runs the gamut of such influences as the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Mickey Newberry, Jesse Winchester, Stevie Wonder and, of course, herself, while sounding nothing more than like Joan Baez always has. Great music, and a lot of it, too, for when it was released on vinyl, it was a double album with a special 7″ single included.

The pieces remind us of our own mortality in “Three Horses”, inspire us to common decency in “Blessed Are” and mourns the condition of human-kind in “Heaven Help Us All”. “Marie Flore” is a superficially wistful account of a chance meeting in a distant city, it is a metaphor for the brevity of life, the precious gift of every friendship and the profound emotional connection we could make with each other if we would choose to do so. This music is melodic and engaging, but carries messages about the very meaning of our lives as well.

Line-up:
- Joan Baez / Guitar, Vocals
with
- Norman Blake / Dobro, Guitar
- David Briggs / Keyboards
- Kenneth A. Buttrey / Drums
- Ed Logan / Saxophone
- Charlie McCoy / Harmonica
- Norbert Putnam / Bass
- Buddy Spicher / Violin
- Pete Wade / Guitar
- The Holladays / Singers

Track List:
CD1
01. Blessed Are… – 3:06
02. The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down – 3:26
03. The Salt of the Earth – 3:26
04. Three Horses – 7:07
05. The Brand New Tennessee Waltz – 3:11
06. Last Lonely, and Wretched – 3:46
07. Lincoln Freed Me Today (The Slave) – 3:25
08. Outside the Nashville City Limits – 3:25
09. San Francisco Mabel Joy – 4:27
10. When Time Is Stolen – 3:02
11. Heaven Help Us All – 3:36
12. Angeline – 3:41
13. Help Me Make It Through the Night – 3:02
CD2
01. Let It Be – 3:52
02. Put Your Hand in the Hand – 3:24
03. Gabriel and Me – 3:31
04. Milanese Waltz-Marie Flore – 5:59
05. The Hitchhiker’s Song – 4:23
06. The 33th of August – 3:46
07. Fifteen Months – 4:31
08. Plane Wreck at Los Gatos (Deportee) (Bonus) – 5:19
09. Maria Dolores (Bonus) – 3:26

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(Review from allmusic)

One of the often overlooked aspects of Joan Baez’s career in the 1960s is that after the first four albums, she never did the same thing twice.

“One Day at a Time” was also startlingly new and daring at the time. Today it seems like no big deal, but in 1970 very few singers coming out of the folk scene as Baez did were reaching out to Willie Nelson (“One Day at a Time”) and even the Rolling Stones (“No Expectations”) for repertory, much less putting them on the same album with music by old leftist composers like Earl Robinson (“Joe Hill”), and then interspersing those songs with traditional country numbers. Even better, she was also writing her own songs, one of which, “Sweet Sir Galahad,” ranks among the best songs that she ever recorded.

She was in the middle of her country phase, mostly working with the best players in Nashville (who are a pleasure to hear as well), but One Day at a TIme has a freer, looser feel than David’s Album or Blessed Are, both of which came out of the same orbit.

Her version of “Long Black Veil” could’ve passed muster at The Grand Ol’ Opry, and she could’ve cut these sessions with Dolly Parton, June Carter Cash, or any other female country singer of the era and not been out of place. The sheer, understated power of her voice on Delaney & Bonnie’s “Ghetto” and on “Carry It On” is also something to behold, and makes one wonder what kind of a gospel singer Baez might have made in another reality. Yet she could also loosen up enough to do a pure piece of sentimental traditional country music like “Take Me Back to the Sweet Sunny South” and make it work, too.

Amid these multi-tiered, widely spaced superlatives, “One Day at a Time” also had (and still has) an additional facet that should make it essential listening on another level, to yet another audience — three of the cuts here feature her working with Jeffrey Shurtleff, who was her accompanist at the Woodstock festival as well.

This edition of the album contains two outtakes from the One Day at a Time sessions as bonus tracks: “Sing Me Back Home” and “Mama Tried”, both duets with Shurtleff, and both Merle Haggard covers.

Track List:
01. Sweet Sir Galahad – 3:42
02. No Expectations – 3:49
03. Long Black Veil – 3:24
04. Ghetto – 4:33
05. Carry It On – 2:21
06. Take Me Back to the Sweet Sunny South – 2:48
07. Seven Bridges Road – 3:41
08. Jolie Blonde – 2:01
09. Joe Hill – 3:24
10. A Song for David – 4:57
11. I Live One Day at a Time – 3:32
12. Sing Me Back Home (Bonus) – 4:00
13. Mama Tried (Bonus) – 3:08

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(Review from allmusic, wikipedia)

Recorded in October of 1968, Any Day Now marks Joan Baez’s first foray into the recording studios of Nashville, armed with an entire program of Bob Dylan’s material. Laying Bob Dylan sheet music on the floor in front of her, Baez closed her eyes and picked at random, the results of which made up the track listing. One song, “Love is Just a Four-Letter Word” has apparently never been recorded by Dylan himself. At the time of the album’s original release, six of the songs had not been included on official Dylan releases.

Baez’s interpretations on this double album are simply stellar. Her empathy for the material, her keen understanding of Dylan’s sound world, and her own glorious voice brought another dimension to these 16 songs and, if anything, extended their meanings.

The album’s most famous track is “Love Is Just a Four-Letter Word” and because of the definitive performance of it here, it has basically belonged to Baez ever since. Another fine choice is “Walls of Redwing”, a tune Dylan rarely performed and no one had yet recorded. Baez’s read of “Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands” brings its full complexity to the fore. Though Dylan later confessed (after he and Baez split) to writing it for his wife, Sara, on the album “Desire”, there is plenty in the song that alludes to his relationship with Baez. Her version of the song is almost identical in length and is utterly beguiling. Likewise, her a cappella approach to “Tears of Rage”, which immediately follows, is a beautiful version with a strangely fascinating placement.

Line-up:
- Joan Baez / vocals, guitar
with
- Fred Carter / mandolin
- Pete Drake / pedal steel guitar
- Johnny Gimble / fiddle
- Roy Huskey, Jr. / bass
- Tommy Jackson / fiddle
- Jerry Kennedy / guitar
- Jerry Reed / guitar
- Harold Bradley / guitar, dobro
- Hargus “Pig” Robbins / piano
- Stephen Stills / guitar
- Harold Rugg / guitar, dobro
- Grady Martin / guitar
- Buddy Spicher / fiddle
- Norbert Putnam / bass
- Kenny Buttrey / drums

Track List:
01. Love Minus Zero-No Limit – 2:43
02. North Country Blues – 5:01
03. You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere – 2:59
04. Drifter’s Escape – 2:56
05. I Pity The Poor Immigrant – 3:48
06. Tears Of Rage – 4:20
07. Sad-Eyed Lady Of The Lowlands – 11:18
08. Love Is Just A Four-Letter Word – 4:26
09. I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine – 3:16
10. The Walls Of Redwing – 3:50
11. Dear Landlord – 2:59
12. One Too Many Mornings – 3:13
13. I Shall Be Released – 3:56
14. Boots Of Spanish Leather – 4:32
15. Walkin’ Down The Line – 3:24
16. Restless Farewell – 5:50

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(Review from rollingstone.com, allmusic)

Joan Baez’s most unusual album, Baptism is of a piece with the “concept” albums of the late 60s, but more ambitious than most and different from all of them.

Baez by this time was immersed in various causes, concerning the Vietnam War, the human condition, and the general state of the world, and it seemed as though every note of music that she sang was treated as important — sometimes in a negative way by her opponents; additionally, popular music was changing rapidly, and even rock groups that had seldom worried in their music about too much beyond the singer’s next sexual conquest were getting serious.

Baptism was Baez getting more serious than she already was, right down to the settings of her music, and redirecting her talent from folk song to art song, complete with orchestral accompaniment. Selections from early and modern poets of Europe, Asia and America, including poems by William Blake, Federico Garcia Lorca, Jacques Prevert and Yevgeny Yevtushenko. Together with an old Welsh song and a Negro lullaby, the collection has a remarkable unity and striking impact. The net result is a fascinating, if disparaging, journey through our time spanning several centuries.

Side one is a magnificent and impassioned out-cry against the ravages of war, violence and the insanity of spilled blood. In a pure, prose voice, Miss Baez evokes the indignity and horror in the pleas of those who protest to the dynastic Chinese minister of War. In Jacques Prevert’s “Song In The Blood,” she intones the rhythmic cycle of spilled blood and death as the earth turns with immutable regularity. She is truly a woman who has seen too much slaughter, her voice sounding detached, matter-of-fact, foretelling only blood and more death.

Blake’s “London” and Norman Rosten’s “In Guernica” on the same side are provocative and very effective, the net effect being an uncompromising and brutal vision of war and death evoked by a gentle woman’s voice and orchestration in a somber, minor key.

Side two is clearly a spiritual chronology revealing the multiple baptisms accompanying the loss of innocence. The happy nonsense of the opening passages of Joyce’s “Portrait Of the Artist As A Young Man” are supplanted by the sinister fantasies of Rimbaud, the desperate hope of love in Yevtushenko’s “Colours” and finally, lamentation and grief.

Taken as a whole, the album is a very personal statement about the nature of man and the ghastly paradoxes of life and death. While some passages are very moving and beautiful Baptism is inescapably depressing — as it should be.

Track List:
01. Old Welsh Song – 1:16
02. I Saw The Vision Of Armies – 1:16
03. Minister Of War – 1:10
04. Song In The Blood 4:28
05. Casida Of The Lament – 1:01
06. Of The Dark Past – 1:59
07. London – 1:19
08. In Guernica – 1:00
09. Who Murdered The Minutes 3:21
10. Oh, Little Child – 1:25
11. No Man Is An Island – 0:56
12. From Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man – 2:14
13. All The Pretty Little Horses – 1:14
14. Childhood III – 1:08
15. The Magic Wood – 2:27
16. Poems From The Japanese – 2:21
17. Colours – 1:13
18. All In Green Went My Love Riding 3:24
19. Gacela Of The Dark Death – 2:09
20. The Parable Of The Old Man And The Young – 0:51
21. Evil – 1:30
22. Epitaph For A Poet – 1:15
23. Old Welsh Song – 1:20
24. Mystic Numbers- 36. Wedding Song (Unreleased Bonus) – 1:06
25. When The Shy Star Goes Forth In Heaven (Bonus) – 1:24
26. The Angel (Bonus) – 1:32

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(Review from amazon, allmusic)

Joan was very much an album of its time in terms of its sound and production, more so than any other album that Joan Baez ever recorded. In 1967, rock, folk, folk-rock, and pop all seemed to be headed in new and ever-more-ornate directions, and Joan was a response to that change and, not coincidentally, is also arguably the most self-consciously beautiful record that Baez ever cut.

Arranger/conductor Peter Schickele, who had previously worked with Baez on her Christmas album, provides a rich, full bodied, musical orchestration that, at times, is replete with guitar, piano, organ, vibraphone, bass, drums, percussion, french horns, trumpets, trombones, oboes, bassoons, tambourine, harp and celesta.

The highlights “Turquoise” with its gorgeous parts for the harps and the horns, “Children of Darkness” with its beautiful writing for the reeds, and “Saigon Bride” with its haunting brass part — are profoundly beautiful.

In tribute to her folk roots, in “Greenwood Side” Baez sings accompanied by her guitar. It is the Joan Baez with which many of her earliest fans are most familiar. At nearly eight minutes in length, it is the longest track on this album.

This edition of the album also features two bonus tracks; one from the “Joan” sessions, the other recorded the same year although not specifically for this album. “Oh, Had I a Golden Thread” is a folk/gospel version of a Peter Seeger song. “Autumn Leaves” is a Jacques Prevert poem that was originally set to music by Joseph Kosma and later adapted by Johnny Mercer, which Baez sings in French.

Track List:
01. Be Not Too Hard – 2:52
02. Eleanor Rigby – 2:20
03. Turquoise – 3:18
04. La Colombe – 5:21
05. Dangling Conversation – 2:47
06. The Lady Came From Baltimore – 2:34
07. North – 2:51
08. Children of Darkness – 3:56
09. The Greenwood Side – 7:46
10. If You Were A Carpenter – 2:10
11. Annabel Lee – 5:02
12. Saigon Bride – 3:15
13. Oh, Had I A Golden Thread (Bonus) – 3:47
14. Autumn Leaves (Bonus) – 2:33

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(Review from allmusic)

When Joan Baez began recording and performing during the late 50s and early 60s, she carved out a niche for herself as a remarkable singer of traditional music. In 1966 she released Noel, an album of seasonal songs notable for its variety and the fact that she sung two selections in German.

One would expect to see “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” and “Deck the Halls” but Baez adds lesser-known gems like “Ave Maria” and “Coventry Carol”, along with instrumental versions of “Bring a Torch, Jeannette, Isabella” and “Adeste Fideles”.

The arrangements, while not unusual for a Christmas album, were something new for a Baez album. Lutes, violas, harpsichord, strings, and wind instruments provide a classical setting for Baez’s lovely soprano. In this setting, her voice becomes more formal and mannered.

Baez’s fans will probably be split on the quality of the album. Fans of her early traditional albums will find these arrangements and stylized vocals miles away from folk music; fans of Baez’s pure soprano who never concerned themselves with genre purity will find Noel a must-have album.

Track List:
01. O Come, O Come, Emmanuel (French traditional, sung in English) – 3:01
02. Coventry Carol (English traditional) – 1:59
03. Good King Wenceslas (English traditional, instrumental) – 0:26
04. The Little Drummer Boy (Davis, Onorati, Simeone) – 3:02
05. I Wonder As I Wander (John Jacob Niles) – 3:52
06. Bring a Torch, Jeanette, Isabella (instrumental) – 0:38
07. Down In Yon Forrest (English traditional) – 1:40
08. The Carol of the Birds (Catalan traditional, dedicated to Pablo Casals) – 3:31
09. Angels We Have Heard On High (French traditional, instrumental) – 1:20
10. Ave Maria (Franz Schubert, sung in German) – 4:05
11. Mary’s Wandering (German traditional, sung in German) – 3:17
12. Deck the Halls (Welsh traditional, instrumental) – 0:20
13. Away in a Manger (Martin Luther, sung in English) – 1:54
14. Adeste Fidelis (Latin traditional, instrumental) – 0:49
15. Cantique de Noel (Adolphe Adam, sung in French) – 3:48
16. What Child Is This (English traditional) – 3:01
17. Silent Night (Franz Gruber, sung in English) – 2:25

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