Joan Baez

Artist: Joan Baez
Label: Vanguard Records
Category: Music

Average customer rating:

Media: Audio CD
Number Of Discs: 1

UPC: 015707207720
EAN: 0015707207720
ASIN: B000000EDU

Release Date: 1990-10-25

Related Categories:

General

| Contemporary Folk | Folk | Styles | Music

General

| Folk | Styles | Music

Traditional Folk

| Folk | Styles | Music

General

| Pop | Styles | Music

Singer-Songwriters

| Pop | Styles | Music

General

| Miscellaneous | Styles | Music

Singer-Songwriters

| Contemporary Folk | Folk | Styles | Music

Revival

| Folk | Styles | Music

Listmania:

Albums That Keep Me Sane/Insane
Most Underrated Musicians
Assorted Music That Keeps Me Sane
My Favorite Folk Music Picks

Tracks:

SILVER DAGGER
EAST VIRGINIA
FARE THEE WELL (or Ten Thousand Miles)
HOUSE OF THE RISING SUN
ALL MY TRIALS
WILDWOOD FLOWER
DONNA DONNA
JOHN RILEY
RAKE AND RAMBLING BOY
LITTLE MOSES
MARY HAMILTON
HENRY MARTIN
EL PRESO NUMERO NUEVE

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Joan Baez, Vol. 2

Customer Reviews:

Life changing.......2006-01-22

Back when I was about 16, I bought this album and when I heard what was inside, I was completely blown away. The voice of an angel, a new and important artist. From then on I was a big Baez fan. This was one of those few albums in a lifetime that changes your point of view, that opens new worlds, that cries out to your soul. The beautiful soprano voice was new to me, but I knew right off I would follow Ms Baez to the ends of the earth. Thank you Joan. Yours is a massive talent.

Joan Baez very first album. See what started it all! Superb........2005-06-24

`Joan Baez Vol. 1 and Vol. 2' are incredibly evocative of a particular time and Zeitgeist in American popular music. Listening to them now, it is humbling to think that it has been over forty years since I first bought these Vanguard albums which, according to a `Time' magazine article of the time, turned the very small folkie recording company into a pretty important recording company, just in time to be in on the 1960's music explosion. The buzz at the same time was that in spite of her success, Vanguard could not convince Baez to do more than one album a year. She and the folk music scene in the early sixties were still a major topic of conversation in sophisticated circles. One of the most prescient statements I ever heard was from my German professor's opinion, expressed in the Fall of 1963 that the American folk music interest would not survive the arrival of The Beatles. In most ways, I think he was very, very right in that Baez' versions of old English ballads and material from Folkways did not survive the British invasion. Instead, this musical revolution plus the target rich landscape of the mid 1960s spawned a great generation built on the legacy of Woody Guthrie instead of `Childe's Ballads. This was lead by Bob Dylan, Phil Ochs (the much missed Phil Ochs), Tom Paxton, Richard Farina and many more. Ms. Baez jumped on this bandwagon, primarily as a consort to Mr. Dylan, but not until she left us with these really remarkable renditions of historical music.

Contrary to what you may believe from the title, these two albums were first published about a year apart, with titles even more modest that Ms. Baez' contemporary, Barbara Streisand. As I am not an expert on old English folk music, my best comparisons for Ms. Baez performances are, in fact Ms. Streisand on the one hand and the English Jacqui McShee (female vocalist for The Pentangle and The John Renbourn group) on the other. While Ms. McShee does a great job when she does the same material, I think Miss Joan sets the standard with her crystal clear, vibrato free voice. Baez also does better on this material than her principle competitor (on Elektra), Judy Collins. On the other hand, when I compare Joan to Barbra, I feel there is just something missing in Joanie's interpretation. Aside from having a great set of pipes, this, of course, is one of Streisand's strong points as she gives dramatically different takes on some old chestnuts such as `Happy Days are Here Again'. And yet, Ms. Baez gives us performances for the ages which sound as fresh today as they did 45 years ago.

It is highly unlikely that the contemporary music audience will again support an act doing this material. And, I don't think it's because of a `been there, done that' reaction. So, dig into these old albums with both arms and enjoy them, for they are both great and an important part of popular music history.

Remastered version of this album is better - 3 extra songs........2004-09-05

The original release date for this album (her second) was October, 1960, but no-one has since surpassed Joan Baez as a singer of Anglo-American ballads, most especially (in my opinion) those collected by Francis J. Child in his five volume work, The English and Scottish Popular Ballads (1882-1898). If you've never heard her sing, this album would be a good place to start. "Joan Baez Vol. 2" and "Joan Baez 5" also have some great ballads.

Joan Baez is a very admirable person. Her life and voice have been inseparable from the public events that have shaped the last four decades. However, I wish she could have sung more ballads and less soft pop (is that anything like soft porn?) and political ephemera. That's why I can't recommend any of her other, more recent albums (except "Nýel"). She was gifted with a clear, lyrical soprano that pierces like a flute and trembles like clear water. It is the perfect instrument to express the pathos and unrequited love of the minor keys. When she attempts a more robust C Major or G Major, she sounds jokey rather than robust--like someone in the manic phase of her bipolar disorder. I tend to disagree with the liner notes that suggest Joan has an effective snarl in her lower register in the song "Silver Dagger". She sings this Appalachian ballad in a way that will haunt you for decades, until you break down and purchase a CD remastering of the old vinyl recording that got loved to death. No snarl, though.

The remastered version of 'Joan Baez' contains three extra tracks, so you might prefer to purchase it instead of this album.

My favorite song on this album is from Child, "Vol. 6, Border Minstrelsy (Ballad #173)," more commonly known as "Mary Hamilton" or "The Four Marys." This ballad has almost the largest number of variants on record, an indication of its antiquity. Joan's arrangement is mercifully purged of most of the original Gaelic, and tells the story of Mary Hamilton, a lady-in-waiting at the Queen's court, who dies on the gallows because she killed her 'own wee babe' nine months after a tryst with the King.

Child relates the tune to the execution of Mary Hamilton in Russia on March 14, 1719. She was a maid of honor to Empress Catherine and was hung for the murder of her child. However, according to the "Viking Book of Folk Ballads," the song existed before the tragedy in Russia and therefore could not be related to it.

Another possibility for the scandal occurred in Mary Stewart's court in Scotland (which is the location mentioned in Joan's version of the song). A French maid had an affair with the Queen's apothecary and was hung for the murder of her child. There is speculation that the "apothecary" was actually Lord Darnley (the Queen's husband) in disguise. Legend has it that David Rizzio, the Queen's Chamberlain and close confidante found out about the affair and composed the tune and wrote the words. Lord Darnley's anger at Rizzio over the tune then contributed to his decision to murder Rizzio.

In Joan's rendition, the King attempts to rescue Mary Hamilton from the gallows, but she will have none of his belated sympathy. And so "Yestreen the queen had four Maries/, The night she'll hae but three/; There was Marie Seaton, and Marie Beaten/, And Marie Carmichael, and me." (the text from Scott's edition of 1833).

This is a great ballad, beautifully sung, and well worth the price of this CD even if it didn't also have "Silver Dagger," "East Virginia," "House of the Rising Sun (Joan recorded this lament before Bob Dylan)," and "All My Trials."

Memories of her voice linger on........2002-07-28

I was 13 when this album came out and I listened to it so much I wore off the vinyl the cardboard album cover long ago faded away but not the songs.Long black hair streaming down eyes clear and wise. She was singing old songs but with a new style new clarity. I can only imagine how much of an influence her and Mr Bob Dylan were to me then and still are today. They survived an era that not many did. Joan taught me I really can't sing. Which is good.
But I remember my heart full of joy swaying in the rain listening to her sing sweet chariot at woodstock now that endures a lifetime. To me this her first album is the best. Begin with her at the start of her career.

Talent and Integrity.......2001-07-28

It is nearly impossible to overestimate the importance of this album. To fully appreciate its impact, one must appreciate how things were 1960 when women artists were expected to simply look pretty, sing whatever was put in front of them, and do whatever their (almost always male) producers told them to do. It was nearly unheard of for a woman to choose her own materal and chart her own course. And yet on this album (though Maynard Solomon is given production credit) Baez -- who was barely nineteen at the time -- is clearly behind the wheel. These thirteen traditional ballads, essentially comprising her live set at Cambridge's Club 47, are done exactly as she saw fit, simply and without extraneous background instrumentation. (Solomon did manage to convince Baez to add a second guitar on a handful of these tunes, but beyond that, the songs remain pretty much exactly as Joan had performed them live.)

Of course, Joan's magnificent soprano, at its peak here, and her precise, underrated guitar playing are the only instruments needed to intrepret these songs, but one could easily picture record company execs wanting to add lots of strings, backround singers, etc., in an attempt to get that all-important radio airplay. (Perhaps not Vanguard, but certainly a larger, more profit-minded company would have done so; this in mind, it's easy to see why Baez chose Vanguard over the more lucrative deal with Columbia she was offered at the time.)

Without the integrity and talent Joan showed on these early recordings, it's next to impossible to imagine the subsequent careers of Joni Mitchell, Bonnie Raitt, Emmylou Harris, Tracy Chapman, or virtually any other independent, serious-minded woman musician ever coming to fruition.

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