Joan Baez in Concert, Pt. 1 [Live]

Joan Baez in Concert, Pt. 1 [Live]

Track Listings

1. Babe, I'm Gonna Leave You

2. Georgie

3. Copper Kettle

4. Kumbaya

5. What Have They Done to the Rain?

6. Black Is the Color of My True Love's Hair

7. Danger Waters

8. Gospel Ship

9. House Carpenter

10. Pretty Boy Floyd

11. Lady Mary

12. Até Amanhã

13. Matty Groves

Tracks:

Babe, I'm Gonna Leave You
Geordie
Copper Kettle
Kumbaya
What Have They Done To The Rain
Black Is The Color Of My True Love's Hair
Danger Waters
Gospel Ship
House Carpenter
Pretty Boy Floyd
Lady Mary
Ate Amanha
Matty Groves
Streets Of Laredo
My Good Old Man
My Lord What A Morning

Customer Reviews:

Joan Baez, a first meeting.......2005-08-22

This was my first encounter with Joan Baez, back in the 70s. I was completely captivated. The purity and range of her voice, the quality of the songs and the simple guitar backing, all provided a very rich experience. "What have they done to the rain?" took my breath away, coming at a time when the nuclear debate was spreading world-wide. The contrast between the beauty of the melody and voice with the grimness of the meaning was very powerful. Time has not dimmed that first reaction.

Joan Baez at her very best. Buy It.......2005-06-26

`Joan Baez in Concert Parts 1 and 2' may have been the very first Joan Baez albums I heard, back in 1963, just a few months after having gotten my spiffy new portable record player for my small bedroom, and at least a year before I took to the Beatles and at least three years before I took to Bob Dylan.

It is entirely appropriate that Joan did these live albums so early in her career, as there is just something very right about hearing folksongs, both old and new in the presence of a live audience, as that is easily the most important point of folksongs, before they were mutated into the singer / songwriter product.

As the performances are so simple and the only real job of the soundman is to faithfully pick up Ms. Baez' voice and guitar, these albums are as good or better than her first two albums, both done in the studio. They are doubly valuable in that, unlike so many pop live albums, these repeat none of the material on her first two albums.

One thing that makes these better albums is that they mix several contemporary or at least recent songs from American sources in with the traditional English folk stuff.

It's fun to reflect, from the safe distance of 43 years from the performance and over 65 years from the writing, on the failure of logic in some `protest' songs such as Woody Guthrie's famous `Pretty Boy Floyd' the performance of which Ms. Baez dedicates to Pete Seeger. One has no trouble believing that this bank robber never took a house from a family, until you think of what his robbery may have done to the savings of townspeople in pre-FDIC 1930s depression days. To Guthrie's piece she adds Malvina Reynolds' sweet `What Have They Done to the Rain' and Bob Dylan's powerful `With God on Our Side' and `Don't Think Twice, It's All Right'. The most powerful selection may be the end of Part 2, which closes with the `Battle Hymn of the Republic'. Put into context, this may be the second most powerful example of musical / political theatre I have heard, outdone only by my seeing Pete Seeger, live, performing the `Internationale' in the mid-1980s on a suburban American music festival stage.

Of the traditional stuff, Ms. Baez easily outdoes Fairport Convention's performance of Matty Groves. Her versions of the lyrics are slightly different from the Brits, but the performance stands head and shoulders above Fairport Convention's renditions. On the other hand, Ms. Baez is outdone by a fair distance by Mick Jagger on the singing of `Long Black Veil' which Mr. J does on an album of the same name with The Chieftains.

Most of this is quibbling though, as the overall impression of the album is super high quality, with Ms. Baez easily at the top of her game and in her moment in history. I saw her perform live in the early nineties and her voice was simply not what it once was, and there seemed to be less energy there.

If you want to experience Joan Baez, I strongly recommend her earliest albums such as these two.

QUINTESSENTIAL EARLY JOAN BAEZ..........2004-03-08

This is a live concert recording, so be prepared for clapping and an enthusiastic reception by the concert crowds. It is quintessential early Joan Baez, simply strumming her guitar and singing folk songs that she loves. It was recorded at various concerts during her tours in August 1962 and October/November 1963.

Her clear, sweet soprano is exquisite, and her choice of these thirteen folk songs should satisfy the most ardent purists. Truly, hers is the voice of an angel. For those of us who grew up with the music of Joan Baez, this recording is a glorious trip down memory lane.

The quality of this cd is what one may expect from such an early, live recording, as it suffers from an occasional lack of clarity and from a slight variance in volume from song to song. Still, this is a cd that all devoted fans of Ms. Baez will want to include in their collection, if only for her wistful rendition of "What Have They Done To the Rain".

Early Joan.......2003-06-01

This CD has three extra songs that were not on the original vinyl recording of "Joan Baez in Concert." They are "Streets of Laredo," "My Good Old Man," and "My Lord What a Morning." Not much of a bargain, considering the fact that Joan sings kind of wishy-washy spirituals, and "Streets of Laredo" is set to slightly unfamiliar music, which makes it difficult to sing along with. I'll get used to it, though, and as always Joan's Child Ballads and Southern Appalachian ballads are to kill for. The liner notes that accompany this CD are also quite interesting. They discuss Joan's very early career and how she overcame her fear of large audiences.

Remember that the songs on this CD were recorded 'in concert' so you will hear occasional applause and crowd noises.

There are sixteen songs in all, and here are a few of my favorites:

"Babe, I'm Gonna Leave You" - I always thought this was a Bob Dylan song, but the most popular version turns out to have been recorded by Led Zeppelin. According to their web site, Jimmy Page heard the Baez version and decided to rearrange it for his band. The original version of the song has been traced to Anne Bredon, a folk musician who wrote and recorded the original song in the 1950s. At any rate, Joan sings it as a very lovely, plaintive ballad. I'm probably one of the few people in America who has never heard the Led Zeppelin version.

"Geordie" - A version of this Child ballad (#209) "God be wi' thee, Geordie" appears in the "Straloch Manuscripts (early 17th century)." It also appears in Buchan's "Ancient Ballads and Songs (1828)" under the name of "Gight's Lady." According to the Child Ballad web site, it's six pretty babies that Geordie's wife has borne, not Joan's three, and Geordie appears to have stolen 'six milk-white steeds' from the king, not deer. According to Buchan "Geordie" was Sir George Gordon of Gight (1512-1562), the son of the illegitimate daughter of James IV, who was imprisoned for becoming "too familiar" with the Laird of Bignet's wife (no deer or horses in this version). Geordie's wife, Lady Ann, went to Edinburgh to plead for his life. She was successful, but upon being freed Geordie killed his faithful wife. I like Joan's ending a bit better: Geordie is hanged in a golden chain and that's the end of it.

"Kumbaya" - This spiritual apparently originated with the Gullah, an African-American people living on the Sea Islands and adjacent coastal regions of South Carolina and Georgia. 'Kumbaya' means 'Come by here' and it really brings back the Sixties for me (we always sang it at the sit-ins). Joan asks the audience to sing along with her (you will hear it as a dull muttering in the background), and so I do.

"Black is the Color of my True Love's Hair" - There are many versions of this tune, including "Black is the Color of My True Love's Eyes." It's best known as a tune from the Southern Appalachian Mountains and is probably based on an 18th century English tune. Joan sings it almost as a lament, and I always expect the black-haired lover to die at the end, but in truth the ballad ends on a slightly happier note: the singer only threatens to kill herself if she loses her love.

"House Carpenter" - This Child ballad (#243) is also known as "James Harris, or the Daemon Lover." I like the Buffy Saint Marie version slightly better (on her album "Little Wheel Spin and Spin), in which the lover is an actual demon: "He stomped his foot and down they sank, and sank to rise no more." Joan's slightly sanitized version makes no mention of demons, although the carpenter's wife and her lover go to the 'hills of hell' when their ship accidentally sinks.

"Danger Waters"- This song has a chorus that I'd never been able to decipher completely, until I went to the web. Anyway the chorus goes something like this: "And I holler why, and I holler why, and I holler why," (now comes the hard part) the Burgess (or gorgeous?) boy "no mon ami." 'Burgess' turned out to be 'tortoise.' Oh well. This is a West African song, and Joan makes it sound very wistful even when she is demanding the return of her 'schillins.'

Lovely, lovely Joan. This CD is a 'must' for her fans.

Across the Years.......2002-04-21

For forty years, her pure voice and liberal beliefs have been part of the American fabric and of the lives of those of us who came of age in the 60's. When I hear her, I see myself in college waking up to this album, I see my grown sons as small children listening to her in front of the stereo while I studied in law school. When I had a "high lonely", retreated from whatever I was doing and went back to my "roots", it was Joan that I listened to. I love her music, not for what she is or isnt or what she ever has said or done, but for how her music did to me.