Joan Baez in the 1960s (Vol.2)

Here I will continue with my re-visits of Joan Baez's 1960s discography - since I bravely started ploughing trough works by Bob Dylan (it took me some 4 decades to finally get curious about him) Baez naturally came to my mind and as I always liked her voice, going trough her recordings is far more pleasurable than focusing on Dylan who is sort of acquired taste. I admit Bob Dylan was a great poet and natural songwriter but I am not completely convinced by his singing and this is where Joan Baez come along as far superior interpreter of his songs. People say that she "prettified" them but I disagree - there's no harm in having a good songs sung by good voice and although occasionally Dylan's mosquito-buzzing talk-sing can be effective, Baez does wonders with same material.

Baez in the 1960s was very. very interesting person as she took all her political commitments very seriously and (as opposite to Dylan who couldn't be bothered) got herself in all kinds of troubles because of this, participated in demonstrations, got arrested, donated money to anti-war charities and probably even alienated a lot of mainstream audience with her involvements. She even posed (along with her sister) on a poster encouraging young men to refuse army, it looks quite silly now but it was a strong message back than. Funny enough, her own husband will be one of those guys who refused to go into Vietnam and he will end up in prison for it, with pregnant Baez waiting for him outside. Everything about Baez at that time seems quite heroic.

The most ambitious album Baez recorded until that point finds her working again with classical music conductor/composer Peter Schickele who arranged her previous Christmas album - in short, bells are tinkling around Baez as she covers songs of current pop songwriters and movies into art-song territory where her fellow folk warrior Judy Collins already stepped a year earlier with her beautiful In My Life album. For Collins it meant farewell to folk music and her future direction moved her completely into another direction, while Baez later experimented with country but never completely severed her ties with protest movement, even if that mean her participations in anti war demonstrations (she was arrested countless times) somehow alienated mainstream audience.

Baez must have heard and admired Collins album, because she even records the same song that was on that album - Jacques Brel anti-war "La Colombe" - what works very well for Collins and her collaboration with Joshua Rifkin, does not really fit Baez's style and she sounds as she is straining to be heard above massive orchestration. This is the only bad decision on otherwise lovely baroque pop album of meditative, melancholic song collection. For a change we have no Dylan here, but in his absence we got songs by Donovan, Lennon/Mc Cartney, Paul Simon, Richard Fariña, Tim Hardin and even Baez herself who felt inspired enough to include two of her originals - guitar introduction to "North" sound like a very close relative to her later "Diamonds and Rust".

Peter Schickele does wonderful job here with somber, quasi-classical, almost cinematic arrangements that made very pretty album but were probably impossible to recreate outside of a symphony hall and without a help of all these musicians. Considering that Baez at that time mostly performed only with her guitar, her live interpretations must have been very much stripped down. It is perhaps unfair towards Schickele considering how much care he put in these arrangements but Baez actually sounds the best on two occasions when he steps out and leave her alone, letting that voice to soar without all this ornamentations and frills. However, I must say that it sounds perfectly natural as a sequel to her Christmas album and one-off experiment that she would never repeat again. I have been listening this album frequently during past few days and came to honestly admire its beauty (skipping "La Colombe" though).

"Baptism" was the last in the trilogy of collaborations with classical composer/arranger Peter Schickele who makes everything sounding quasi classical and christmasy. In her memoirs "And a voice to sing with" Baez is very short about this work (she actually spends far more time discussing her various political activities than her discography) and jokingly admits that her popularity way back was such that even album of spoken poetry actually charted.

Apparently 1960s were really completely different times because today nobody would even think about releasing, financing and promoting album by popular star reciting poetry - Baez was lucky because she had manager who was more interested in art than commercial aspects of the business - her albums were selling good anyway and she was giving a lot of money to charities, performing benefit concerts and walking around barefoot. So perhaps this poetry album is not so strange, however it is not really highlight of her discography - when she speaks Baez sounds unsure and/or too darn serious and the only time when recording gets going is when she sings, which she does marvellously as usual.  Poems are by Jacques Prévert, Federico García Lorca, James Joyce and such - overall sound is kind of 1960s antiwar psychedelia. Interesting for Baez completists but quite surprising for casual listeners.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but am I the only one here who see this choice of material strange considering that Dylan had left the protest movement and Baez, moved in Nashville and completely changed his music direction - what Baez does, she follows him to Nashville and records a double LP of his songs? I mean, yeah, they are great songs but why would Queen of Folk bow at altar of "unwashed phenomenon" who used her and had already married somebody else and got a child in the meantime? O.K. she also married somebody else, so perhaps all was forgotten and she simply enjoyed doing the songs she remembered being created. In fact, she adds never-recorded original.

Many of us had our first contact with Dylan trough Joan Baez - considering that he was covered by many far more commercial artists (Sonny & Cher anyone?) Baez actually has some credibility here even though nitpicking critics loved pointing that its not "the same" and she lacked bite, fire and irony of the originals. Well, who didn't? Composer himself is so idiosyncratic that there is no point of trying to sound like him (and she certainly can, jokingly imitating him in "Children and all that Jazz" much later). What Baez does here is transporting famous originals into country language, backed by Nashville musicians and she actually sounds very relaxed, with far less soaring vocals than earlier. You actually hear almost country-rock here, the first time ever that I find drums on Joan Baez album ("Dear landlord", "Walkin' down the line") not to mention she sounds just fine as always. When people complain that she prettified Dylan songs, I find no fault with that - she was far superior singer and her interpretations happen to be more accessible. Music lives on trough different variations and interpretations so these excellent songs simply found another voice. Background story left aside, I find this album very enjoyable and truth to be told I might even prefer her versions to originals.