Joan Baez - Joan Baez in Concert, Pt. 1

Immaculately beautiful

Joan Baez' third album "In Concert Part One" remains the quintessential album of the 1960s folk revival and stands on its own as a remarkably beautiful piece of music. Although recorded in the 1960s, its atmosphere is surprisingly dark and haunting throughout and satnds up very well to almost a half-century of time.

Baez' beautiful voice was at no point so intense or powerful as it was on "In Concert Part One". On some songs, such as "Gospel Ship" and "Kumbaya", she is truly tearful yet sings with a beauty so genuine it will live in your mind forever after one or two listens. Although her version of "Matty Groves" does not quite match the astonishing rendition from Liege and Lief, it still tells a brutal tale. Malvina Reynolds' "What Have They Done to the Rain", on the other hand, was Baez' first move into the realm of the protest song yet is remarkably touching and intimate with its simple yet powerful metaphor of the grass dying from poisoned rainwater.

The dark, despairing imagery is blackest on "House Carpenter's Daughter", "Geordie" and "Copper Kettle", which are further proof of the amazingly touching yet beautiful imagery of traditional folk that proved the richest of veins for such artists as Fairport Convention and Steeleye Span during the 1970s.

All Joan Baez albums up to the oft-misunderstood Baptism are worth owning, but there is little doubt "In Concert Part One" is the finest hour of her career. Anyone interested in traditional folk song should own this album. May 31, 2008

Great listening!

I was thrilled to recieve the Joan Baez CD. Listening to that exquisite voice brought back a rush of pure nostalgia...and the recording is sheer pleasure....thank you very much indeed! September 18, 2007

Joan Baez, a first meeting

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. August 22, 2005

Joan Baez at her very best. Buy It

`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.
June 26, 2005

QUINTESSENTIAL EARLY JOAN BAEZ...

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". March 8, 2004

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