Joan Baez (album)

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Joan Baez
Studio album by Joan Baez
Released	November 1960
Recorded	Manhattan Towers Hotel Ballroom, New York, July 1960
Genre	Folk
Length	46:02
Label	Vanguard
Producer	Maynard Solomon
Professional reviews
Allmusic link
Joan Baez chronology
Folksingers 'Round Harvard Square (1959) Joan Baez (1960) Joan Baez, Vol. 2 (1961)

Joan Baez was singer Joan Baez' 1960 self-titled debut album. The album featured thirteen traditional folk songs, including definitive readings of "All My Trials", "Silver Dagger", and "Fare Thee Well". Though Baez was reportedly offered a contract with Columbia at the time, she chose to go instead with the independent Vanguard label, hoping for increased artistic license, and her instinct seemed to have paid off. Most of the songs featured only Baez' vocals and intricate guitar work, with a second guitar added to a handful of songs. Despite the lack of strings and horns, backup singers and catchy singles, the album went gold and raised Joan Baez to superstar status.

In 1983 Baez described the making of the album to Rolling Stone's Kurt Loder:

"...It took four days. We recorded it in the ballroom of some hotel in New York, way up by the river. We could use the room every day except Tuesday, because they played Bingo there on Tuesdays. It was just me on this filthy rug. There were two microphones, one for the voice and one for the guitar. I just did my set. It was probably all I knew how to do at that point. I did 'Mary Hamilton' once and that was it...That's the way we made 'em in the old days. As long as a dog didn't run through the room or something, you had it..."

In 2001, Vanguard reissued Joan Baez with new liner notes and three previously unreleased songs. (Between 2001 and 2005, they reissued remastered versions of Baez' thirteen original albums with the label.)

[edit] Track listing

1. "Silver Dagger" (traditional)
2. "East Virginia" (traditional)
3. "Fare Thee Well (10,000 Miles)" (traditional)
4. "House of the Rising Sun" (traditional)
5. "All My Trials" (traditional)
6. "Wildwood Flower" (traditional)
7. "Donna Donna" (music: Sholom Secunda; original Yiddish lyric: Aaron Zeitlin; English translation: Arthur Kevess & Teddi Schwartz)
8. "John Riley" (traditional)
9. "Rake and Rambling Boy" (traditional)
10. "Little Moses" (traditional)
11. "Mary Hamilton" (traditional)
12. "Henry Martin" (traditional)
13. "El Preso Número Nueve" (Los Hermanos Cantoral)

[edit] References

• Loder, Kurt (1983). "Joan Baez: The Rolling Stone Interview". Rolling Stone 4/14/83 (issue # 393).