The folk legend that became one of the voices and stars of the 60's folk movement is coming to the end of an extensive spring tour of the UK. There's no support act and the nostalgic show starts with Joan just on her own on stage. She smiles at us and opens with 'God Is God' and that one of a kind soprano voice fills the seated arena.
Baez has been the voice of political causes for over 53 years now, and 'Be Not Too Hard' with the charged line, "Be not too hard when he blindly dies, fighting for things he does not own." Instantly reminds me of Vietnam, the song is the opening one from her album 'Joan' released in 1967 the same year Joan was arrested twice for her stance against the war.
She follows it with her famous cover of Dylan's 'Farewell Angelina' and the first chords are met with a ripple of approval as the audience recognise the track.
The accompanying musicians Dirk Powell (guitar) and Gabe Harris (percussion) join her for 'Lily Of The West' before Joan talks to us about the early days before her 30+ albums when she left California, and learnt songs from people playing in coffee shops including 'Railroad Boy' with Dirk providing some terrific mandolin work to accompany it.
Joan explains she was travelling the world, and ended up picking up a lot of songs during her time in the UK, including many traditional ballads, "But, I won't hold that against you, for what your ancestors did" she quips, and launches into the newer 'The Scarlet Tide' by T-Bone Burnett and Elvis Costello best known for the version sung by Alison Krauss from the 2003 film soundtrack for Cold Mountain.
The songs she did to help the early career of Bob Dylan are getting the biggest recognition tonight and 'With God on Our Side' gets another ripple of appreciative recognition. Next up is a surprise, Joan plans the setlists in soundcheck, and the song she's chosen to play she's never sung the song in public before. The song is by Stephen Foster, the "father of American music" who died famous and destitute in 1864 at the age of thirty-eight. His 'Hard Times' contrasts how easy Baez is with her well run through material, and for this her voice sounds exploratory, and she has the lyric sheet with her in case there's a mistake. She explains that she is relieved to have got through it, as the song made her cry each time she tried it rehearsal, it's fascinating that she was prepared to air it tonight.
She's back on more familiar ground with Steve Earle's incredibly powerful 'Jerusalem' from her 2006 album 'Bowery Songs'. Richard Shindell is another singer whose career Baez has boosted and she sings his 'The Ballad of Mary Magdalene' with that powerful voice delivering the lines "long ago I had my work when I was in my prime, but I gave it up, and all for love it was his career or mine."
It seems she's just putting the famous soprano through its paces and after a brief tale about the chaotic days of The Beatles, and a gig at Red Rock where the girls were all screaming and distressed in the throes of Beatlemania she helped as a welfare steward. We're taken back there with her iconic delivery of 'Catch The Wind' and her voice delivers more than words, there's something historic, steeped in history, how many millions of people have been moved by her delivery of this song over the decades?
An introduction to her guitar tech, who works tirelessly throughout the night to perfectly tune her guitars. The 12 fret slothead Martin 0-45JB Joan Baez signature model, of which Martin built only 59 to honour 1959. When they took her original guitar to copy it they found inside the soundbox a note from one of the Martin employees who had repaired it in the '70s saying "too bad you are a communist" inside the soundboard, and all 59 of the 0-45JBs have that inscription inside written backwards so if you use a mirror can you read it.
Joan's vocal ability is extolled in Phil Ochs' 'There But For Fortune', and she explains that one of her visits to London they found her 'Bridge Baez' family Crest in Westminster Abbey descendents from the Dukes of Chandos, and her mother could have been a Duchess apparently.
Tonight Joan completely reworks her 'Swing Low, Sweet Chariot' she made famous during her performance at the legendary 1969 Woodstock festival. Tonight the song she made synonymous with civil rights and her stance against the death penalty in the USA sounds completely unfamiliar. Joan explains that the song was actually originally randomly sent in the post to her.
Her long term backing of political causes continues with another Woodstock song 'Joe Hill' dedicated to the Occupy Movement - "young people prepared to take a risk and they're getting organised despite themselves."
Another song shot full of history is 'House of The Rising Sun' which she recorded in 1960 to appear on her eponymous debut album. Again I'm left wondering, at the end of hearing her amazing voice, how many others have heard her sing that down the years.
Joan mentions the couch on stage and says a few performances ago during the soundcheck the trio found they all knew the next song and so she takes the chance to lounge on it whilst singing Lloyd Price's 'Stagger Lee'. There's something deeply satisfying about seeing Joan Baez, even at 71, lounging on a sofa, tapping her foot.
Last year in an interview Leonard Cohen made an attack on Baez for changing the lyrics of his 'Suzanne' song. Her recording of it saw her reject the line, "For you've touched her perfect body with your mind," for ideological reasons, as Baez felt it was mystical and drug-induced, and it's telling that tonight she sings it with his lines.
Perhaps Joan alludes to this when she talks about another awkward moment when she met country singer Johnny Cash before his marriage to his first wife was officially over, and then delivers live favourite 'The Long Black Veil', followed by another in 'Love Is Just a Four-Letter Word'.
There a departure to Chile, and Violeta Parra's 'Gracias a la Vida' (Thanks to life) a touchstone of the Nueva canción, the socially committed political music of the revolutionary 'hippie' movements of Latin America.
The set is concludes with her own composition 'Diamonds & Rust' a haunting song that many think alludes to her relationship Bob Dylan, and it receives a standing ovation.
She closes the night with a brace of covers The Band's 'The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down', and John Lennon's 'Imagine', and if only it could have been longer, we are left feeling hugely appreciative that's she's graced us with these songs tonight, and still wanting more.
She is surely the world's most famous female interpretive folk singer and after more than fifty years is still going strong. I would not know, but if her voice has lost anything over those decades, if it has it must have truly been something to hear, for tonight it that recognisable iconic sound has transported us back through the eras.
There's little modern tonight but a perfect snapshot of another musical age is perfectly manifested for us tonight, for some to remember with nostalgia for others to wonder in for the first time.
article by: Scott Williams
published: 25/03/2012 12:05
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