Joan Baez
an album by the real Joan Baez
[1960]
[Live audio visual] Barbara Allen. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFHTJ08U_Fg [audio] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AWjJ7F2_hI&feature=related
[Live audio visual] I Will Never Marry http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYTNatfCjN0
Hush Little Baby http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLBaSDk-feI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDQlH4gw2Eo
1. Silver Dagger
2. East Virginia
3. Fare Thee Well (Or Then Thousand Miles)
4. House Of The Rising Sun
5. All My Trials
During the social protest movements of the 1950s and 1960s "All My Trials"
became a popular folk song . It is based on a Bahamian lullaby about a mother on
her death bed, comforting her children, "Hush little baby, don't you cry. You
know your mama's bound to die," because, as she explains, "All my trials, Lord,
Soon be over." The underlying message - this too shall pass; that no matter how
bleak the situation seemed, the struggle would "soon be over" - lifted this song
to the status of an anthem and was recorded by many of the leading artists of
the era. The song is usually classified as a spiritual because of its biblical
references and religious imagery.
Hush little baby, don't you cry
You know your mama was born to die
All my trials, Lord, soon be over
The river of Jordan is muddy and cold
Well it chills the body but not the soul
All my trials, Lord, soon be over
I've got a little book with pages three
And every page spells liberty
All my trials, Lord, soon be over
Too late, my brothers
Too late, but never mind
All my trials, Lord, soon be over
If living were a thing that money could buy
Then the rich would live and the poor would die
All my trials, Lord, soon be over
There grows a tree in Paradise
And the pilgrims call it the Tree of Life
All my trials, Lord, soon be over
Too late, my brothers
Too late, but never mind
All my trials, Lord, soon be over
All my trials, Lord, soon be over
8. John Riley
9. Rake and Rambling Boy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdzWSdKDW-c
11. Mary Hamilton
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oh9_jdmcAhY
12. Henry Martin
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcrNySdHKDQ
14. Girl Of Constant Sorrow
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HEEqiBVEic
15. I Know You Rider
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VcpiV2Ug4eI
16. John Riley
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmM_9CF0rBI
A fair young maid all in her garden,
A strange young man comes passing by
Saying fair maid, will you marry me
And this answer was her reply
No kind sir, I cannot marry thee
For I've a love who sails all on the sea
He's been gone for seven years
But still no man will I marry
Well what if he's in some battle slain
Or drowned in the deep salt sea
Or what if he's found another love
And he and his love both married be?
If he's in some battle slain
I will die, when the moon doth wane
And if he's drowned in the deep salt sea
I'll be true to his memory
And if he's found another love
And he and his love both married be
Then I wish them health and happiness
Where they now dwell across the sea
He picked her up all in his arms
And kisses gave her one two and three
Saying weep no more my own true love
I am your long lost John Riley.
Similar:
AMERICAN MASTERS : Joan Baez: How Sweet the Sound.
Joan Baez performs The Carter Family's "I Will Never Marry."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYTNatfCjN0
AMERICAN MASTERS : Joan Baez: How Sweet the Sound.
Joan Baez performs "Barbara Allen."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFHTJ08U_Fg
http://www.1000recordings.com/music/joan-baez/
Near the end of "East Virginia," one of fifteen traditional songs Joan Baez interprets on her debut album, there's an unexpected display of musicianship. Baez has been singing in full, almost loud, voice when suddenly she drops into pianissimo and modulates her guitar accompaniment accordingly. She handles most of the transfixing final verses this way, not in a stage whisper exactly, but a muted, death-pondering voice.
Such dynamic contrasts, common in classical music, happen much less frequently in folk. Baez uses the hush to heighten the already dramatic narrative. Her framing of the tale—another in the long line of bitter odes about unrequited love—becomes as riveting as the story itself.
That attention to detail turns up throughout this influential debut. At the dawn of the 1960s, the singers associated with the "folk revival" were thinking big thoughts and concerning themselves with rattling the populace awake. They weren't always thinking about fine points like dynamics. That's one reason Baez was so important: Leaving the hectoring to others, she brought texture and contrast and subtlety to the coffeehouse.
Recorded in the summer of 1960, when she was nineteen, Joan Baez presents the singer's calm, crystalline soprano on a program of tragic ballads and lullabies. A dedicated student of American music, Baez developed highly personal treatments of traditional songs—her arrangement of "I Know You Rider" is said to have inspired the Grateful Dead to explore the tune. And those who know the Stanley Brothers' "Man of Constant Sorrow" from O Brother, Where Art Thou? will be enchanted by Baez's rendering. "Girl of Constant Sorrow"—which was left off the original album and appears as a bonus track on the 2001 reissue—gives that eternal melody a slightly different, but no less woeful, spin.
Genre:
Folk
Released: 1960, Vanguard (Reissued 2001)
Key Tracks: "East Virginia," "House of the Rising Sun," "Mary
Hamilton," "John Riley," "I Know You Rider"