Not doing what she does best

May 25, 1994
Issue 
144
General

No‰l
Joan Baez
Vanguard
Hits/Greatest & Others
Joan Baez
Vanguard
Reviewed by Allen Myers

I am told that someone recollects, they think, that Joan Baez has become quite a political conservative — even supporting Reagan in the '80s, according to one account. I have deliberately not researched this matter.

If it's true, I don't want to know about it. Similarly, if you find a letter in which J.S. Bach advocated burning heretics or increasing taxes on the peasantry, please keep it to yourself.

Joan Baez was certainly associated with the youth radicalisation of the 1960s, but no-one mistook her for a political guru — or if they did, their blunder doesn't matter. We listened to Joan Baez because she sang beautifully. We would have listened even if she'd been singing non-political songs.

That said, the political ballad is particularly suited to her voice, in a way that most of the songs on these albums, in my view, are not.

It's not that her voice has faded over the years. On the contrary; if anything, it's even better. I got out some old recordings for comparison and — even allowing for scratchy old LPs — it's true: it's now a more controlled, rounder, fuller voice.

Okay, I've never been fond of Christmas carols, even when they're sung by a Joan Baez. That accounts for No‰l. The ambiguously titled Hits/Greatest & Others (which tracks are which? in whose opinion?) includes several Beatles numbers, plus "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" and a bit of Kris Kristofferson, Paul Simon, Bob Dylan and contemporaries, mostly in country and western mood. That's better than carols, but it's still not the best showcase for Joan Baez.

Part of the problem on both albums is that there's too much band behind her: you don't buy a Joan Baez album to listen to instrumental music. The other disappointment is the lack of feeling. I don't know whether she really felt strongly about the '60s ballads, but she sure as hell sounded like she did. But would anybody believe it if she put some emotion into "The Brand New Tennessee Waltz"?

Joan Baez is still a beautiful singer. It's a pity she doesn't do more of what she does best.

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