Joan Baez – Gulf Winds (1976/2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 45:11 minutes | 1008 MB | Genre: Folk
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © A&M

After recording for the folk label Vanguard for more than a decade, Baez moved to A&M. On this label debut, she maintained her interest in country music, recording in Nashville with some of the city’s session aces. She also continued to dedicate herself to radical politics, from her set opener “Prison Trilogy,” which pledged, “We’re gonna raze the prisons to the ground,” to the closer, John Lennon’s “Imagine.” In between were her call on Bob Dylan to return to protest music (“To Bobby”) and her sister Mimi Farina’s touching tribute to Janis Joplin, “In the Quiet Morning.” – William Ruhlmann
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Joan Baez – Folksingers ‘Round Harvard Square (1959/2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 40:07 minutes | 414 MB | Genre: Folk
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © RevOla

Folksingers ‘Round Harvard Square is the first album featuring Joan Baez. The album was recorded by Stephen Fassett in Boston, May 1959 with Joan Baez, Bill Wood and Ted Alevizos. Only six of the eighteen tracks on this album were solos by Baez. In 1963, an unauthorized reissue of the album was released on Squire Records as The Best of Joan Baez (minus the four tracks that did not contain Baez’ vocals), but was withdrawn after Baez took legal action against it (by which time the album had already made the top-fifty on the U.S. albums charts).
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Joan Baez – Diva Of The Folk Revival: Early Days And Late, Late, Nights Vol 2 (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 01:27:40 minutes | 494 MB | Genre: Folk
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © RevOla

Joan Chandos Baez (/baɪz/; born January 9, 1941) is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and activist. Her contemporary folk music often includes songs of protest and social justice. Baez has performed publicly for over 60 years, releasing over 30 albums. Fluent in Spanish and English, she has also recorded songs in at least six other languages.
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Joan Baez – Diamonds & Rust (1975/2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 41:49 minutes | 933 MB | Genre: Folk
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © A&M

Joan Baez’s landmark Diamonds & Rust found her at the peak of her singer/songwriter skills, seemingly capable of transitioning out of ’60s protest mode into a more contemporary and commercially viable position. It was also around this time that she toured with Bob Dylan’s Rolling Thunder Revue, and according to Baez’s memoirs, she wrote the songs for Gulf Winds during that tour. But Gulf Winds, her last A&M album, was a significant drop off and marked the beginning of what would be a steep commercial decline. Produced by David Kershenbaum, the album tries its best to bolster Baez with a timely ’70s studio sound, but for the most part it misses the mark. The songs just aren’t up to the task. “Sweeter for Me” sports a nice arppegiated piano by Baez and faintly harks to the melancholy brilliance of Diamonds & Rust, but, lyrically, most of the material is overwritten. The more stinging, faster-paced “O Brother!” is a more successful stab at a commercial sound, and Baez sings it with a bitter venom (you can’t help but speculate that the song refers to Dylan himself). The standout track on an otherwise forgettable album, though, is surely the title track, “Gulf Winds,” a ten-and-a-half-minute solo epic in the mold of her early work, just Joan and her acoustic guitar, brilliantly picked and sung, ironically demonstrating that, although Baez still had the talent, she couldn’t capitalize on the success of Diamonds and Rust and the times were passing her by. – Jim Esch
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Joan Baez – Come From The Shadows (1972/2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 43:04 minutes | 969 MB | Genre: Folk
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © A&M

With the Vietnam War winding down, Joan Baez, who had devoted one side of her last album to her trip to Hanoi, delivered the kind of commercial album A&M Records must have wanted when it signed her three years earlier. But she did it on her own terms, putting together a session band of contemporary jazz veterans like Larry Carlton, Wilton Felder, and Joe Sample, and mixing a wise selection from the work of current singer-songwriters like Jackson Browne and John Prine with pop covers of Stevie Wonder and the Allman Brothers Band, and an unusually high complement of her own writing. A&M, no doubt recalling the success of her cover of the Band’s “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down,” released her version of the Allmans’ “Blue Sky” as a single, and it got halfway up the charts. But the real hit was the title track, a self-penned masterpiece on the singer’s favorite subject, her relationship with Bob Dylan. Outdoing the current crop of confessional singer/songwriters at soul baring, Baez sang to Dylan, reminiscing about her ’60s love affair with him intensely, affectionately, and unsentimentally. It was her finest moment as a songwriter and one of her finest performances, period, and when A&M finally released it on 45, it made the Top 40, propelling the album to gold status. But those who bought the disc for “Diamonds & Rust” also got to hear “Winds of the Old Days,” in which Baez forgave Dylan for abandoning the protest movement, as well as the jazzy “Children and All That Jazz,” a delightful song about motherhood, and the wordless vocals of “Dida,” a duet with Joni Mitchell accompanied by Mitchell’s backup band, Tom Scott and the L.A. Express. The cover songs were typically accomplished, making this the strongest album of Baez’s post-folk career. – William Ruhlmann
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Joan Baez – Ballads of a Lonesome Wildwood Flower (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 01:24:08 minutes | 932 MB | Genre: Folk
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Jube Legends

Six decades after becoming a regular on the coffee house scene that was emerging around Club 47 in Cambridge, MA, Joan Baez determined that “2018 will be my last year of formal extended touring.” With her 2017 Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame induction topping off a lifetime of awards and honors for her recordings and human rights achievements around the globe, the symmetry of Joan’s decision reverberates. “I’m looking forward to being on the road with a beautiful new album about which I am truly proud,” she said. “I welcome the oppor¬tun¬ity to share this new music as well as longtime favorites with my audiences around the world.”
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