Early Years: The First Albums 1959-61 (CD) – Joan Baez

Joan Baez is one of the most revered and important names in contemporary folk music, a pioneer of the protest movement in the 1960 alongside Bob Dylan and others, and an artist whose peerless voice and highly personal way with a song has influenced countless folk performers who have followed in her wake over the decades. Born in Staten Island, NYC, in 1941 of Mexican and Scottish decent, she moved around the country with her parents – her scientist father worked for UNESCO – and embraced many social causes. She encountered Pete Seeger in her early teens, and was inspired by his style of music, and when her father took a position at MIT in Boston in 1958, she became heavily involved in the folk scene there, giving her first concerts that year. In 1959, with two other folk enthusiasts, she recorded a number of songs in a friend’s cellar, and that became the album “Folk Singers Round Harvard Square”, from which all the titles featuring Joan are included here. She was invited to perform at the 1959 Newport Folk Festival” which led to her signing with Vanguard Records, and her first two albums for Vanguard from 1960 and 1961, “Joan Baez” and “Joan Baez Vol. 2”, which comprise the rest of this collection. They feature Joan accompanying herself on guitar as she performs selections of mainly traditional songs, arranged and adapted by her to suit her highly distinctive style, and they provided the platform from which her extraordinary performing and recording career developed. Recorded while she was still a teenager, the collection offers an enjoyable and captivating insight into her already highly developed talent.

Track List

1. Banks of the Ohio
2. O What a Beautiful City
3. Sail Away Ladies
4. Black Is the Colour
5. Lowlands
6. What You Gonna Call Your Pretty Little Baby
7. Kitty
8. So Soon in the Morning
9. Careless Love
10. Don’t Weep After Me
11. Silver Dagger
12. East Virginia
13. Fare Thee Well (10000 Miles)
14. House of the Rising Sun
15. All My Trials
16. Wildwood Flower
17. Donna Donna
18. John Riley
19. Rake and Rambling Boy
20. Little Moses
21. Mary Hamilton
22. Henry Martin
23. El Preso Número Nueve
24. Wagoner’s Lad
25. The Trees They Do Grow High
26. The Lily of the West
27. Silkie (Child No.113)
28. Engine 143
29. Once I Knew a Pretty Girl
30. Lonesome Road
31. Banks of the Ohio
32. Pal of Mine
33. Barbara Allen (Child No. 84)
34. The Cherry Tree Carol (Child No. 54)
35. Old Blue
36. Railroad Boy
37. Plaisir D’amour