The Styrous® Viewfinder: Joan

February 7, 2014

101 Reel-to-Reel Tapes 38: Joan Baez ~ Joan

In addition to my 20,000 Vinyl LP collection I'm selling (see link below), I have reel-to-reel, pre-recorded tapes I am selling as well.

This entry is about the reel-to-reel tape, Joan, by Joan Baez, which was up for sale on eBay (see link below). If interested, contact me by email but please, not through a comment.

~ ~ ~

This is the 1967 album by Joan Baez. Having exhausted the standard voice/guitar folksong format, Baez collaborated with composer Peter Schickele on an album of orchestrated covers of mostly then-current pop and rock and roll songs. Works by Donovan, Paul Simon, Tim Hardin, the Beatles, and Richard Fariña were included, as well as selections by Jacques Brel and Edgar Allan Poe.

Joan Baez ~ Joan
reel-to-reel tape
Album cover photographer unknown

photo of tape bos by Styrous®

According to the liner notes on the 2003 reissue, in the cover photo of Baez, she was actually lying down. A candid photo taken during recording sessions while she was resting between songs was spun around so it looked as though she was sitting or standing upright.

Joan Baez ~ Joan reel-to-reel tape back cover

photo by Styrous®

The song, Children of Darkness, was a tribute to Baez's brother-in-law, novelist and musician Richard Fariña, who had been killed in a motorcycle accident the year before.

Joan Baez ~ Joan reel-to-reel tape back cover detail

detail photo by Styrous®

La Colombe (The Dove) starts with cello and orchestra and is a dramatic musical exercise in the injustice suffered by many people in the world. It has the same intensity as the refrain from the song, Marat, We're Poor, from the stage play, The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade (link to song below).

Joan Baez ~ Joan reel-to-reel tape

photo by Styrous®

The Greenwood Side is a traditional folk melody and a lovely tune. Baez plays solo guitar which nicely showcases her beautiful voice.

Baez sings two Tim Hardin songs, The Lady Came from Baltimore and If You Were a Carpenter. Lady is a beautiful piece with an excellent orchestral backing about a man who starts out to rob Susan Moore (the Lady) but winds up falling in love with her. But it is Carpenter that I love the best. With its tinkly piano and vocal intro, it goes into a moderately but gentle train beat; and the inciteful refrain,

"I've given you my onliness,

Come give me your tomorrows"

is the most poignant of all love refrains I have ever heard and is sadly lacking in so many love affairs in our world today.