Audio CD review:
Joan Baez - Bowery Songs

Joan Baez - Bowery Songs

Band: Joan Baez Title: Bowery Songs Rating: Release Date: 06 September, 2005 Media: Audio CD Tracks: 1: Finlandia 2: Rexroth's Daughter 3: Deportee (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos) 4: Joe Hill 5: Christmas In Washington 6: Farwell, Angelina 7: Motherland 8: Carrickfergus 9: Jackaroe 10: Seven Curses 11: Dink's Song 12: Silver Dagger 13: It's All Over Now, Baby Blue 14: Jerusalem

Editoral Review The song serves as the thematic linchpin of Bowery Songs, a live album that testifies to the power of music to transform, uplift, and heal. "Come back, Woody Guthrie," sings Joan Baez in Steve Earle's "Christmas in Washington," a lament for (among other things) the days when music really said and meant something. Baez not only revisits the spirits of Guthrie (on "Deportee") and "Joe Hill," she finds a renewal of such spirit in the contemporary songwriting of Earle (whose "Jerusalem" closes the album) and Natalie Merchant ("Motherland"). As one might expect from Baez in concert, she also mixes a selection of early Bob Dylan with traditional fare, bringing a lovely lift to the Irish balladry of "Carrickfergus" and soaring vocals to "Dink's Song. " After more than four decades of recording, Baez's voice remains more impressive for its purity than expressive in range and depth (her pretty rendition of Dylan's "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" seems to miss the bitter point). Except for a dedication to Michael Moore and a few thank-yous, the album eliminates all between-song patter, letting the material speak for itself. --Don McLeese More Joan Baez Joan Baez Any Day Now The Complete A&M Recordings .. You can see a complete list of all Joan Baez discography, or go back to the Joan Baez tabs