Joan Baez - Any Day Now
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Free Music Notes for Any Day Now
Free Music Review: A solid cover album and an intimate tribute
Hit: 4 Stars
Any Day Now finds Joan Baez backed by a decidedly pop ensemble, covering the 60's folk and folk-rock songs of her one-time lover Bob Dylan. As is often the case with cover albums, some of the songs hit harder and better than others, but Baez couldn't have chosen a better oeuvre to sample, so most of the lulls are due to performance issues. All in all, though, if you like Joan Baez and/or Bob Dylan, Any Day Now is a great choice.
As the album opens, it's clear that this music is not the stripped-down folk that typifies earlier Baez recordings. She's accompanied by steel guitar, drums, electric guitar and...sitar? It's interesting to hear Joan backed by a pop ensemble and, for the most part, it works.
The less-convincing numbers on this album are mainly due to Baez's choice of songs. It's not that the songs are bad, they just don't fit her as well as they could. For instance, Baez's calculated, classic, vibrato-heavy singing voice has a little trouble relaxing the way Dylan would on "You Ain't Goin' Nowhere." "Live Minus Zero/No Limit" is slightly bizarre, since it's sung about a woman, as is "Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands." The latter was an epic, mysterious love song on Blonde on Blonde, but for Baez it makes you wonder why she's singing an 11+ minute love song to a woman. "Tears Of Rage," though it's admirable that Baez makes an artistic risk to sing the entire tune a cappella isn't all successful--this version doesn't come close to touching The Band's definitive rendition, or even Gene Clark's excellent version (from White Light).
Though Baez doesn't perfectly match up with some of Dylan's songs, she breathes new life and meaning into several of them. She brings gritty reality to the dark ballad "North Country Blues," and her arrangement brings new narrative life and emotion to the classic "Boots of Spanish Leather." Likewise, she chooses some lesser-known Dylan songs like "Love is Just a Four-Letter Word," "Walls of Redwing" and "Walkin' Down the Line," that bring a few surprises and mix things up a bit.
Any Day Now was originally a double album--it's great that it all fits onto one disc, even with two (disposable) bonus tracks to boot. Overall, I think it's a worthwhile album, with some excellent interpretations of Dylan's songs that occasionally brings them into new, unique light.
Free Music Review: Baez does Dylan
Hit: 4 Stars
Bob Dylan, the Voice of His Generation, a poet whose lyrics are now included in the Oxford Book of American Verse(!) along with T S Eliot, did most of his greatest work in the early sixties. Four albums that changed music for all time. He was a nobody from the Midwest, playing backup harmonica to Fred Neil in Greenwich Village when suddenly his pen (or typewriter) caught fire and he started to write the songs that would Define his Age.
The very popular Joan Baez was an early champion of his music and introduced the unknown Dylan to the folk world. They were friends and briefly lovers. Dylan started writing song after song, to some large extent under the influence of popular substances of the day. He would bang out new songs on his typewriter. Joan came over one day and found a dirty paper with these lyrics lying on the floor and told him "this is good, can I use it?" Dylan nodded and went on typing. Sometime after Joan version of "Love is Just a Four-Letter Word" came out, a blitzed Dylan told her "Hey Joan, that's a pretty good song". Joan said "You should like it, you wrote it!"
The version on this album remains, to me, the definitive version and one of the best Dylan song Joan Baez ever sang.
Free Music Review: ole opry bias?
Hit: 3 Stars
However dated, all-american value has to last, in view of Baez' own too sparced album-release schedule nowadays. Neatly and lavishly packaged and augmented with at least 2 live tracks, the remastered double-LP-on-one-CD release may yield but 2 objections. First: compressed, kinda robbed of dynamics sound quality due either to the sourced analog tape or super bit mapping process employed to liven it up. Secondly, all her reissue activity considered, the 10th album hardly qualifies for reissue at all as doing no justice to Baez' brilliant folksy balladeer side (there was none to the Dylan-induced stampede-measured Nashville-produced material). Baez-wise, one should, first thing, get hold of the rest of them from Vanguard Records and other her labels. The program's obvious winner "Love Is Just A Four Letter Word" might stand on its own, but not within conext of Baez' discography. Regrettably, 2 live-in-Japan numbers are even more bland, thrown in for the sake of... I don't know what.Free Music Review: ok, not great
Hit: 3 Stars
Joan Baez's voice is gorgeous, but the songs are a mixed bag. As a result this is not one of her great albums. Some good cuts, but on the whole a bit disappointing --I'd rather hear that beautiful voice singing some better songs.
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