Reviews (page 8 of 8)
kicks like a mule. a very docile mule
She has a beautiful voice on this album and the songs are interesting. I guess this is an example of top form folk singing but I didn’t enjoy it. It was not bad but it didn’t catch me.
Eh. It was fine. I was going back and forth between whether to give it three or four stars. I was originally leaning towards four because of how good Joan Baez's singing is, but man, this album just feels too long.
I've not heard much Joan Baez but this album feels very familiar. The style of singing, the acoustic guitar accompaniment, and even a few of the songs are very much a part of my youth. Joan's voice is better than most of the stuff I grew up with, though, and some of the fingerpicking hits the spot too. When they mesh perfectly it's really enchanting. I'm not above getting a little bored though, particularly in the middle part of the album. I'll relax my 'low marks for all covers' policy a bit as it's sort of the point of the whole folk tradition...
I know JB' music a little bit. Diamonds and Rust is an incredible song, which sadly does not feature on this album. I think this is an album made up of covers only (no original songs), which is obviously not that unusual in the folk circles. There's a good mixture of trad. songs in familiar with, and songs im not. She has a good voice and is a good guitarist, which makes for an enjoyable album albeit not overly memorable
Meh
What a pleasant surprise! Thoroughly enjoyed this, relaxing backing with a really impressive vocal performance on top. Not a 'get shit done' album but fully here for it as one for an after work wind down
Easy listen, I'm not usually into the ethereal ladies voices, but somehow this grabbed me. Interesting how these are all traditional songs -- many of unknown origin. Some of them are first take. Amazing. Reading more into this makes me like it more.
Don’t sign love songs You’ll wake my mother
Sterling voice.
J’aime bien le cote folk rock et la voix. C’est tres bin et ca secoute super bien dans le style. Content d’avoir decouvert cela. 4.75
My black olives again. Everyone loves them but me. I keep trying them, still find them meh. This is Joan Baez for me.
My Mum played a lot of Baez when I was growing up, but, being 10, I never really saw the appeal. This album really clicked for me, though; it's very straightforward, but her pitch-perfect voice and skills as a guitarist elevate it to stratospheric levels. What's more is that it has a level of authenticity and sincerity that's sorely missed in modern music.
very very very pretty voice.
Penso sia un bell'album, mi piace la voce e gli arrangiamenti. Però tende a sembrarmi un po' tutto uguale. Forse leggendo i testi potrebbe essere più appassionante.
Even through these are mostly traditional songs, her voice is lovely and I really enjoyed listening to them.
Simple but effective.
11th January 2022 Listened throughout the day while working from home home. Rosie came over and me and dad watched on her majesty's secret service. Sounds similar to Joni Mitchell, immediate 60s folk vibes. Lovely voice
not a fan, however that might be ebcuase i'm not a complete fan of pure country music
It's surprising how English folk this sounds at first, less so once you find out most of the songs were English/Scottish folk songs. When it's just guitar and voice, you've got to love the voice.... Bet there's no Vashti Bunyan in the 1001
Look, no.
6/10
3.7 - A tasteful selection of folk songs, arranged simply and sung with an undeniably gorgeous voice.
No ty
Beautiful folk album. Stripped back instrumentation shows the strength in the vocals and the lyricism of the stories.
not for me
I don't understand how people enjoy her singing.
expecting to like this. 3-4? Definite 3. a little wailey. Standout is Dona dona dona tho.
It's country. Not my case.
Top Picks: Silver Dagger and House of the Rising Sun. Really liked this one! Obviously very Dylan-esque. Some really nice songs on here and due to the recording techniques used, it managed to capture studio sound with a very live, authentic feel.
good lord, do i hate joan baez. that said, i've always loved wildwood flower, though i generally prefer mike ness' version - or maybe anyone's - over joan's. see: https://open.spotify.com/track/7gMx2U4OEJsgvYbsSRVjvh and donna donna has a kind of a weird place in my heart because of a long-ago relationship with a woman who sang it kind of a lot. i'd never heard it before or since, so it was nice to finally know what the hell it was. apart from that, and i know it's not her fault...i just hate this album, i hate everything i've ever heard by her, and i more or less can't stand her in general. i mean, i assume she's a very nice person, so i guess i should really say i can't stand her voice, her music, or her annoyingly soulful guitar. in the interest of gender-fairness, if you were to look over my other reviews, you'd see me hating just about anyone whose music sounds like hers. just wanted to say that part out loud.
may need to give this another chance
this is one of those albums that are too good to rate I can’t tell you how much I love this kind of folksy music the vocals, the guitar, those nice melodies, it all comes together to create a beautiful, warm atmosphere it reminds me a lot of Vashti Bunyan’s album Just Another Diamond Day (one of my favorite albums ever) I would love to find more albums with this kind of sound Cottage Songs by Naomi Lewis is a pretty nice album, but the genre is a little too different, it still sounds incredible and I love that album, but it could use a little more one on one with her voice and some warm guitar anyway, this album is just too special for me to give a simple 10/10 I really need more music like this
A pleasing folk mix
I enjoy this at first and would have likes to give it 4 stars. It outstayed its welcome though And started to wear on my patience. Still had some nice finger picking but after 45mins I was glad when it finished.
Nice voice and songwriting. Obviously like House of the Rising Sun. Kind of music to fall asleep to
Folk, nije losa, glas tehnika i gitara, zvuci zanimljivo. ali nisam posluso sve, nije legla iz prve niti je moj dir..
Otkak sam prvi put čuo Nikolu i Barta u MGS-u, najdraža si ostala!
Fantastic track list, but I dont like her voice
Sweet voice, not my style of folk.
Really beautiful album. Lots of nice songs
Sounds wildly similar to Joni Mitchell's stuff. In one song she even says 'circle' and it immediately made me think of the Circle Game. Pleasant enough but none of it really stuck out to me. Learned that House of the Rising Sun is essentially on old folk tune that's been adapted by many
6/10
It was ok. Nice to listen to but kinda wanted to listen to other people’s versions
Eh. It was fine. I was going back and forth between whether to give it three or four stars. I was originally leaning towards four because of how good Joan Baez's singing is, but man, this album just feels too long.
solid folk
malinconico, ma si distingue. grande voce
Man I really tried, but folk just isn't for me. Favorite track might be East Virginia
An amazing voice, but Folk is not my thing
Like a less melodic Joni Mitchell who also grates a bit.
Lovely listen
tanto su voz, su música como sus letras son increíblemente bellas. este álbum se merece las cinco estrellas completas, y eso sin olvidar que es su álbum DEBUT.
Every song was catchy
A little low keyed for my tastes. But I can see where Joan was impressing folks.
Все эти бардоские песни не очень, да ещё и высокий громкий женский вокал, не по мне, даже переслушивать не стану.
Queen of the folkies. Acoustic finger picking and powerful vibrato vocals deliver a bunch of traditional folk songs. Best Tracks: Silver Dagger; The House of the Rising Sun; Rake and Rambling Boy
Very much like Joni Mitchell it gets a bit exhausting listening to a whole album with the type of voice she has.
I wish I could say that this was a revelation for me. Maybe it would have been if I were a teenager when it was released but I have to listen through the spectrum of my already established tastes. 4 🌟 just for her angelic voice and the intimate recording.
Some great songs and very talented lady, just not for me.
Were debating between 2 and 3 because her voice is high and can be *grating*. But when she is not doing that, it is really beautiful. Jess also forced this rating
Annoying
Oh fucking Christ, more folk rock. 1/5.
This was a very nice folk album with such a clear and clean sound. I enjoyed how the guitar feels like it's just there to enhance her voice.
Casi 4, pero por El Preso Numero Nueve ...¡¡5!!
3/5 - too much of a wall of sound
Not my thing.
Didn’t hate but didn’t necessarily enjoy either
Classic folk songs sung & played on guitar in a sincere way by artist Joan Baez. The recording for this album is as simple as it gets, but the voice of Joan steals the show and makes a listener think they are hearing one of the specific folk songs for the first time!
Not bad, but a bit too scream-y for me. I'm also not a big fan of vibrato. Didn't hate it, but probably wouldn't listen to it again. I liked the Spanish song the most I think.
A vocally strong folk album. Some of the songs had a story that was a little dark or depressing which was contrary to Baez’s strong voice. It was enjoyed more than expected. 7.6/10
Not for me
Alright I hate folk but this was alright. Her voice is soothing and it sounds like theres background banjo the entire album.
A bit much
Good! Light notes.
I was not familiar with this album and didn't really care for it. There have been better versions of The House of Rising Sun.
Joan's voice is beautiful, but I struggled to get into this album.
Equal parts boring and hypnotic, sometimes at the same time
Didn’t really like it the high notes sounded awful I like folk music but this was something I won’t listen to again
Fantastic folk songs / covers. Can easily come back and listen again
Decent country/folk but too twee and shrill at times
Really not for me. I hope her later stuff is better. I tried but really couldn’t listen to any of the tracks all the way through.
not my thing
It was fine. There is other folk music that I like better
This is the first time I've ever listened to Joan Baez. I surprisingly enjoyed it. She has a very pleasant voice and impressive guitar skills. Some of the songs are depressing but musically engaging. I'll check out some more Joan Baez someday. Wren liked it too.
Sets the tone from the beginning. Wasn’t expecting an album of ballads, and wouldn’t expect to like one, but this is interesting. House of the Rising Sun was great. All in all an enjoyable, relaxing listening experience.
Déjà que j'ai beaucoup souffert à entendre mon père répéter ses gammes de piano dans le salon tous les jours pendant des années, je n'arrive même pas à imaginer ce que Joan Baez a pu endurer avec Bob Dylan à la place.
I thought I wasn't gonna like this but you know what? First song is really pretty. I like her voice. I feel like Mandy Moore probably loves the hell out of this woman. But seriously I'm surprised I've never really listened to her. This is lovely. Makes me very calm. Sometimes she veers into sea shanty vibes lol. Bitch even sings in Spanish! This is dope. I'm gonna give it a 4/5 not cause it was one of my favorite albums but it's really good for the genre I think.
Joni Mitchell vibes with all the story telling
Very Great Album
A very young sounding JB. Before she went big she apparently was a vanilla folk singer. Glad she grew into it
Man, I know she's an American treasure and all, but I cannot appreciate these vocals. The song-writing and lyrical content is great, however.
I'm a recovering wanna-be hippie (Gen X, so not a real hippie) so I know that in that culture Joan Baez was enormous. I think she's a super-cool and interesting person, I can appreciate her powerful voice, but...just never really enjoyed her music. (Sorry, my dear fellow aging tie-dyed folk!)
The worst
Great lyrics, not my favorite voice
Lovely and haunting, spare and magnificent.
Very calm and relaxing. Every song sounds like it should be in a Disney movie.
j'aurai jamais ecouté ce truc et quelle perte ça aurait été, 4/5
Не нравится любовная лирика
Не мое. Видно профессионализм, но такая музыка не для отдыха или расслабления. Сложный мелодичный ряд. Голос и стиль на любителя. Бормотание, монолог под музыку, сложно и неоднозначно
Pleasant background listening. Not interesting enough for the foreground though.
super 60s this innit. you can positively smell the flower children. i'm sympathetic to fingerpicking acoustic guitar, there's a time and place for it, it's great background music.
Everything sounds the same. Pretty voice, though
zawodzenie, 2/10
Simplistic and religious. Boring.
Fair warning: generally, I loathe folk music with a passion. I'm actually neutral on hip hop and rap--stop snickering. Really. I mean, if someone came out with a great rap album tomorrow, I'd be the first to say so. But folk--especially the early 60s folk revival--look, my mom listened to Ian and Sylvia and the Kingston Trio nonstop when I was a toddler and it scarred me for life. Genre per se is rarely a barrier for me, but I'll make an exception for folk. Which is all to say that I make not give this album a fair shake. You've been warned. Sure enough, Joan Baez's debut album is pretty awful, but not for the reasons I would have expected. I was tempted to begin with praise because Baez actually has pretty decent taste -- she's curated a bunch of solid tunes from various folk traditions, and her voice is strong, but no. Baez has zero interpretive skills. She approaches every tune the exact same way--not counting shifts in dynamics and an irritating vibrato--and ends up flattening the entire folk tradition into an amorphous blob. She sounds exactly like what she is--a middle class white woman with negligible life experience. She drains the blood out of every song she sings and proudly presents the bleached white corpse like it's some kind of accomplishment. Actually, I'm glad I reviewed this album because now I understand why I loathed early 60s folk as a kid. Acts like Ian and Sylvia and the Kingston Trio and yes, Joan Baez, made their living by homogenizing and whitewashing any number of musical traditions that are well worth hearing. I'm sure Joan Baez had good and pure intentions, but she ends up loving this music to death.
Music from the West of the states that gives 1800 vibes. Powerful voice of Joan Baez and a rich scale of tones.
2/5 there were some good songs, but only a few
So folksy.
.
I'd shag her
Dennis Bergkamp
I thought this was going to be perfect listening for a slightly hungover Sunday morning but her voice is far too shrill for my tastes, I only made it halfway through.
Really want to give this 0. What a trash album.
Horrible
What a beautiful guitar player with a stunning voice.
Amazing vocals and writing
not really my taste in music. the singing was very high pitched and light and airy with a thin backing track. not really what i like
The songs were OK but it sounds like it was being sung by a strangled cat.
3/5
Muy folk y muy 69
Gute Geschichten, muss man schon zuhören. Vielleicht etwas zu viel klare Schönheit in der Stimme.Ungebrochen und daher nur 1.9
Hach, die singende Säge ... aber immerhin nicht ganz so schlimm wie befürchtet. 1,7
“Joan Baez” by Joan Baez (1960) I don’t know what you were doing in 1960, but with this album, Joan Baez was launching her career as a folk icon. Actually, she wasn’t. She was simply singing beautiful traditional folk ballads and laments with her inimitable voice and deftly executed acoustic stylings. Her ‘career’ was simply the loving conversation that the world had with her musical magic. This recording is both tasteful and tasty in its simplicity, its resonance, and its depth. Her lyrics, melodies, and chord structures are all, of course, features of well-selected traditional folk songs (Her songwriting would come later). But it’s what she did with these songs that yanked on the heartstrings of millions—and still does. Vocally, her characteristic rapid vibrato over an equally characteristic sonorous timbre wrings every drop of passion out of the poetry. When she attacks the melody in her upper register, she freezes the listener in his tracks, like the ears of a deer caught in the headlights. Her dynamic variation is frightening—going from soft and sweet to a powerful wail in the space of a skipped heartbeat. Accompanying herself on acoustic guitar, she chooses and performs fingerings and fills that are perfectly suited to each composition. Beginning guitarists would be well advised to listen to her, learn, practice, and aspire—in that order. This was Joan Baez’ first album. Most tracks were recorded in one take, with voice and guitar together. No dubbing. No effects. No frills. Folks, this is as pure as folk music gets. 5/5
Great vocalist
Stunning iconic voice
✌️
Nicht für mich
too folk
Such a beautiful first album from the goddess of folk. Totally forgot that House Of The Rising Son was on her debut. Hard not to get emotional on All My Trials or Girl Of Constant Sorrow, and have some peyote and run around like a kid in the fields of Walnut Grove as school lets out on Wildwood Flower. I would have loved to be on the hillside listening in at Woodstock when she was 6 months pregnant and missing her husband who was in a Texas prison for refusing to fight in the Vietnam War. There is a reason that a passion for folk songwriting is in my soul, and I know that Joan had something to do with it. Tip of the hat to present era folk troubadours like Colin Meloy who continue to water the flowers that Baez planted.
Great singer, too folky for me
it's good in a weird way. me likes it.
The Queen of folk according to sam's dad
A very soft and intimate album... Like you're sitting in someone's living room or around a fire and listening to them tell you stories. Thoroughly enjoyed. Favorite Tracks(s): "Silver Dagger," "House of the Rising Sun," and "Henry Martin"
Clearly has a pretty voice... but the hummingbird droning at the end of each note gets old.
I was very surprised when I heard woman of constant sorry and house of the rising sun on this album. She has a beautiful voice that fits so well with the genre she was playing
Proof that simplicity does not mean something has to be dull or uninspiring.
Folk. Agradable.
Baez isn't, and has never been, my kind of thing. She's too earnest.
goodone, very nice record, the spanish track was a great find
Joan Baez has a beautiful voice. this is a great collection of folk covers
not for me
House of the Rising Sun
Love her. Her voice is haunting and so gripping. I've only heard this first album a couple of times, so it's a nice revisit.
The voice of an angel. Beautiful. Never listened to her first record before; I mostly spin Diamonds and Rust.
Love her or not, Baez is definitely one of the foundational pillars of modern folk in America.
eh
Archetypal folk! She has an amazing voice, but I'm not so keen on the vibratto (if that's the word) technique she uses in most of the songs. Fave track - Toss up between "House of the Rising Sun" (which has a really interesting wikipedia page!) and "Girl of Constant Sorrow"
I didn't make it to the end of the album. Not for me.
Nice voice but pretty boring songs. 5/10
i see how people would like this, but not for me.
I very much enjoyed it. Didn’t know House of the Rising Sun was a Baez jam.
Enjoyed!
Beautiful renditions of some classic songs. Interesting to read about how it was recorded in a hotel with just Joan and an acoustic guitar. Highlights: -East Virginia -House of the Rising Sun -I Know You Rider
Chill
Fav: East Virginia, Donna Donna, Henry Martin
URGH. sksjfbruqiehrjr. no comment
Insufferable
i don’t hate it but it’s boring as fuck
Liked it well enough, but a little same-y. Would be 3.5 if I could
rich east coast 20 year old sings folk
I've enjoyed it, calm and nice.
Obviously a pinnacle talent in this genre, though I think her style meshes better with some songs (Silver Dagger, John Riley), but can't quite carry others (House of the Rising Sun) where her singing is just too refined and frankly pretty for the content of the lyrics.
A modern folk touchstone. Those pipes!
Beautiful songs
Beautiful in its simplicity is something I've said on previous albums but this is another perfect example. Folk that I can get behind. Nothing more beautiful than a person and their guitar. Great cover of House of the Rising Sun.
I just have never enjoyed her fluttery voice. Not my style.
Great voice but the songs were so boring
I know what they are trying to do and I think they are doing it well. I just am not a fan.
Good. Not really my style.
Simply good, great classic songs and arrangements
Very pleasantly surprised.
Hmmm
7.2
Beautiful voice, and some good tracks. Overall wouldn't listen to much again.
Nice enough, couple of pretty good covers in there. Probably wouldn't look it out.
An artist I know, but never really listened to.
Interesting sound, love the House of the Rising Sun cover
Unlistenable. This sounds like Woodstock and the Renaissance Fair had a baby.
what a voice
1/10
3.1
pretty voice and good music but not my style
Well produced cover album, not my usual style but quite nice.
Not bad Joan, not bad!
Very Joni Mitchell-esque chilled-out folk vibes. I liked it, probably not going to revisit anytime soon.
Not bad. Not always my style, but I liked the songs in Spanish.
Great voice. Had memories of the Carpenters with more a country/folk twist.
acoustic guitar and solo voice, very mellow
Not awful, but not for me. Grates a bit. Gets boring. Didn't get through it.
Beautiful voice. Meaningful messages.
Not as unpleasant as I feared.
Reminds me a lot of Joni Mitchell. Definitely something I want to listen to when I'm sad. Gets worse as it goes on, too much vibrato and volume increase in the upper register
Great mix of genres, like social part of the songs
Pretty sure every song was the same
1960. Key Songs: Fare Thee Well, Donna Donna
Joan's voice is incredibly clear and bright. The album is mastered so well for something as old as it is. This is gorgeous, very stripped folk music that highlights an incredible voice.
great