Review: Joan Baez - Vol. 2 (1961)

Tracks: 1) Wagoner’s Lad; 2) The Trees They Do Grow High; 3) The Lily Of The West; 4) Silkie; 5) Engine 143; 6) Once I Knew A Pretty Girl; 7) Lonesome Road; 8) Banks Of The Ohio; 9) Pal Of Mine; 10) Barbara Allen; 11) The Cherry Tree Carol; 12) Old Blue; 13) Railroad Boy; 14) Plaisir D’Amour.

REVIEW

It is hopeless to try and be as thorough about Joan’s second album as I tried to be with the first, because in almost every aspect this is a classic case of «more of the same». By 1960, Joan had herself a pretty well fixed and established set list for the stage («The Joan Baez Songbook»), and Vol. 2 simply takes one more chunk out of it — the same general mix of British and North American (or «North Americanized») folk ballads, covering largely the same moods, topics, and musical patterns as its predecessor. And this time, there is no surprise factor to speak of: all of the basic grammatical rules of Joan Baez’ artistic language have been presented the first time around, so all she gets to do here is just expand the vocabulary a bit.

Then again, the album does sport the fairly unassuming title of Vol. 2, hinting that it is perhaps best to just take it as part of a single lengthy experience with Vol. 1, rather than a claim at any sort of musical progress. And there is, of course, no reason to downplay the quality of the record if you actually felt any spiritual connection to the first one, rather than being just formally impressed by the freshness and originality of the achievement. These are all solid gold folk ballads, delivered by Joan according to her solid gold quality standard — impeccable singing, efficient playing, clear production, intelligent selection of material. You might just as well stop reading right here and proceed to the record itself if you have never heard it before. If you already did, though, feel free to join me for a few more scattered attempts at artistic analysis.

First, although the record can hardly be defined as a «sociopolitical statement» — at this stage, Joan Baez still comes across much more as a folk singer than an activist — it does reinforce the feminist message a bit more explicitly and powerfully than its predecessor. The very first words you hear, ringing out softly, but clearly, and without any musical accompaniment at all, are "Oh, hard is the fortune of all womankind": this is ‘Wagoner’s Lad’, essentially the same song as ‘On Top Of Old Smokey’, but with the lyrical focus shifted from the cheating, false-hearted lover to patriarchal control ("my parents don’t like him because he is poor", etc.). The decision to sing all the verses a cappella and place the song as the album opener pursues two goals at once: (a) reassert (if not downright run into the ground) the image of Queen Joan and her powerful, enchanting voice that single-voicefully makes the sun stop in its tracks and the birds plop down from the sky; (b) reassert the image of Joan of Arc as the patron saint of the female sex all over the world, with the first verse of ‘Wagoner’s Lad’ to be taken as the new Lord’s Prayer for all those who get the message.

But even if it is a bit manipulative, it’s both in good taste and for a good reason; in 1961, this approach was fresh, innovative and courageous, so why complain? Additionally, it is a perfect example of the power of the human voice — two minutes of pitch-perfect singing without a single mistake... forget «mistake», without a single moment of laxness or quaver, and, as it seems to me, without excessive over-emoting: the opening moralistic verse is sung at a higher volume to drive the message home, but then Joan quiets down a little, to properly represent the shift from general narrator to the "poor girl" whose "fortune is sad". There is no denying not just the power and technique, but the intelligence behind their application as well. I might even go so far as to say that Vol. 2 on the whole does show a bit of progress as Baez learns to restrain her voice and unleash its full power only when it fully suits the needs of the appropriate song — although my evidence here is mostly intuitive (as I distinctly remember the first album causing me more physical headaches than the second).

More examples of the "hard fortune of all womankind" follow, such as ‘The Trees They Do Grow High’ (that notorious folk song which inverts the common trope of being forced into marriage with a much older man with a story of being forced into marriage with a much younger man — "Father, dear father, if you see fit / We’ll send him to college for one year yet / I’ll tie blue ribbons all around his head / To let the maidens know that he’s married" is one of the finest examples of sarcasm in the usually straight-faced folk idiom, too bad Joan herself is unable to properly handle sarcasm in her performances); ‘Silkie’, the creepy tale of a tragic union between a lady and a half-man, half-seal shapeshifter; and ‘Railroad Boy’, whose protagonist ends up hanging herself after being dumped. But it would be unfair to deduce that the album is thoroughly obsessed with the feminist message and nothing else — Joan is just as liable to pick songs of the «femme fatale» variety (‘Lily Of The West’, re-arranged by her with a nervously fast tempo and later borrowed by Bob to become one of the few highlights on his much-maligned Dylan LP from 1973), or the star-cross’d lovers variety (‘Barbara Allen’), or even those where it is the girl who is depicted as the villain (‘Once I Knew A Pretty Girl’).

If anything, the overriding theme here is not so much the sad fate of the female sex as human tragedy as a whole — most of the songs deal with cruelty, betrayal, suicide, and/or murder, one way or another; she is really laying it on even thicker than on the first album. Even the goddamn dog dies in this God-forsaken universe (‘Old Blue’, which classic rock fans probably recognize from the much later Byrds cover); just about the only song that deals with a lighter topic is ‘The Cherry Tree Carol’, a fairly rare and somewhat hilarious case in which Joseph actually dares accuse the Virgin Mary of infidelity ("let the father of the baby gather cherries for thee!").

I also wanted to add ‘Plaisir D’Amour’ to this short list of exceptions, before reminding myself that the title is deceptive and the actual words go "plaisir d’amour ne dure qu’un moment" (even if you don’t know French, the phrase is not difficult to understand, but Joan courteously provides both the original and the translation in her performance — she can’t really roll those classic r’s as a good French performer should, though), so, despite the gentle melody, it’s really just another downer, but it is worth noting that, precisely like last time around, Joan decides here to finish off the record with another moment of curtsy to a foreign tradition, and this time it even happens to be one that has nothing to do with her genetic heritage.

Interestingly, Presley’s ‘Can’t Help Falling In Love’, which was closely based on the French original, had already been recorded by the time Joan’s album came out, but had not yet been released, meaning that both versions’ emergence literally within 1-2 months from each other is probably just a lucky coincidence. Of course, Presley’s version intentionally removes all the melancholy from the original, turning it from a lamentation on a tragic fate to pure starry-eyed sentimentalism, but I do have to admit that the 180-degree volte-face of the new lyrics results in Elvis having much more confidence in his version than Joan seems to have in hers, with that rather cruddy translation and all. Still, it’s a thematically fitting general conclusion to the album, and I like how Vol. 2, opening with ‘Wagoner’s Lad’, begins as a strong, fiery statement against patriarchy, and then ends on this far more contemplative note that suggests the source of one’s troubles might just as well be found within oneself as it may be on the outside. The moral to take home with you is that Joan Baez is not nearly as one-dimensional an artist as it could seem from her general public image.

Come to think of it, this is a kind of moral that is probably applicable to about 90% of the allegedly «one-dimensional» artists out there — mainly because the one trace they leave behind in people’s brains is precisely that one dimension at which they are more skilled than others — but in this case, it is important, because the one emotion at which Baez excels is «somber sorrow» rather than «rightful anger». Much like the anonymous creators of those folk songs themselves, Joan sings them to stimulate compassion for the victims rather than anger at predators, which is probably very much in line with her Quaker upbringing: despite all the gallery of horrors that passes before you here, there’s hardly a single «fist-clenching» moment (compare this with something like, say, Dylan’s ‘Masters Of War’ or any of the protest songs on The Times They Are A-Changin’, which quite rightfully make you want to rip out the bastards’ throats). And while both approaches have their ups and downs, more often than not it is the indirect one that has the most impact.

One other thing I’d like to note is, curiously, that Baez feels much more at ease channelling the «medieval» folk vibe than when she sings stuff of the Appalachian / bluegrass variety that should have, perhaps, felt closer to home in her case. Notably, the three songs I could easily do without here are ‘Engine 143’, the tragic tale of a train wreck first recorded by Gene Austin in 1924; and two numbers on which Joan is backed by the bluegrass group of The Greenbriar Boys — ‘Banks Of The Ohio’ and ‘Pal Of Mine’. Thematically, they fit in with the rest as easy as pie (death, death, and yet more death) but the rough-hewn country-bluegrass musical style comes as a challenge to Joan, maybe because it requires the singer to be a little more relaxed and smiling — like, say, Jimmie Rodgers, who could sing horrific songs about dying from TB as lightly as he’d sing about taking a merry stroll through the woods. I mean, if I close my eyes it’s much easier for me to picture Joan Baez as a medieval Lady of the Manor somewhere on the outskirts of Norfolk than as a lowly woodcutter’s wife deep in the Cumberland Gap, if I’m expressing myself right.

I do wonder, in fact, if it was not for some live performance of ‘Engine 143’ at a Baez concert in the Village that Dave Van Ronk and his friend Lawrence Block decided to parody the song as ‘Georgie And The IRT’: I mean, naturally, the song dated back at least half a century, and had originally been made famous by The Carter Family, but it is specifically Joan’s version, delivered with super-serious weepy pathos, that almost produces an involuntary comical effect here, especially when it is sandwiched in between the more «refined» medieval-tinged ballads like ‘Silkie’ and ‘Once I Knew A Pretty Girl’. In any case, there is no question in my mind that I’d much rather have Jimmie Rodgers or The Carter Family or Woody Guthrie, for that matter, cover that stuff than Joan Baez. And that’s not even mentioning that there’s a bit of a lethargic effect in her vocal being shadowed by The Greenbriar Boys on ‘Banks Of The Ohio’ and ‘Pal Of Mine’.

Forcing my mind to run between Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 for a few minutes, I am tempted to conclude that Joan might have intentionally toned down her style a bit for the second volume — not only does she include those bluegrass ditties that are clearly outside her comfort zone, but she is also seriously less flashy with her voice: not a single song here has the kind of acrobatics that carries ‘Fare Thee Well’ (with the possible exception of ‘Old Blue’, which is such a non-descript song in its own right that the only way to make it memorable in the least was to resort to the good old glass-breaking soprano lilt in the chorus). Perhaps she felt this would make her approach feel more «democratic» and «down-to-earth»? more in line with the musical philosophy of Guthrie or Pete Seeger? It rarely works, though, and almost never so when your father has a PhD in physics from Stanford.

Still, these are minor quibbles, and I’m actually glad that those numbers with The Greenbriar Boys are included — Joan’s misfires are instructive in their own right, and actually help better understand what is so good about the successes. And it’s a good thing that there’s so much Shakesperian tragedy on here: if you only sound natural when you’re being ultra-serious, heck, you should concentrate on ultra-serious topics. Almost as many people die here over the course of 43 minutes as in Titus Andronicus, which essentially makes Joan Baez the Blood Queen of 1961 (I wonder if it ever made any impression on a young Vincent Furnier). Also, if you have the expanded reissued version of the album, it adds three previously unreleased outtakes, of which the rendition of ‘I Once Loved A Boy’ is among the prettiest bits of singing Joan ever did.

• Only Solitaire reviews: Joan Baez