Customer Reviews

Farewell, Angelina

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is legendary Baez!!! Smooth soulful melodies, intricate guitar playing and that incredible voice!!!

Note: Make sure you get the Remastered version of this with the 3 extra bonus tracks (for a total of 14 tracks instead of the prior cd version with 11 tracks). Those 3 extra bonus tracks are excellent (one of them is better than any of the songs on the original album). I repeat, do NOT buy the version of this cd that has just the 11 tracks. You need the 3 extra tracks as they're essential!!!

This is an absolutely beautiful recording. Of the eleven tracks, four are Bob Dylan covers, one is a Donovan (Leitch) cover, three are traditional Anglo-American ballads, two are more contemporary folk songs, one of which is Peter Seeger's "Where Have all the Flowers Gone" sung in German, and there even a lovely song that Ms. Baez sings in French.

The Dylan songs are set to great effect by the interpretation given them by Ms. Baez. Clearly, she has a healthy respect for Dylan's songwriting abilities, treating each one of his songs as if it were a jewel and her voice the precious setting into which it is being placed. She does likewise with Donovan's cover song.

The traditional folk ballads are, as always, exquisitely and simply sung by Ms. Baez in her sweet, true, clear soprano. The purists will be more than satisfied by her interpretation of these songs. This is the Joan Baez that first rose to fame and came to the attention of an adoring public.

My favorites on this cd are the Dylan covers, the traditional folk ballads, and the German version of "Where Have All the Flowers Gone". This is a must have recording for those who are fans of Ms. Baez and for those who simply love music that is a thing of beauty.

Now released with three additional bonus tracks, this is a must buy CD for all fans of Joan Baez.

I have the LP of this album and it is almost worn thru! I decided that if it was available on CD I would get it as a birthday present to myself! I found this to be one of the best purchases I have made lately. The remastering of the original songs is perfect and the bonus tracks are great! Joan's voice is still clear and sweet and very easy to listen to. Her voice got a more raspy sound on later albums. The bonus tracks were the icing on the cake for me. She covers a wide range of folk songs, from Guthrie's "Ranger's Comand" to "Rock Salt and Nails" by Bruce 'Utah' Phillips. It is interesting to note that the people who made the labels for the album did not know that there is a substance known as Rock Salt that is often used in shotguns as a 'varment load' and therefore list it as "Rock, Salt and Nails!" No matter what you call it I found it to be one of the most haunting songs I have ever heard. All in all, if you like Joan Baez and/or folk music this is a must have. Her version of "One too many mornings" brings back vivid memories of the '60s!

This is a great album. The songs are superb and sensitively interpreted, including the French (Pauvre Ruteboeuf) and German (Sagt Mir Wo Die Blumen Sind) ones. The music is archetypal 1960s folk, whilst Satisfied Mind has a bit of a country feel with its lovely mandolin. There are songs by Dylan, Donovan, Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger, plus traditionals such as The Wild Mountain Thyme and The River In The Pines.

It is interesting that this kind of music flourished alongside the fast permutations of rock in that innovative decade. This album has always been a sheer pleasure to listen to, and now even more so with the addition of three tracks, of which I like One Too Many Mornings the most.

My other favourites include the magnificent Farewell Angelina, Colours, Satisfied Mind, the German version of Where Have All The Flowers Gone? and A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall. In fact this album is more varied and enjoyable than some of her later "art-song" excursions of the 1980s and early 1990s. If you're looking for great songs well-interpreted, you cannot go wrong with this album. It's a folk classic.

After Eight Belles was put down at the Derby, I remembered the lyrics in Stewball, about don't bet on the little grey mare, most likely she'll stumble, most likely she'll fall... and she does, ....and pulled out my old Baez songbook, my guitar, and records. Then I ordered a few of the same but CDs. They are as good as I remember, and now I cry for Eight Belles when I hear "Stewball"."There But for fortune" is as relevent now as then, all of them are priceless, what a voice!

I confess I tired of Joan about 20 years ago, and most of the albums I have sampled since she left Vanguard for A & M and other labels leave me cold. But this one is uniformly excellent, and the three added songs only make the original a better bargain. She was in excellent voice, had superb instrumental backing, and a wonderful variety of songs. I can recall playing this a couple of times a week throughout the 70's. "Farewell Angelina" is the one I sang along with more often than the others, but all the performances are great.

This is still reasonably early Joan Baez. Her voice is strong and clear, the songs have a real folk quality. This is an "enjoyment" album. I am not belittling the compilation when I describe it as a great album for playing in the car. The miles just roll by.

For her fifth album "Farewell, Angelina", Joan Baez, by now an established star with Top Ten albums in both Britain and the United States, moved away from the spare, dark and atmospheric renditions of traditional folk material that had dominated her first five albums, of which the two live releases In Concert and In Concert, Part 2 had been the best.

"Farewell, Angelina" ornamented Baez' voice and guitar with acoustic double bass on all twelve tracks and half also featured Bruce Langhorn on electric guitar. Whilst this did make for a less dark atmosphere that may be easier to digest for listeners my age who never were exposed to American folk this traditional, such songs as the title track and "Hard Rain's A-Gonna-Fall" (which I knew from the brilliant 1973 Bryan Ferry rendition) showed Baez singing in a way that reaches the heart in a way seldom equalled.

The more traditional numbers themselves, like "The Wild Mountain Thyme", lost little from the changed approach of Baez and producer Maynard Solomon because Joan obviously possessed such complete confidence that she could tackle styles of music well beyond basic guitar-and-voice folk with wonderful ease - shown later on her last really good album Baptism where she lost no beauty when speaking poetry. With my knowledge of linguistics I see humour in Baez' failure to properly pronounce the front rounded vowels in "Sagt mir, wo die Blumen Sind"! "Satisfied Mind", the darkest track on the album, is made really cryptic by Baez' and Solomon's penchant for deep, beautiful arrangements.

All in all, this is a change of direction, but one with which Baez clearly was totally confident. Definitely recommended for fans of traditional folk.

...and going strong. Farewell Angelina and Hello Joan-whose records and voice never cease to amaze me!

We had this one on LP and are so glad to have it now on CD.
We played it over and over, and the songs ran thru
my head for days.