Original Master Series Volume 2

by Joan Baez

Product Description:

The 2001 remastered edition of Joan Baez's second LP features 3 bonus tracks and new cover art as well as a replica of the original cover and liner notes.

Personnel: Joan Baez (vocals, guitar); The Greenbriar Boys.

Producer: Maynard Solomon.

Reissue producer: Mark Spector.

Originally released on Vanguard (2097). Includes original liner notes by Nat Hentoff and reissue liner notes by Arthur Levy.

Digitally remastered by Jeff Zaraya.

This is part of Vanguard's Original Master series.

For her second album, 1961's VOLUME 2, Joan Baez stuck to the traditional folk of her debut, but moved away from that album's solo guitar-and-voice arrangements. Most of VOLUME 2 features instrumental backing from the great bluegrass group the Greenbriar Boys, making the album much more exciting and musically interesting than the somewhat wan debut. The song selection sticks largely to familiar folk favorites like "Barbara Allen," "Wagoner's Lad" and "The Trees They Do Go High," although the Leadbelly-styled "Silkie" and the French-language "Plaisir d'Amour" open things up a bit. Baez's voice was a moderately limited instrument in this stage of her career, with little of the range she would later develop, but it's resonant and clear, and the simple arrangements do much to showcase it. A fine example of folk from the early '60s college revival.