24. Joan Baez – Joan Baez

Finally, the sixties…

When I told a friend that Joan Baez was coming up on the album list, his face dropped and he looked at me wondering if this was all some sort of self-torture. True, Joan Baez, who basically kicked off the sixties with this album of old folk songs, has a reputation for warbling old hippy music, but to pitch her as the mother of all the patchouli flower children is a bit harsh.

It’s harsh because this is quite a charming album. The opener, “Silver Dagger”, took me a while to place as the basis for Saint Etienne’s “Like a Motorway” but it and other charmers like “Wildwood Flower” and an amazing “House of the Rising Sun” make this album tick along nicely. She was only 19 when she did this and it’s accomplished stuff, and sounds pretty fresh for an album that’s 53 years old. She’s still touring by the way…