Joan Baez - Diamonds & Rust

Released - April 1975

Genre - Folk

Producer - David Kershenbaum

Selected Personnel - Joan Baez (Vocals/Guitar/Synthesiser/Arrangements); Larry Carlton (Guitar); Dean Parks (Guitar); Wilton Felder (Bass); Jim Gordon (Drums); Larry Knechtel (Piano); Joe Sample (Piano/Organ); David Paich (Piano/Harpsichord); Tom Scott (Flute/Saxophone); Jim Horn (Saxophone); Joni Mitchell (Backing Vocals)

Standout Track - Diamonds & Rust

Diamonds & Rust is the album where we get a glimpse at the astonishing singer-songwriter Joan Baez could have been if she'd ever felt much of a calling to follow that road. Best known as an interpreter of the songs of others, whether that be traditional folk songs or compositions by her contemporaries like Bob Dylan. In the late 60s she started to write her own songs, but rarely made it a priority and still mostly occupied herself with covers. She writes four songs on Diamonds & Rust, all of which show a really strong talent for writing, most notably the peerless title track.

It's also an album on which Baez puts a sense of fun ahead of all else - throughout the 60s she had used her mainstream popularity as a soapbox for her political views and her desire for social change, and had become one of music's most predominant political activists thanks to her various protest concerts and marches and demonstrations. By the mid-70s, though her talent hadn't faded one bit, her role as the voice of a generation was more or less over, so on Diamonds & Rust the focus is less on po-faced political statement and more on fun, upbeat pop music. Teaming up with a band of seasoned LA session musicians, many of whom had worked with the likes of Joni Mitchell and Steely Dan, Baez and producer David Kershenbaum create a tight, crisp sound as crystal-clear as Baez's voice and the band swings jauntily along on pretty much every track, never letting the feelgood nature of the album drop. Mitchell herself pops up on one of the album's most joyoudly silly tracks, trading vocal improvisations with Baez on the excellent "Dida," a one-word nonsense song that never fails to put a smile on my face for the pure enjoyment of hearing two such wonderful vocalists simply having fun singing together.

Even on the slower, down-tempo ballads the mood is still one of bright-eyed pop eanestness rather than on any searing, emotional sincerity. Stevie Wonder's "Never Dreamed You'd Leave In Summer" may not have the rumbustious energy of "Fountain Of Sorrow," but Baez and her band, complete with cheesy string arrangements, still turn in a hugely fun rendition rather than a particularly moving one. Dylan's "Simple Twist Of Fate" is another major highlight, its ringing guitar riff and Baez's mischievous Dylan impression making it one of the album's most fun moments, and Baez's cover of the Allman Brothers Band's "Blue Sky" is great as well, though it doesn't do much to meddle with the formula of an already great song.

The album's one moment of genuine, heartfelt sincerity and depth is, of course, the mighty title track, undoubtedly Baez's finest ever composition, and maybe even the best song she ever sang - it more than holds its own against the numerous other songs she covered in her career. It's an expertly drawn portrait of a long-finished relationship and how the ghosts of it linger years later. Baez tells the story of an out-of-the-blue phone call from an old lover and the memories it stirs, reflecting that "we both know what memories can bring, they bring diamonds and rust." The song, of course, alludes to her relationship with Dylan ten years earlier (the lyric "You burst on the scene already a legend" is a big clue, but Baez herself has confirmed that the song is about him since). My favourite story about the song concerns a concert where Baez and Dylan were singing together shortly after the song's release, at which Dylan, having picked up on the clues to his identity within the song, complimented her on it only for her to claim it was written about her ex-husband David, presumably simply to rile Dylan. She later confirmed she wrote it after receiving an unexpected phone call from him, in which he read her all the lyrics to a new song while calling, as the song explains, from a phone booth in the mid-West. It's a beautifully expressed song, and Baez's simple acoustic guitar part and soaring vocals make it one of the great highlights of her career.

For me, it's no bad thing that "Diamonds & Rust" is the only moment on the album where we get a glimpse at the earnest, authentic folksinger of old that Baez had established herself as. Everything else here is simply exemplary pop music and, just as many 70s artists simply decided to kick back and have some fun in the 80s and leave authenticity to a newer generation, one can't hold it against Baez that here she succeeds in putting together a joyously upbeat collection of pop songs that it's impossible not to enjoy. I've never listened to anything from later on in Baez's career - there's already a sense with Diamonds & Rust that her need to make music was waning, and her album output over subsequent decades became ever more sporadic, reflecting an increasing sense that she would only make music when she felt like she wanted to, rather than out of any sense of obligation. Throughout the 60s she firmly established herself as one of the most significant voices in the folk music scene, as well as one of its most beautiful voices, and on Diamonds & Rust she proves herself as someone able to simply have fun with great music as well.

Track Listing:

1. Diamonds & Rust (Joan Baez)

2. Fountain Of Sorrow (Jackson Browne)

3. Never Dreamed You'd Leave In Summer (Stevie Wonder & Syreeta Wright)

4. Children And All That Jazz (Joan Baez)

5. Simple Twist Of Fate (Bob Dylan)

6. Blue Sky (Dickey Betts)

7. Hello In There (John Prine)

8. Jesse (Janis Ian)

9. Winds Of The Old Days (Joan Baez)

10. Dida (Joan Baez)

11. I Dream Of Jeannie/Danny Boy (Stephen Foster/Frederick Weatherly)