SIX years on from her last release, Joan Baez returns with a clear-voiced collection of songs.
Some 43 years after she emerged on to the American folk scene, she is still committed and still has much to say. It's just that sometimes you wish she had a bit more fun while she did so.
The songs she covers include interesting choices, notably two by Gillian Welch and David Rawlings, the moody, intelligent Elvis Presley Blues, and Caleb Meyer, a rocker which shows alarming signs of liveliness. The jazzy Rosemary Moore, by Caitlin Cary, is another atmospheric winner, while the album ends with Steve Earle's Christmas In Washington, a hymn to political disillusionment that summons up the ghost of Woody Guthrie.
Tellingly, however, the soaring, pure Baez version lacks the gruff emotional power of Earle's original - suggesting, as elsewhere on this partially successful album, something not quite achieved.
Updated: 08:42 Thursday, September 18, 2003
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