Gulf Winds (Remastered) Joan Baez

• 1 Sweeter For Me 04:30
• 2 Seabirds 04:32
• 3 Caruso 03:42
• 4 Still Waters At Night 03:01
• 5 Kingdom Of Childhood 07:51
• 6 O Brother! 03:19
• 7 Time Is Passing Us By 03:43
• 8 Stephanie's Room 04:05
• 9 Gulf Winds 10:29
• Total Runtime 45:12

Info for Gulf Winds (Remastered)

Gulf Winds is a 1976 album by Joan Baez, her final album of new material for A&M. Baez stated in her autobiography, And a Voice to Sing With, that most of the songs were written while on tour with the Rolling Thunder Revue with Bob Dylan. "O Brother!" was a clever reply to Dylan's song "Oh Sister". On the title song, a ten-minute long autobiographical recollection of her childhood, Baez accompanies herself only with her own acoustic guitar (the rest of the album features standard mid-1970s pop/rock backup), creating a sound reminiscent of her earliest pure folk recordings.

"Sometimes, I wake up at night and write a song. Sometimes a tune comes to my head when I'm walking in the hills, and I have to make up words for it. Sometimes I sit in a bar in San Francisco and scribble into a notepad what I call my 'streams of unconsciousness.' When I have enough scribbles in the pad, and enough tunes in my head, I go into the studio and make an album. That's how I made this one." (Joan Baez)

"Joan Baez's landmark Diamonds & Rust found her at the peak of her singer/songwriter skills, seemingly capable of transitioning out of '60s protest mode into a more contemporary and commercially viable position. It was also around this time that she toured with Bob Dylan's Rolling Thunder Revue, and according to Baez's memoirs, she wrote the songs for Gulf Winds during that tour. But Gulf Winds, her last A&M album, was a significant drop off and marked the beginning of what would be a steep commercial decline. Produced by David Kershenbaum, the album tries its best to bolster Baez with a timely '70s studio sound, but for the most part it misses the mark. The songs just aren't up to the task. "Sweeter for Me" sports a nice arppegiated piano by Baez and faintly harks to the melancholy brilliance of Diamonds & Rust, but, lyrically, most of the material is overwritten. The more stinging, faster-paced "O Brother!" is a more successful stab at a commercial sound, and Baez sings it with a bitter venom (you can't help but speculate that the song refers to Dylan himself). The standout track on an otherwise forgettable album, though, is surely the title track, "Gulf Winds," a ten-and-a-half-minute solo epic in the mold of her early work, just Joan and her acoustic guitar, brilliantly picked and sung, ironically demonstrating that, although Baez still had the talent, she couldn't capitalize on the success of Diamonds and Rust and the times were passing her by." (Jim Esch, AMG)

Joan Baez, vocals, guitar, piano
Donald "Duck" Dunn, bass
Jim Gordon, drums
Ray Kelly, cello
Jesse Ehrlich, cello
Larry Knechtel, piano
Dean Parks, guitar
Sid Sharp, violin
Malcolm Cecil, synthesizer

Digitally remastered

No biography found.

This album contains no booklet.