Comments about MusicSpace Joan Baez: Day After Tomorrow:

Great CD. Love it.

Comments about MusicSpace Joan Baez: Day After Tomorrow:

Joan appears to be very much at home in a musical, spiritual, andpolitical sense on this album, the 24th studio recording of her now50 year long career. This collection of 10 songs provides much forthe head & heart to think and feel.With the use of only acoustic instruments, the album provides an echoof Joan's early folk records. The difference in this record is howdiverse the ensemble of instruments is: guitar, mandolin, Hawaiianguitar, resonator guitar, bouzouki, harmonium, tamboura, bass, drums,tambourine, fiddle, Dobro, banjolin, and percussion. The musicalaccompaniment provided by Steve Earle (also producer, & harmonyvocals), Tim O'Brien, Darrell Scott, Viktor Krauss, and Kenny Malone,is one of the many highlights of this album.The songs' timeless lyrics place it among Joan's most folk /Americana oriented albums. The album contains a strong spiritualthread, a topic Joan has touched upon from her earliest recordings.The songs have been chosen from several different brilliant writers,including Patty Griffin, Tom Waits / Kathleen Brennan, Thea Gilmore,Eliza Gilkyson, Elvis Costello / T-Bone Burnett, Diana Jones, andSteve Earle himself. It is amazing how Joan & company pull the workof such a diverse group together so beautifully.There are political themes touched upon in this record, includinganti-war sentiment. The topic is explored quite movingly, lessdirectly you might say than on Joan's earlier albums, through thetimeless (and timely) masterpiece compositions "Scarlet Tide", andthe album's title song "Day After Tomorrow". [Joan sings this alone,with just herself on guitar, making the lyrics even more heart-wrenching;]Throughout the songs, Joan becomes a cast of personas in search ofhope, happiness, and home. [Joan appears to be quite happy herself inthe stunning CD booklet photos.]"God is God" has the listener contemplating what it really means tobe a believer.In "Rose of Sharon" the narrator finds happiness in the arms of alover.In "Scarlet Tide" there is still a hopeful determination that we willrise above the devastation of war. The young soldier writing homein "Day After Tomorrow" (who very well may be a female soldier inthis non-gender specific song) yearns for home and the smallpleasures of "shoveling snow and raking leaves", and dreams eachnight of holding the loved one being written to. It is a very movingand empathetic rendition of this song.A miner facing sure death in "Henry Russell's Last Words" ultimatelyfinds happiness and peace through love for his spouse & family, and asaved soul.In "I am a Wanderer" there is still hope among various charactersfacing great obstacles in their lives. But, perhaps they are reallyus, and us them, and realizing that may be the genesis of that hope,and ultimately the action that will actually change their lifecircumstances. This song was written the night before one of therecording sessions. One cannot help but wonder how much of Joan andSteve's lives are reflected in its caring concern for those lessfortunate."Mary" is perhaps the most fascinating song lyric-wise on the album.I imagine the narrator walking through a museum viewing the variouspaintings and sculptures in an exhibit about the biblical "Mary",leading to a contemplation on her spiritual as well as worldlierpowers.In "Requiem", a prayerful song, Mary is again addressed, being askedto bring hope and happiness to those who have lost their homes andloved ones. It is quite a moving song, originally written about theTsunami survivors, taking on new meaning with the Katrina tragedy.But, it is also quite universal in that many of us, to one degree oranother, have had to face a "dark night of the soul". We may havefound ourselves as those "shattered dreamers", with broken heartsthat needed to be made whole. Joan's voice is especially effective onthis mournful plea of a song.In "Lower Road" the "peaceful released" protagonist keeps "rollingon", having had their "part to play" (in life), and now "going home"(an afterlife perhaps).The song says that "we keep rolling on `causefor every midnight hour there's always a rising sun".With the closing song Joan and ensemble use only hand claps as theywalk down "Jericho Road" towards the end of the album's spiritualjourney. It may be describing the way our own life's journey will endsomeday.This well-produced album combines the talents of many into abeautiful & moving composition. The combination of Joan's versatile &touching vocal interpretation, well-written songs, and deftmusicianship, provides a soundtrack to help "illuminate the pathwhere we are going". That place may very well be home.

Comments about MusicSpace Joan Baez: Day After Tomorrow:

quintessential Baez doing what she does best: singing the ballads that brought her to us but from our place in time now - 50 years later and Joan has come full circle - back to her acoustic roots singing with the voice and soul of an angel.