VIA PRESS RELEASE | On October 12, Craft Recordings re-released iconic folk singer Joan Baez’s self-titled debut album both on vinyl and digitally. Recorded in the summer of 1960, Joan Baez’s first record introduced the world to the pure and soaring soprano of a then-19-year-old folk singer, who had recently come to prominence after the 1959 Newport Folk Festival.
Armed with just her voice, two guitars (the second guitar being played by Fred Hellerman of The Weavers) and two microphones, Baez injected new life into a series of traditional songs that she had chosen and arranged herself. In doing so, she placed herself at the forefront of the folk music revival that would take over America. The album landed at #15 on the Billboard 200 and spent 140 weeks on the chart. Arguably one of the most historically and culturally important American popular albums of the 20th century, Joan’s self-titled debut album was inducted into the Grammy® Hall of Fame in 2011 by the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences and selected to be preserved in the National Recording Registry in 2015 by the Library of Congress.
This all-analog vinyl reissue–cut from the original stereo tapes by Kevin Gray at Cohearent Audio and pressed and plated at RTI–will be housed in a Stoughton Old Style tip-on jacket. There will be a Barnes & Noble exclusive red vinyl (limited to 750 copies), and MFiT and hi-res digital releases available for the first time.
After Joan’s breakthrough at Newport in ’59, several major labels including Columbia Records courted her, but she chose to sign with the smaller independent Vanguard Records (which was acquired by Concord/Craft in 2015). Baez told Rolling Stone’s Kurt Loder, “It took four nights. We were in a big, smelly ballroom at a hotel on Broadway, way up by the river. We couldn’t record on Wednesday nights because they played bingo there. I would be down there on this dirty old rug with two microphones, one for the voice and one for the guitar. I just did my set; it was probably all I knew. Just put ’em down. I did ‘Mary Hamilton” once, that was it. That’s the way we made ’em in the old days. As long as a dog didn’t run through the room or something, you had it.”
Baez-inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2011 and the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame by her close friend Jackson Browne in 2017–has been a leading voice as both a folk singer and activist for over 50 years. She released Whistle Down The Wind, her first new studio album in 10 years earlier this year, which debuted at #18 on Billboard’s Top Current Albums chart and #4 on the Americana/Folk Albums chart—Baez’s strongest chart position since 1975’s Diamonds & Rust. She is currently on her “Fare Thee Well…Tour 2018,” which has just been extended into 2019.
Joan Baez track listing:
A1) Silver Dagger
A2) East Virginia
A3) Fare Thee Well (10,000 Miles)
A4) House of the Rising Sun
A5) All My Trials
A6) Wildwood Flower
A7) Donna Donna
B1) John Riley
B2) Rake and Rambling Boy
B3) Little Moses
B4) Mary Hamilton
B5) Henry Martin
B6) El Preso Numero Nueve
