Don't sing love songs, you'll wake my mother

Continuing my trip back through the 1965 album charts.

05/09/65 : Joan Baez - Joan Baez


This is an interesting week because we skip over a live album by one Joan Baez and, in doing so, we come to our third visit with the very same Joan Baez for the year - I imagine it's not going to sound massively different from out previous visits, but let's see.

Yeah, it's pretty similar - her voice is a bit warble-y in places for my liking, but there's no doubt it has a lovely tone to it and her guitar playing is nicely folk-y, with the sound quality also being pretty decent. I particularly liked "El Preso Número Nueve" - her voice suits the Spanish language well - I like this kind of thing anyway, but even if I didn't, it's just a breath of fresh air compared to all the other stuff around at the time.

We're at #16 in the charts this week on the last week of a thirteen week run, with #9 being as high as it got in her third week. The top five this week were  The Beatles, TSOM, Mary Poppins, Bob Dylan and Andy Williams and there were no new entries in the chart. 

Wikipedia tells us this is her debut album and most of the tracks are just Joan on guitar and vocals, but some of them also feature Fred Hellerman on second guitar. It was recorded and released in '60 and was well received critically but only charted in the US in '62 (getting to #15) after the success of her follow-up album (snappily titled Joan Baez Vol 2) and only charted in the UK in '65 after the success of her fifth album (and you already know what that was called). 

"Customers also listened to" Bob Dylan and a load of other Joan albums, including Joan Baez Sings Bob Dylan, which I'm tempted to check out because I think I'd like it. And I liked this one too - having never met Joan before, she's managed three visits this year and it's not beyond the realms of possibility we'll be back for her live album if it's the only album in the chart we've not heard before.

29/08/65 - Just too twee
12/09/65 - Not what I was expecting

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