#0024: Joan Baez [*]

And we're into the 60's.  Phew.

Okay, let's get this in perspective.  It's another Commitments reference I'm afraid.  A girl, a really odd looking alternative type shows up at Jimmy Rabbite's door and he asks, "Who are your influences?"  She tells him, "Joan Baez".  He slams the door.

It was funny.  But the rudeness of his actions need not apply to his opinion of Joan Baez or any of the other artists who weren't the right answer.  They just weren't soul artists and that was the kind of band he was trying to form.

Listening to this, I get the joke all over again.  It's soft, shrill, acoustic folk, not unlike Joni Mitchell's output years later.  I've heard of her just never heard anything I consciously knew was her.  Some of it does sound familiar though.  I'm sure I've heard this woman on film soundtracks.  It's definitely not soul, though.

I could put up with this if it was on quietly in the background while I was indulging my hippy side.  And by that I mean talking cosmic bollocks to crack on to some new age chick.  But that's about the extent of its appeal to me.  After a few songs that voice, high quality, controlled and earnest tho it is, that voice starts inserting razor blades between my vertebrae.  A glass has a shatter pitch and so does my spine.

Still eight tracks to go though.  No wonder they smoke weed when they listen to this stuff.  You need something to take the edge off.  Ironically it also slows time down.  It's a cleft stick all right.