Personnel: Joan Baez (vocals, acoustic guitar, Moog synthesizer, ARP synthesizer); Joni Mitchell (vocals); Larry Carlton (conductor, acoustic & electric guitars); Dean Parks (acoustic & electric guitars); Red Rhodes (pedal steel guitar); Sidney Sharp, William Kurasch, James Getzoff, Carl La Magna, Robert Konrad, Ronald Folsom, Tibor Zelig, William Hymanson, Robert Ostrowsky, Raymond Kelly (violin); Isabelle Daskoff (viola); Jesse Ehrlich (cello); Tom Scott (flute); Larry Knechtel (piano, electric piano); David Paich (piano, electric harpsichord); Hampton Hawes (piano); Joe Sample (electric piano, Hammond organ); Malcolm Cecil (Moog synthesizer, ARP synthesizer, programming); Reine Press, Wilton Felder (bass); Jim Gordon (drums); Gordo (percussion); Bob Margouleff (programming).
Engineers: Rick Ruggieri, Henry Lewy.
Principally recorded at A&M Studios, Hollywood, California on January 21-24, 1975.
Personnel: Joan Baez (vocals, guitar); Mercedes Sosa (vocals); Jean Marie Ecay (guitar); Costel Recea, John Acosta (cello); Cesar Cancino (piano); Laytham Armour (keyboards, synthesizer); Jose Agustin (bass); Begnat Amorena (drums); L.A. Mass Choir (background vocals).
Recorded live in Bilbao, Spain in 1989.
Personnel includes: Joan Baez (vocals, acoustic guitar, Moog synthesizer, ARP synthesizer); Joni Mitchell (vocals); Larry Carlton (conductor, acoustic & electric guitars); Dean Parks (acoustic & electric guitars); Red Rhodes (pedal steel guitar); Sidney Sharp, William Kurasch, James Getzoff, Carl La Magna, Robert Konrad, Ronald Folsom, Tibor Zelig, William Hymanson, Robert Ostrowsky, Raymond Kelly (violin); Isabelle Daskoff (viola); Jesse Ehrlich (cello); Tom Scott (flute); Hampton Hawes (piano); Larry Knechtel (piano, electric piano); David Paich (piano, electric harpsichord); Joe Sample (electric piano, Hammond organ); Malcolm Cecil (Moog synthesizer, ARP synthesizer, programming); Reinne Press, Wilton Felder (bass); Jim Gordon (drums); Gordo (percussion); Bob Margouleff (programming).
Engineers: Rick Ruggieri, Henry Lewy.
Principally recorded at A&M Studios, Hollywood, California on January 21-24, 1975. Includes original release liner notes by Bernard Gelb.
Although she released a comeback album, Recently, in 1987 after eight years away from U.S. record stores, Joan Baez continued to be more of a force in Europe than in her homeland, and she followed Recently with what was actually her third live album to be recorded in Europe in the 1980s. Diamonds & Rust in the Bullring is not to be confused with her 1975 studio album Diamonds & Rust, of course, and it is not a live recording of the songs from that album, either, even though the song "Diamonds and Rust" itself does lead it off. So, the title is not helpful. The album chronicles a show performed by Baez, in a bullring, naturally, in Bilbao, Spain, in 1988, and it demonstrates what makes her such a draw overseas. Half of the collection (Side 2 of the LP and cassette, tracks 7-12 of the CD) consists of songs sung in Spanish, recalling her 1974 all-Spanish album Gracias a la Vida and including that LP's title song, here performed as a duet with Mercedes Sosa, "El Preso Numero Nueve" (which was also on her debut album, Joan Baez, in 1960), "Llego con Tres Heridas," and "No Nos Moveran" (aka "We Shall Not Be Moved"). Also part of the Spanish side are a translation of Sting's "They Dance Alone (Gueca Solo)," called "Ellas Danzan Solas (Cueca Sola)." (Singing in Spanish always seems to remind Baez of the bloody Chilean military coup and its aftermath.) But the song that most moves the crowd is the pretty "Txoria Txori," a song in Catalan with which they sing along. Actually, the Spanish side is more moving than the English one, in which Baez seems to be just running through some familiar material or turning in interpretations of such classics as Bob Marley's "No Woman No Cry," Leonard Cohen's "Famous Blue Raincoat," and the Beatles' "Let It Be" that have been done definitively by their originators. Diamonds & Rust in the Bullring smacks of being a placeholder in Baez's discography, which makes it an odd release for an artist willing to wait so long to return to making records. ~ William Ruhlmann
With the Vietnam War winding down, Joan Baez, who had devoted one side of her last album to her trip to Hanoi, delivered the kind of commercial album A&M Records must have wanted when it signed her three years earlier. But she did it on her own terms, putting together a session band of contemporary jazz veterans like Larry Carlton, Wilton Felder, and Joe Sample, and mixing a wise selection from the work of current singer-songwriters like Jackson Browne and John Prine with pop covers of Stevie Wonder and the Allman Brothers Band, and an unusually high complement of her own writing. A&M, no doubt recalling the success of her cover of the Band's "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down," released her version of the Allmans' "Blue Sky" as a single, and it got halfway up the charts. But the real hit was the title track, a self-penned masterpiece on the singer's favorite subject, her relationship with Bob Dylan. Outdoing the current crop of confessional singer/songwriters at soul baring, Baez sang to Dylan, reminiscing about her '60s love affair with him intensely, affectionately, and unsentimentally. It was her finest moment as a songwriter and one of her finest performances, period, and when A&M finally released it on 45, it made the Top 40, propelling the album to gold status. But those who bought the disc for "Diamonds & Rust" also got to hear "Winds of the Old Days," in which Baez forgave Dylan for abandoning the protest movement, as well as the jazzy "Children and All That Jazz," a delightful song about motherhood, and the wordless vocals of "Dida," a duet with Joni Mitchell accompanied by Mitchell's backup band, Tom Scott and the L.A. Express. The cover songs were typically accomplished, making this the strongest album of Baez's post-folk career. ~ William Ruhlmann
Joan Baez scored the biggest commercial success of her career with this 1975 album by tapping into the '70s singer-songwriter zeitgeist in the manner of Joni Mitchell's post-BLUE albums. Baez even recruited Mitchell and her then-current band, the L.A. Express, for the fusion-like groove of "Di Da," and salted the other tracks with guest shots by pop-jazzers Tom Scott, Hampton Hawes, and Larry Carlton. Baez also includes covers of Jackson Browne's "Fountain of Sorrow," John Prine's "Hello in There," and Stevie Wonder's "Never Dreamed You'd Leave in Summer."
DIAMONDS AND RUST is perhaps best viewed as Baez's response to Dylan's confessional BLOOD ON THE TRACKS, including two songs directly addressing their '60s romance (the title track and "Winds of the Old Days"). As in the past, Baez also performs a song from Dylan's most recent album, in this case, "Simple Twist of Fate" from the aforementioned record. DIAMONDS AND RUST is an oddity in Joan Baez's career, but it's one of her strongest albums. minimize