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Product Description
Run a Quick Search on "Day After Tomorrow *" by Joan Baez to Browse Related Products:Browse more products related to "Day After Tomorrow *"Browse more products related to "Joan Baez"ReviewRolling Stone (p.115) - 3 stars out of 5 -- "Baez has teamed up with Steve Earle....It's a fruitful partnership: Earle's hard-won earthiness acts as a counterweight to Baez's ethereal tendencies, and DAY AFTER TOMORROW leans toward tough-minded material with blues and Appalachian overtones." Title NoteFrom her younger days as an early trumpeter of Bob Dylan's genius to her subsequent championing of great, under-recognized songwriters like Richard Shindell, Joan Baez has always known how to pick material. DAY AFTER TOMORROW shows that 50 years into her recording career she retains that ability. Aided by an appealingly sparse, acoustic-based Steve Earle production, she tackles tunes by great contemporary tunesmiths like Thea Gilmore, Elvis Costello, Patty Griffin, Tom Waits, and Earle himself. As with Joni Mitchell in latter years, time has done Baez a service by bringing her once-birdlike tone down to a throatier, more intimate area that only adds to her interpretive abilities, and whatever the source, she manages to make every song her own. If You Enjoy "Day After Tomorrow * (CD)", May We Also Recommend:Customer Reviews for "Day After Tomorrow * (CD)" by Joan Baez (Artist)Most Recent Customer Reviews  Joan Baez heads home on the “DAY AFTER TOMORROW”., September 5, 2008
By Folkfanforever
Joan appears to be very much at home in a musical, spiritual, and political
sense on this album, the 24th studio recording of her now 50 year long career.
This collection of 10 songs provides much for the head & heart to think and
feel.
With the use of only acoustic instruments, the album provides an echo
of Joan’s early folk records. The difference in this record is how diverse the
ensemble of instruments is: guitar, mandolin, Hawaiian guitar, resonator guitar,
bouzouki, harmonium, tamboura, bass, drums, tambourine, fiddle, Dobro, banjolin,
and percussion. The musical accompaniment provided by Steve Earle (also
producer, & harmony vocals), 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 spiritual thread, 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, and Steve Earle
himself. It is amazing how Joan & company pull the work of such a diverse group
together so beautifully.
There are political themes touched upon in this
record, including anti-war sentiment. The topic is explored quite movingly,
less directly you might say than on Joan’s earlier albums, through the timeless
(and timely) masterpiece compositions “Scarlet Tide”, and the 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 of hope, happiness, and home. [Joan appears
to be quite happy herself in the stunning CD booklet photos.]
“God is God”
has the listener contemplating what it really means to be a believer.
In
“Rose of Sharon” the narrator finds happiness in the arms of a lover.
In
“Scarlet Tide” there is still a hopeful determination that we will rise above
the devastation of war. The young soldier writing home in “Day After Tomorrow”
(who very well may be a female soldier in this non-gender specific song) yearns
for home and the small pleasures of “shoveling snow and raking leaves”, and
dreams each night of holding the loved one being written to. It is a very moving
and empathetic rendition of this song.
A miner facing sure death in “Henry
Russell’s Last Words” ultimately finds happiness and peace through love for his
spouse & family, and a saved soul.
In “I am a Wanderer” there is still hope
among various characters facing great obstacles in their lives. But, perhaps
they are really us, and us them, and realizing that may be the genesis of that
hope, and ultimately the action that will actually change their life
circumstances. This song was written the night before one of the recording
sessions. One cannot help but wonder how much of Joan and Steve’s lives are
reflected in its caring concern for those less fortunate.
“Mary” is perhaps
the most fascinating song lyric-wise on the album. I imagine the narrator
walking through a museum viewing the various paintings and sculptures in an
exhibit about the biblical “Mary”, leading to a contemplation on her spiritual
as well as worldlier powers.
In “Requiem”, a prayerful song, Mary is again
addressed, being asked to bring hope and happiness to those who have lost their
homes and loved ones. It is quite a moving song, originally written about the
Tsunami survivors, taking on new meaning with the Katrina tragedy. But, it is
also quite universal in that many of us, to one degree or another, have had to
face a “dark night of the soul”. We may have found ourselves as those
“shattered dreamers”, with broken hearts that needed to be made whole. Joan’s
voice is especially effective on this mournful plea of a song.
In “Lower
Road” the “peaceful released” protagonist keeps “rolling on”, having had their
“part to play” (in life), and now “going home” (an afterlife perhaps).The song
says that “we keep rolling on ‘cause for every midnight hour there’s always a
rising sun”.
With the closing song Joan and ensemble use only hand claps as
they walk down “Jericho Road” towards the end of the album’s spiritual journey.
It may be describing the way our own life’s journey will end someday.
This
well-produced album combines the talents of many into a beautiful & moving
composition. The combination of Joan’s versatile & touching vocal
interpretation, well-written songs, and deft musicianship, provides a soundtrack
to help “illuminate the path where we are going”. That place may very well be
home.
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