Bowery Songs is a collection of live tracks taken from
Joan Baez's performance at the Bowery Ballroom in New York on November 6, 2004. While it is not an entire performance, there is more than enough to satisfy fans.
Baez and her band take on material old -- "It's All Over Now Baby Blue," "Farewell Angelina," "Joe Hill," "Deportee," etc. -- and some fine performances from her last studio outing, Dark Chords on a Big Guitar -- including "Christmas in Washington" and "Rexroth's Daughter." But the big news for fans is that there are four unrecorded songs that have been part of
Baez's standard stage repertoire and are often requested by fans. The album's bookend pieces are an a cappella read of "Finlandia" and a fine reading of
Steve Earle's "Jerusalem." She also does an amazing version of
Bob Dylan's "Seven Curses" here, as well as "Dink's Song." This is a deeply satisfying recording, and
Baez is at her very best as an interpretive singer. The read of
Earle's "Christmas in Washington" is a case in point.
Baez brings a much deeper sense of history and social justice struggle to the tune than
Earle does, and she brings it to bear in every line. One can hear her heartbreak as she cracks the song open, bringing the tattered banners of labor unions to the listeners' eyes, and as she invokes the ghosts of Emma Goldman,
Malcolm X,
Martin Luther King, and
Woody Guthrie, among others, to the fore, one can feel the sense of hurt, betrayal, and failed promise, but also the trace of rigorous perseverance that the original does not hold. The only song that isn't here but should be is
Ryan Adams' "In My Time of Need," which was such a standout on Dark Chords on a Big Guitar. But this is a minor quibble, as
Bowery Songs is
Baez's edgiest and most darkly seductive live album to date. ~ Thom Jurek