Joan Baez - Do I just not get it?


Hi,

I'm a relatively young music/audio guy (24). I recently bought a remaster LP of Joan Baez "In Concert" which I've heard is a great album, both musically and soundwise.

This is my first exposure to Joan Baez - and not meant to offend fans... But I could not make it past song two. Now I love singer/songwriter music, and certainly enjoy female vocals and acoustic guitar... but her voice! It is unlistenable! She uses so much vibrato and sounds like a sheep... baaaaaaa... Stevie nicks can at least get away with being a sheep because she has the rock music to keep the attention away... but joan Baez - How do you guys enjoy listening to this stuff? The vibrato is terrible!
goatwuss
Fishboat - Granted that being a celeb today is just a function of hype, but don't get carried away about the 60's regarding talent- as jadem mentions - Bobby Sherman? How 'bout John Denver? - true talents for sure right? There's plently more where that came from.

The foundations of PC were laid in the 60's. "Everything is beautiful in it's own way, everybody's wonderful, everybody's beautiful, the only reason a person is a loser is because he didn't get all the breaks" and on and on ad nauseum" - it's morphed into what we're seeing today.

How knowing what the generation was about by the year you were born is a fairly absurd way to define the apparent legitimacy of a viewpoint, gee, maybe there's other factors at play NSgarch, like family social structure, education perspectives, peer groups etc. Probably couldn't be right? - guess you have to be an architect to understand sociology eh?

Thanks for your suggestions Fishboat. Hopefully they'll be more useful than your opinions.
Nsgarch,
While one would hope the alternative energy sources would be popping up I'll have to admit "the best in people" comment was more tongue in cheek(i.e. realistic). We'll see alternative energy applications on the expensive fringes until the oil-cow has been milked for all it's worth & only then will we magically see alternative energies coming out of the woodwork....and guess who will be selling them to you? (hint..where does energy come from today?)

All that being said..I still think John Baez has aged very well. :-)
Blah, blah, blah. Somebody doesn't like Joan Baez. No problem, to each his own, turns into a protracted discussion about the 60s. Don't forget there were people with flat tops in the 60s, definitely a lot more than long hairs. There was good music and bad music just like any other era.
Rja, you are (somewhat) right. To restate (24 year old) Goatwuss's inquiry: After listening to his first Baez album, he was, to say the least, underwhelmed with the sound of her voice -- which is all she really has to offer, since she's not a songwriter.

I think most of us simply tried to direct him to those recordings that best exemplify the qualities that made her so popular from the start.

If he seeks out a couple of those suggested recordings and remains unimpressed, he's certainly earned my respect as a serious music lover regardless.

Long hair and flat tops do remain == it's what's under them that has changed :~))
Nsgarch,
I'm really not too sure about the changes. My point was that the discussion somehow turned to politics instead of music. No problem here about liking or disliking Joan Baez or trying out some of her music. Good discussion material. I guess I'm just sensative to the politics. One of the reasons I enjoy Audiogon is the (near) absence of it.
As far as Joans voice, it's crystal clear AND powerful and probably difficult to record. When she first started as a folk singer she probably sang in small clubs either through a mike and tube amp or with no electronics at all. As far as vibrato, have you heard Buffy St. Marie? Cheers!