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Saturday, November 8, 2008 at 8 pm
Massey Hall
$69.50 - $49.50
Call 416-872-4255 or online at
www.masseyhall.com
or visit the Roy Thomson Hall Box Office
Day After Tomorrow, released a month ago, is Joan Baez’s first
new studio recording in five years. Joan recorded the tracks in
Nashville in December and February, working with producer Steve
Earle and a band that includes bluegrass veterans Tim O'Brien and
Darryl Scott, as well as Viktor Krauss and Kenny Malone. The album
will feature three songs written by Steve Earle, including "God
Is God", a song Joan debuted during her recent tour. The song "Scarlet
Tide" (Elvis Costello/T-Bone Burnett) has just been added to the
music player at Joan's
MySpace profile. Day After Tomorrow also includes songs by Eliza
Gilkyson, Patti Griffin, Tom Waits, Diana Jones and Thea Gilmore.
Joan also received the Spirit of Americana Free Speech Award at
the Americana Music Association's seventh annual awards show this
past September in Nashville. The honour recognizes and celebrates
artists who have ignited discussion and challenged the status quo
through their music and actions. Past recipients of this award include
Johnny Cash, Kris Kristofferson, Judy Collins, Mavis Staples, and
Steve Earle, who presented the award to Joan.
It's been told that some artists live in history - and the lives
of other artists are history. From the very beginning of
her musical career, Joan Baez has never sought to draw lines between
real world, real time events and her own artistic vision. Dark
Chords on a Big Guitar (September 2003), Joan's first album
of studio recordings in six years is a fresh collection from contemporary
songwriters whose work resonates with Joan Baez. The songs are drawn
from the pens of Ryan Adams ("In My Time Of Need"), Greg Brown ("Sleeper"
and "Rexroth's Daughter," whose lyric gives the album its title),
Caitlin Cary ("Rosemary Moore"), Steve Earle ("Christmas In Washington"),
Joe Henry ("King's Highway"), Natalie Merchant ("Motherland"), Josh
Ritter ("Wings"), and Gillian Welch and David Rawlings ("Elvis Presley
Blues" and "Caleb Meyer").
Joan's appreciation of distinctive songwriting - a hallmark of her
recordings and performances ever since she first stepped on a stage
- has been heightened over the past decade as a result of collaborative
mentoring with an impressive roster of younger artists and songwriters.
After attending an early Indigo Girls concert in 1990 (the year
after their major label album debut) and then playing concerts together,
Joan reinforced her belief in the current generation of songwriters'
ability to speak to her. When Joan's album Play Me Backwards
came out in 1992, it featured songs by Mary Chapin Carpenter, John
Hiatt, John Stewart, and others. Each new album since then has incorporated
its share of exciting material, often juxtaposed with songs that
reflect Joan's rich folk music heritage.
Every song chosen by Joan for Dark Chords on a Big Guitar
speaks to the times in which we live - could Joan Baez have recorded
an album that did anything less? From her earliest LPs, when she
introduced a wider audience to songs written by Bob Dylan (whose
career has intertwined with Joan's since 1961), Pete Seeger, Woody
Guthrie, Phil Ochs, Richard Farina, Johnny Cash, Donovan, Malvina
Reynolds, Tim Hardin, and others, Joan was charting new waters.
She was among the singers who rejected the hit parade and established
a precedent whereby the music of a new generation became the conscience
for an emerging era of social activism.
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