The Recording Academy has nominated Joan Baez’s Whistle Down The Wind, her first new studio record in ten years, for Best Folk Album. The 61st GRAMMY Awards will air February 10th. Fan’s can purchase the album here. Due to popular demand, Baez has extended her final formal tour, the extensive “Fare Thee Well Tour,” into 2019 including stops at New York’s Beacon Theatre, Selma’s Walton Theatre, D.C.’s Warner Theatre, Northampton’s John M. Greene Hall, Knoxville’s Tennessee Theatre, Austin’s Paramount Theatre, two dates at Port Chester’s Capitol Theater and more. Tickets are available for purchase at www.joanbaez.com/tour. See below for complete tour details.Whistle Down The Wind debuted earlier this year at #18 on Billboard’s Top Current Albums chart and #4 on the Americana/Folk Albums chart—Baez’s strongest chart position since 1975’sDiamonds & Rust. The album has also achieved considerable success internationally. Watch a recent profile on “CBS News Sunday Morning” here.
Critical acclaim for the new album…
50 Best Albums of 2018 So Far
★★★★
“A moving reflection and summation of Baez’s life as a singer, musician and activist.”
“…the takeaway from Joan Baez’s latest—following her well-earned 2017 induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame—is how essential her work remains.”
“Joan Baez delivers another pearl, 10 deeply felt interpretations about the human condition and the state of the world. Baez’s voice is in fine form and if her range now is, unsurprisingly, more earth angel than angelic, it serves to enhance her expressiveness, the depth of the lyrics and the strength of the melodies.”
“the reigning queen of folk music”
“The strength of the 10-track offering lies in Baez’s tone and interpretation…Where some tracks are shrouded in despair, Baez’s steady voice keeps the spirit of the album balanced.”
“This particular batch of folk songs amplifies Baez ever-present gift for interpretation.”
“She chooses songs that convey a sense of ambivalence about our country’s fate, as though she must now work to muster something resembling hope. That struggle is what makes this album so compelling and ultimately so rewarding.”
“She’s at least leaving us with something special to remember her by with Whistle. Produced by Joe Henry, the record features a mix of songs…that look back warmly on the past and graciously on the present.”
“Whistle Down the Wind may be Joan Baez’s best album, for it showcases her way with a song: her emotional engagement with the lyrics, her passionate delivery of the story in the song, her somber or soaring musical setting of the lyrics. There are moments of purity, clarity, and grace on Baez’s album delivered powerfully and poignantly through her vision and her voice.”
Recorded over a ten-day period in Los Angeles, Whistle Down The Wind was produced by three-time GRAMMY Award-winner Joe Henry (Bonnie Raitt, Allen Toussaint and others) and includes songs written by Tom Waits, Anohni, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Josh Ritter and Eliza Gilkyson. Of working with Henry, Baez says, “It was a hunch on both of our parts that we could make an album together. As it turned out it was a no brainer. We both work fast and were musically on the same wavelength. I work best with musicians who are as willing as I am to wing it and he assembled a group of players who did just that. Meaning: invent each song from scratch.”
The new music marks the first release from Baez since 2008’s GRAMMY-nominated album Day After Tomorrow. Its release, which ignited an extraordinary decade of achievement for Baez, coincided with the 50th anniversary of her legendary 1958 residency at the famed Club 47 in Cambridge. Milestones over the past ten years include:
- 2009: PBS American Masters premiere of her life story, Joan Baez: How Sweet The Sound, which underscored the 50th anniversary of Baez’s debut at the 1959 Newport Folk Festival.
- 2011: Baez’ seminal debut album of 1960 honored by the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences in 2011, which inducted it into the GRAMMY Hall Of Fame.
- 2015: Library of Congress selects Baez’s debut album to be preserved in the National Recording Registry.
- 2015: Amnesty International bestowed its highest honor on Baez, the Ambassador of Conscience Award, in recognition of her exceptional leadership in the fight for human rights.
- 2016: Baez’s 75th birthday was celebrated at New York’s Beacon Theater in January, where Paul Simon, Jackson Browne, Emmylou Harris and others joined her. The concert premiered on the PBS Great Performances series in May 2017.
- 2017: Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame induction
- 2017: Baez’s first solo exhibition of paintings, entitled “Mischief Makers,” was presented in Mill Valley, CA. The bulk of the exhibit was subsequently purchased by the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria and donated to Sonoma State University, where it will eventually be displayed at an envisioned new social justice learning center on campus.
Baez remains a musical force of incalculable influence. She marched on the front line of the civil rights movement with Martin Luther King, shined a spotlight on the Free Speech Movement, took to the fields with Cesar Chavez, organized resistance to the Vietnam War, inspired Vaclav Havel in his fight for a Czech Republic, saluted the Dixie Chicks for their courage to protest the Iraq war, stood with old friend Nelson Mandela in London’s Hyde Park as the world celebrated his 90th birthday and, most recently, protested the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline at Standing Rock Sioux Reservation. To this day, she continues to stand passionately on behalf of causes she embraces.
JOAN BAEZ: FARE THEE WELL TOUR 2019
April 9—Selma, AL—Walton Theatre
April 10—Birmingham, AL—Alys Stephens Performing Arts Center
April 12—Atlanta, GA—Atlanta Symphony Hall
April 13—Mobile, AL—The Saenger Theatre
April 16—San Antonio, TX—The Tobin Center for the Performing Arts
April 17—Austin, TX—Paramount Theatre
April 19—Dallas, TX—Strauss Square
April 20—Fayetteville, AR— Walton Arts Center
April 22—St. Louis, MO—The Pageant
April 23—Knoxville, TN—Tennessee Theatre
April 25—Newport News, VA—Ferguson Concert Hall
April 26—Washington, DC—Warner Theatre
April 28—Northampton, MA—John M. Greene Hall
April 30—Princeton, NJ—McCarter Theatre Center
May 1—New York, NY—Beacon Theatre
May 3 & 5—Port Chester, NY—Capitol Theater
April 10—Birmingham, AL—Alys Stephens Performing Arts Center
April 12—Atlanta, GA—Atlanta Symphony Hall
April 13—Mobile, AL—The Saenger Theatre
April 16—San Antonio, TX—The Tobin Center for the Performing Arts
April 17—Austin, TX—Paramount Theatre
April 19—Dallas, TX—Strauss Square
April 20—Fayetteville, AR— Walton Arts Center
April 22—St. Louis, MO—The Pageant
April 23—Knoxville, TN—Tennessee Theatre
April 25—Newport News, VA—Ferguson Concert Hall
April 26—Washington, DC—Warner Theatre
April 28—Northampton, MA—John M. Greene Hall
April 30—Princeton, NJ—McCarter Theatre Center
May 1—New York, NY—Beacon Theatre
May 3 & 5—Port Chester, NY—Capitol Theater
Asha Goodman – sacksco