Joan Baez Diamonds & Rust CD

Personnel: Joan Baez (vocals, acoustic guitar, Moog synthesizer, ARP synthesizer); Joni Mitchell (vocals); Larry Carlton (conductor, acoustic & electric guitars); Dean Parks (acoustic & electric guitars); Red Rhodes (pedal steel guitar); Sidney Sharp, William Kurasch, James Getzoff, Carl La Magna, Robert Konrad, Ronald Folsom, Tibor Zelig, William Hymanson, Robert Ostrowsky, Raymond Kelly (violin); Isabelle Daskoff (viola); Jesse Ehrlich (cello); Tom Scott (flute); Larry Knechtel (piano, electric piano); David Paich (piano, electric harpsichord); Hampton Hawes (piano); Joe Sample (electric piano, Hammond organ); Malcolm Cecil (Moog synthesizer, ARP synthesizer, programming); Reine Press, Wilton Felder (bass); Jim Gordon (drums); Gordo (percussion); Bob Margouleff (programming).
Engineers: Rick Ruggieri, Henry Lewy.
Principally recorded at A&M Studios, Hollywood, California on January 21-24, 1975.
Personnel: Joan Baez (vocals, guitar); Mercedes Sosa (vocals); Jean Marie Ecay (guitar); Costel Recea, John Acosta (cello); Cesar Cancino (piano); Laytham Armour (keyboards, synthesizer); Jose Agustin (bass); Begnat Amorena (drums); L.A. Mass Choir (background vocals).
Recorded live in Bilbao, Spain in 1989.
Personnel includes: Joan Baez (vocals, acoustic guitar, Moog synthesizer, ARP synthesizer); Joni Mitchell (vocals); Larry Carlton (conductor, acoustic & electric guitars); Dean Parks (acoustic & electric guitars); Red Rhodes (pedal steel guitar); Sidney Sharp, William Kurasch, James Getzoff, Carl La Magna, Robert Konrad, Ronald Folsom, Tibor Zelig, William Hymanson, Robert Ostrowsky, Raymond Kelly (violin); Isabelle Daskoff (viola); Jesse Ehrlich (cello); Tom Scott (flute); Hampton Hawes (piano); Larry Knechtel (piano, electric piano); David Paich (piano, electric harpsichord); Joe Sample (electric piano, Hammond organ); Malcolm Cecil (Moog synthesizer, ARP synthesizer, programming); Reinne Press, Wilton Felder (bass); Jim Gordon (drums); Gordo (percussion); Bob Margouleff (programming).
Engineers: Rick Ruggieri, Henry Lewy.
Principally recorded at A&M Studios, Hollywood, California on January 21-24, 1975. Includes original release liner notes by Bernard Gelb.
Although she released a comeback album, Recently, in 1987 after eight years away from U.S. record stores, Joan Baez continued to be more of a force in Europe than in her homeland, and she followed Recently with what was actually her third live album to be recorded in Europe in the 1980s. Diamonds & Rust in the Bullring is not to be confused with her 1975 studio album Diamonds & Rust, of course, and it is not a live recording of the songs from that album, either, even though the song "Diamonds and Rust" itself does lead it off. So, the title is not helpful. The album chronicles a show performed by Baez, in a bullring, naturally, in Bilbao, Spain, in 1988, and it demonstrates what makes her such a draw overseas. Half of the collection (Side 2 of the LP and cassette, tracks 7-12 of the CD) consists of songs sung in Spanish, recalling her 1974 all-Spanish album Gracias a la Vida and including that LP's title song, here performed as a duet with Mercedes Sosa, "El Preso Numero Nueve" (which was also on her debut album, Joan Baez, in 1960), "Llego con Tres Heridas," and "No Nos Moveran" (aka "We Shall Not Be Moved"). Also part of the Spanish side are a translation of Sting's "They Dance Alone (Gueca Solo)," called "Ellas Danzan Solas (Cueca Sola)." (Singing in Spanish always seems to remind Baez of the bloody Chilean military coup and its aftermath.) But the song that most moves the crowd is the pretty "Txoria Txori," a song in Catalan with which they sing along. Actually, the Spanish side is more moving than the English one, in which Baez seems to be just running through some familiar material or turning in interpretations of such classics as Bob Marley's "No Woman No Cry," Leonard Cohen's "Famous Blue Raincoat," and the Beatles' "Let It Be" that have been