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Artist: Joan Baez
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Joan Baez:

Bowery Songs

Over four decades after her landmark live album, In Concert, Joan Baez returns with Bowery Songs-a new live album that captures her November 6, 2004 performance at the Bowery Ballroom in New York City. USA Today has called Baez "the matriarch of modern folk music" and Bowery Songs celebrates her career and legacy with both classic and previously unreleased material. Bowery Songs features four previously unrecorded songs, Bob Dylan's "Seven Curses," Steve Earle's "Jerusalem," the hymn-like "Finlandia" and the traditional "Dink's Song." Baez is supported on the album by her recent touring band, George Javori, Duke McVinnie, Erik Della Penna and Graham Maby. The Washington Post recently said of Baez's live performances, "...still familiar after decades.she commanded newer compositions with grace and agility."

Bowery Songs, the newest album from Joan Baez and her first live album in ten years, is a soaring chronicle of her 2003-2004 tour. The album was recorded in its entirety on the Saturday night after Election Day, November 2004, at New York's Bowery Ballroom. From Joan's opening acapella benediction, "Finlandia," to her prophetic and telling versions of Bob Dylan's "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" and Steve Earle's "Jerusalem" that close the album, there can be no mistaking the medium and the message she sought to capture.

One of the album's centerpieces is Earle's "Christmas in Washington" ("So come back Woody Guthrie/Come back to us now..."), one of three 'Bowery songs' that originated on Joan's most recent studio album Dark Chords On a Big Guitar (released in September 2003). The others are Greg Brown's "Rexroth's Daughter" (whose lyric gave the album its title) and Natalie Merchant's "Motherland," all of which have become staples in Joan's repertoire.

Joan Baez:

Day After Tomorrow

Joan Baez's 24th studio album, Day After Tomorrow will be released September 9 on Bobolink/Razor & Tie Entertainment. The album is Baez's first studio album since 2003's Dark Chords On a Big Guitar and follows her acclaimed 2005 live album Bowery Songs. Produced by Steve Earle, Day After Tomorrow continues Baez's role as a musical curator and interpreter of songs and includes material by Tom Waits, Elvis Costello, Patty Griffin and Earle himself.

Recorded in Nashville, the 10-track album features an all-acoustic band consisting of Tim O'Brien, Darrell Scott, Viktor Krauss, Kenny Malone and Steve Earle. Earle notes the importance in choosing the lineup of players, explaining the need to find musicians that, "would bring the requisite virtuosity, as well as the appropriate reverence, to a record that would celebrate the 50th year of a remarkable career." Of the assembled group, Earle says, "Within seconds of the first downbeat it was obvious that we had assembled the right crew. The band dug deep and found the pulse of the song and then Joan breathed life into it, and we all knew that we were a part of something special." Highlights on the record include the Tom Waits-penned title track "Day After Tomorrow," the Academy Award and Grammy Award-nominated song "Scarlet Tide," written by Elvis Costello and T-Bone Burnett and "God is God," one of three songs Steve Earle wrote especially for the project. Of the selected material, Baez notes, "It's been a long time since I've had an entire album of songs that speak to the essence of who I am in the same way as the songs that have been the enduring backbone of my repertoire for the past 50 years."

Earlier this year, Baez returned to Harvard University's Sanders Theatre for a show to benefit Club Passim, the Harvard Square successor to the legendary Club 47. The special event celebrated the Club's 50th anniversary and commemorated Baez's earliest performances at the historic venue. In addition to this honor, Baez was recently recognized by the Recording Academy with a Grammy Lifetime Achievement award.