Album review: Joan Baez, ‘Farewell, Angelina’ (Remastered 2025)
Sixty years ago, Joan Baez released Farewell, Angelina, her sixth album, on which she continued to evolve as a musician. While the album includes her versions of traditional folk songs, she here offers her versions of songs by others, including Dylan, Woody Guthrie, and Pete Seeger. Although Farewell, Angelina features Baez’s characteristic sparse acoustic treatment of these songs, here she shifts to electric instrumentation on several of the songs featuring the electric guitar work of Bruce Langhorne. Now, Craft Recordings celebrates the 60th anniversary of Farewell, Angelina by reissuing it in vinyl for the first time in nearly four decades.
Baez’s lilting voice and elegantly circling guitar work lifts the traditional “The River in the Pines,” transporting listeners with its haunting themes and melodies. The album opens with the title track, Baez’s exquisite take on Bob Dylan’s composition delivered in a way that resonates deeply in listeners’ hearts. “Daddy, You Been on My Mind” robustly reimagines Dylan’s “Mama, You Been on My Mind,” while Baez offers a gently loping version of Guthrie’s “Ranger’s Command.” The album closes with “Sagt Mir Wo Die Blumen Sind,” her reimagining in German of Seeger’s “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?,” and a cinematic take on Dylan’s “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall.”
On Farewell, Angelina Baez’s crystalline soprano vocals waft like a gentle breeze through these lyrics, and the power of the songs arises as much from her vocals as it does from the sparse arrangements on most of them. The reissue of the album provides a perfect opportunity to celebrate the purity and clarity of one of our most treasured singers and songwriters.
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Farewell, Angelina (Remastered 2025 ) is available HERE.
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