![]() ![]() She released several albums during the first half of the decade, followed by more studio outings like Farewell, Angelina (1965) and Noel (1966). In 1960 Baez released her self-titled debut album on Vanguard Records, featuring tracks like “House of the Rising Sun” and “Mary Hamilton.” Baez became renowned for her distinctive voice while receiving press billing that she would see as evoking the Virgin Mary/Madonna archetype. Soon Baez became a regular performer at local clubs and eventually got her big break via an appearance at the 1959 Newport Folk Festival, invited onstage by singer/guitarist Bob Gibson. She eventually delved into the city's burgeoning folk scene, later citing artists like Harry Belafonte, Odetta (Baez referred to the singer as her “goddess” in a 1983 Rolling Stone interview) and Pete Seeger as major influences. Two years after her family moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts so that her professorial father could join the faculty of MIT, Baez enrolled at Boston University’s theater school, greatly disliking the experience and flunking her courses. She became a vocalist in the folk tradition and was a crucial part of the music genre's commercial rebirth in the 1960s, devoting herself to the guitar in the mid-1950s. But that did not stop her from pursuing her natural musical talents. Of Mexican and Scottish descent, Baez was no stranger to racism and discrimination. Joan Baez was born on January 9, 1941, in Staten Island, New York, in a Quaker household, her family eventually relocating to the Southern California area. Baez's most popular songs over the years have included "We Shall Overcome," "It's All Over Now Baby Blue," "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" and "Diamonds and Rust." With an enduring career, she has continued to record and perform into the 2000s. Baez also played a critical role in popularizing Bob Dylan, with whom she dated and performed regularly in the mid-1960s. After releasing her debut album in 1960, she became known for topical songs promoting social justice, civil rights and pacifism. ‘Cept the thoughts of yourself feeling bad.Joan Baez first became known to the wider public as a distinctive folk singer after performing at the 1959 Newport Folk Festival. Though breathlike, get deathlike at times.Īs to be under the strength of your skin. I’m not a huge fan.Ī nice version was also released on The Bootleg Series Volume 6 – Live 1964.Īn interesting version by Alan Price, one-time pianist with The Animals. More recent versions transform the song by accenting the waltz beat and adding a more upbeat vocal. Like 4th Time Around, Ballad in Plain D, Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll, and Winterlude, To Ramona is a waltz, meaning it has three beats to the measure, with the accent on the first beat.ĭylan performs To Ramona in the documentary Don’t Look Back in a style similar to the recording. Dylan performs the song frequently, but I haven’t heard a version that tops the original. The gentle guitar accompaniment quietly supports the vocal. The listener can feel the sympathy the narrator has for Ramona. Could be I guess.ĭylan give a wonderful performance on Another Side. Are they lovers, friends, ex-lovers? Who knows.īaez in her early autobiography, Daybreak, claims that Dylan wrote the song about her. In To Ramona, it is unclear just what the relationship is between the two characters. A characteristic of Dylan’s writing, which becomes even more pronounced in later years, is a frequent lack of linear narrative. He does keep things vague, not only in his personal life but also in some of his songs. Joan Baez writes in her wonderful song Diamonds and Rust, which deals with her relationship with Dylan, that he was “always so good with words/ and keeping things vague”. To Ramona is full of ornate, poetic language, and brings to mind not only Spanish Harlem Incident but also Lay Down Your Weary Tune (released on Biograph), which were written and recorded during the same general time-frame. ![]() Like All I Really Want To Do, the song protests the pressure to conform to society’s norms: “ hype you and type you/Making you feel/That you must be exactly like them.” “Everything passes/Everything changes/Just do what you think you should do.” Like My Back Pages, the song speaks of grayness, nothing is black and white. The song’s narrator has no answers for Ramona, or anybody else. The song reminds me of the line Humphrey Bogart says to Ingrid Bergman in Casablanca: “Ilsa, I’m no good at being noble, but it doesn’t take much to see that the problems of three little people don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world.” We are only an infinitesimal speck lost within it. To Ramona reminds that the world is a complicated, sordid mess. Whereas most of Dylan great albums sparkle with big “important” songs, Another Side is filled with elegant gems like this one. ![]()
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