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Gulf Winds

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Gulf Winds
Studio album by
ReleasedNovember 1976
Recorded1976
StudioSound Labs, Los Angeles; synthesizers at TONTO, Santa Monica[1]
GenreFolk
Length44:05
LabelA&M
ProducerDavid Kershenbaum
Joan Baez chronology
From Every Stage
(1976)
Gulf Winds
(1976)
Blowin' Away
(1977)
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
Allmusic[2]

Gulf Winds is the seventeenth studio album (and nineteenth overall) by Joan Baez, released in 1976. It was her final album of new material for A&M. Baez stated in her autobiography, And a Voice to Sing With, that most of the songs were written while on tour with the Rolling Thunder Revue with Bob Dylan.[3] "O Brother!" was a clever reply to Dylan's song "Oh Sister". On the title song, a ten-minute long autobiographical recollection of her childhood, Baez accompanies herself only with her own acoustic guitar (the rest of the album features standard mid-1970s pop/rock backup), creating a sound reminiscent of her earliest pure folk recordings.

Gulf Winds is the only Baez album without any covers; each song was written by Baez herself.

From the album's liner notes:

"Sometimes, I wake up at night and write a song. Sometimes a tune comes to my head when I'm walking in the hills, and I have to make up words for it. Sometimes I sit in a bar in San Francisco and scribble into a notepad what I call my 'streams of unconsciousness.' When I have enough scribbles in the pad, and enough tunes in my head, I go into the studio and make an album. That's how I made this one."
- Joan Baez

Track listing

[edit]

All tracks composed by Joan Baez

Side One

  1. "Sweeter for Me" 4:25
  2. "Seabirds" 4:32
  3. "Caruso" 3:42
  4. "Still Waters at Night" 3:01
  5. "Kingdom of Childhood" 7:51

Side Two

  1. "O Brother!" 3:19
  2. "Time Is Passing Us By" 3:43
  3. "Stephanie's Room" 4:05
  4. "Gulf Winds" 10:29

Personnel

[edit]
  • Joan Baez – vocals, acoustic guitar, piano, synthesizer
  • Duck Dunn – bass
  • Jim Gordon – drums
  • Ray Kelley – cello
  • Jesse Ehrlich – cello
  • Larry Knechtel – acoustic and electric piano, organ
  • Dean Parks – acoustic and electric guitar, mandolin, string arrangements, conductor
  • Sid Sharp – violin
  • Malcolm Cecil – synthesizer effects, synthesizer programming
Technical
  • Tommy Vicari – mix engineer
  • Bernard Gelb – executive producer
  • Roland Young – art direction
  • Chuck Beeson – design
  • Johanna Van Zantwyk – photography

"Special thanks to Carlos Bernal"

Chart positions

[edit]
Year Chart Position
1976 The Billboard 200 62

References

[edit]
  1. ^ "Joan Baez - Gulf Winds". Discogs. 1976.
  2. ^ Allmusic review
  3. ^ Baez, Joan. 1987. And a Voice to Sing With: A Memoir. Century Hutchinson, London. ISBN 0-7126-1827-9