I’ve decided to blow through these next few Joan Baez records so I can move on to records I’m more excited to listen to (John Coltrane, Johnny Cash, Joy Division…)

On paper, this album sounds like a trainwreck. By 1967, Joan ran out of folk standards, so she met with a composer to make orchestral arrangements of pop tunes of that day, including songs by Donovan, Simon & Garfunkel, and, of course, the Beatles. But in reality, this album is (surprisingly) more hit than miss. Besides war song La Calombe, the orchestra is a a gentle underpinning on fresh reconstructions of familiar songs (Eleanor Rigby especially). The giant group of musicians with her is much less out of character here than the two orchestral tracks on 5. Instead, this seems more like an expansion of herself.