Gulf Winds

Gulf Winds
Studio album by Joan Baez
Released November 1976
Recorded 1976
Genre Folk
Length 44:05
Label A&M
Producer David Kershenbaum
Joan Baez chronology

From Every Stage
(1976)		 Gulf Winds
(1976)		 Blowin' Away
(1977)
Professional ratings
Review scores
Source Rating
Allmusic [1]

Gulf Winds was an album composed of songs written and performed by Joan Baez. The album was released in 1976, and 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.[2] "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 one single cover; 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

All tracks composed by Joan Baez

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

Personnel

Chart positions

Year Chart Position
1976 The Billboard 200 62

References

  1. ↑ Allmusic review
  2. ↑ Baez, Joan. 1987. And a Voice to Sing With: A Memoir. Century Hutchinson, London. ISBN 0-7126-1827-9