While this two-record live set will delight Baez devotees, it is not likely to win new friends or influence new people. To succeed, a live album must have a higher energy level than a studio set, which was the aesthetic logic behind the release of Dylan's crude but thrilling Before the Flood. On this part acoustic, part electric album, Baez's singing is often frayed and she contributes no new excitement or interpretive dimension to material she has already recorded. All that's new is Baez's well-known but rarely recorded sense of humor. The electric half of the album is particularly disappointing. Included in the repertoire are ponderously sluggish renditions of Dylan's "Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts" and Emmylou Harris's "Boulder to Birmingham" that accentuate Baez's blunt, noncomprehending approach to other people's material. To experience From Every Stage is not unlike auditing a dull one-and-a-quarter-hour Sunday school class. (RS 209)

STEPHEN HOLDEN