This is supposed to be the album that thrusts Joan Baez into the pop mainstream and it does, in a way. But in attempting to undertake a variety of styles not usually associated with her, Baez does nothing as much as confirm what we already knew about her.

True, we have Gavin Sutherland's "Sailing," a British hit for Rod Stewart a few years back, Steve Winwood's "Many a Mile to Freedom" and even "Cry Me a River." But Baez hasn't really changed her vocal approach a whit; although she sings this material intelligently, it only reminds us of her limitations.

Baez has recently made much of abandoning her "puritan" upbringing, but here it sounds like it just ain't so. "Cry Me a River" is a torch/revenge song, just the vehicle for either some uninhibited vocal histrionics or sharply understated rage. Baez sings it as if it were "Banks of the Ohio"—with the upright rectitude and lack of passion that was fashionable for folk singers at the turn of the Sixties as well as a feature of traditional Southern rural vocalizing.

She doesn't do a bad job, just an uptight one. Where Baez shines, where she really affects us, is in her presentation of her own material and in such kindred songs as "Yellow Coat," Steve Goodman's deceptively domestic-sounding plaint. Baez' own "Miracles" is a lovely, unobtrusive song that her voice relates with attractive naturalness. And her narrative numbers, the family history "Luba the Baroness" and the biased, clear portrait of a homosexual nitery, "Alter Boy and the Thief," are remarkably adult and cogent. This is what Baez should be all about at this point in her career. (RS 246)

PETER HERBST