So who started the folk-music revival? If the question doesn't rival "Who lost China?" as the hottest topic of the Cold War era, it may be because the answer is more self-evident. In 1950, the Weavers' first release, "Goodnight Irene," coupling schmaltzed-up Leadbelly with a Jewish tune, sold a reported 2 million copies.

It was a most auspicious beginning for the most inauspicious of groups. Ronnie Gilbert, Lee Hays, Fred Hellerman and Pete Seeger were not people who took naturally to show business. Fortunately or not, they didn't have to. The McCarthy-era blacklist soon took notice of their left-wing background; consequently their original record company dropped them, live appearances dried up, and the Weavers disbanded. In 1955 they reunited for a Carnegie Hall concert that revitalized their career. Seeger, ever the individualist, left not long afterward; the other three continued with replacements until 1964. Slicker, hipper outfits followed in their wake, but the Weavers' integrity, influence and raucous musical joy remain unchallenged.

More than three decades later, the songs on the four-CD box Wasn't That a Time still inspire. The first eight tracks (of 87) are pre-blacklist recordings in which various orchestrators surround and/or smother the group. The rest of the four hours is unvarnished Weavers: mostly hearty vocal choruses with banjo and guitar, in a repertoire drawn from Leadbelly, Woody Guthrie, union songs, traditional music from the U.S. and elsewhere and originals like "If I Had a Hammer," which went on to become a de facto theme song for the civil-rights movement. An accompanying booklet contains reminiscences from surviving members (Hays died in '81) and the group's manager, Harold Leventhal. The passionate performances on Wasn't That a Time convey the idealism that – in a paranoid '50s society – made the Weavers the real World's Most Dangerous Band.

The Weavers were still banned from network television when Joan Baez graced the cover of Time, a magazine not known – then or now – for its leftist tendencies. Modern media's first folk superstar, Baez benefited from changing times and attitudes. Just as politically committed as the Weavers, she arrived too late to be crippled by smears and the blacklist. In addition, Baez had youth and technical virtuosity – both qualities the earlier group lacked. The Weavers' any-one-can-do-it approach encouraged, even urged, audience participation; Baez's stunning soprano commanded rapt respect.

Baez has had to survive in a more mercenary music business, however; since the mid-'70s, she has recorded for four labels. The three-CD Rare, Live and Classic is not just a compilation of her greatest "hits." Its one-third previously unreleased tracks tend to upstage more familiar material. The rarities range from documents of teen-age prodigy through live '60s-'70s duets with Bob Dylan, a 1980 session with members of the Grateful Dead and a bluesy trade-off with Odetta from 1985.

Baez is the first to admit that her career has been erratic. Rare, Live and Classic's first CD presents her as an acoustic folk virgin warbling tragic tales. Subsequent "commercial" arrangements and a flirtation with country music yielded mixed results; a deepening voice has eradicated her former trademark. She remains a compelling live performer – another of this collection's strengths – and almost embarrassingly honest in her songwriting.

"Speaking of Dreams," the 1989 love song that concludes Rare, Live and Classic, provides an optimistic end to Baez's quixotic artistic odyssey. No longer an adolescent maid of constant sorrow or militant conscience of the world, she relaxes to the point of acknowledging that sometimes the personal is personal – as well as political. That in turn makes her more approachable and more effective.

Rare, Live and Classic is that rarest of retrospectives: a coherent overview of a restless talent. (RS 675)

SCOTT ISLER