Joan Baez, Vol. 2

Though Bob Dylan became the 20th century's best-known folk singer, he was still refining his craft as 20-year-old Joan Baez was bringing ageless traditional songs to the masses. She'd eventually sing anything Dylan dared to pen, but at the time of her second studio album in 1961, she was doing just fine with the entire history of song behind her. Her ear was simply impeccable. This reissue features three bonus cuts—"I Once Loved a Boy," "Poor Boy," and "The Longest Train I Ever Saw"—that come from the same sessions and are therefore perfectly in tune with the album's tenor. These 17 songs are among the most emotionally engaging of Baez's early career. She had a young person's attraction to doomed love. The Greenbriar Boys provide bluegrass-influenced backing vocals and banjo for "Pal of Mine" (a tune notably performed by The Carter Family) and "Banks of the Ohio" (a 19th-century murder ballad also covered by The Carter Family and many others through the years). Essential.