Play Me Backwards

Play Me Backwards

The new set in the Joan Baez re-issue programme, another 2 CD set with original album and a bonus disc of previously unreleased tracks. First released in 1992, Play Me Backwards holds a very special place in the rich 50-year recording history of Joan Baez. The album's sessions brought her back to Nashville for the first time since the series of four albums she had recorded in Music City between 1968 and 1971. Adding historic provenance to this reissue is a second disc containing previously unreleased demos of 10 songs which were contemplated by Joan and her producers, heard here for the first time. Joan reaffirmed her unique ability to identify and interpret successive generations of songwriters whose music had the ability to speak to her: Mary Chapin Carpenter ("Stones In the Road"), John Stewart ("Strange Rivers"), John Hiatt ("Through Your Hands"), the duo of Janis Ian and Buddy Mondlock ("Amsterdam"), and Ron Davies ("Steal Across the Border" and "The Dream Song," co-written with Joan). Play Me Backwards also contains four songs that Joan co-wrote with her two producers ("Play Me Backwards," "Isaac and Abraham," "I'm With You," and "Edge Of Glory." Some of the songwriters contributing to disc 2 are not widely known, such as the late Mark Heard ("Rise From the Ruins," "Lonely Moon"), or John Hadley ("The Last Day") or Gary Nicholson ("Trouble With the Truth"); and one writer is not known at all ("Medicine Wheel"). On the other hand, there are additional songs from Janis Ian ("We Endure") and Ron Davies ("Dark Eyed Man," originally recorded by Kevin Welch as "Dark Eyed Gal"). Fans will be immediately drawn to Joan's version of Bob Dylan's "Seven Curses."