Sweet Sir Galahad

Last updated
"Sweet Sir Galahad"
Single by Joan Baez
from the album One Day at a Time
B-side "Long Black Veil"
ReleasedOctober 1969
RecordedSeptember 1969, Bradley's Barn, Nashville
Genre Folk
Length3:26
Label Vanguard (UK)
Vanguard (US)
Songwriter(s) Joan Baez
Producer(s) Maynard Solomon
Joan Baez
Joan Baez singles chronology
"Love Is Just a Four-Letter Word"
(1968)
"Sweet Sir Galahad"
(1969)
"The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down"
(1971)

"Sweet Sir Galahad" is a song written by Joan Baez that she famously performed at the Woodstock Festival in August 1969, [1] after having debuted it during an appearance in a Season Three episode of The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour , which aired on March 30, 1969. A recording of the song, first released as a single in late 1969, would lead off Baez's 1970 album One Day at a Time .

History

The song tells the story of Baez's younger sister Mimi Fariña and her marriage (her second) to music producer Milan Melvin. (Mimi's first husband Richard Fariña had died in a motorcycle accident two years previously.) Mimi and Milan were married at the 1968 Big Sur Folk Festival. Baez was inspired to write the song after hearing of Melvin's courtship of Fariña, during which he came into her bedroom at night through a window. [2]

The song became one of Baez's best-known compositions. In her 1987 memoir And a Voice to Sing With, Baez described "Sweet Sir Galahad" as the first song she ever wrote (although she is credited as a co-writer on two tracks on her 1967 album Joan ). [3]

Mimi Fariña and Milan Melvin divorced in 1971 and Mimi died in 2001. In 2006, Baez contributed a "re-tooled" version of the song to Volume 1 of the XM Artist Confidential CD series. In the new version, Baez changed the lyric "Here's to the dawn of their days" to "Here's to the dawn of her days."

A live version of the song appears as a bonus track on the 2006 reissue of Baez's 1995 album Ring Them Bells .

A cover version was sung by Sarah Lee Guthrie (daughter of Arlo Guthrie), and may be heard on youtube.

Related Research Articles

Joan Baez American contemporary folk musician (born 1941)

Joan Chandos Baez is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and activist. Her contemporary folk music often includes songs of protest and social justice. Baez has performed publicly for over 60 years, releasing over 30 albums. Fluent in Spanish and English, she has also recorded songs in at least six other languages.

<i>Gulf Winds</i> 1976 studio album by Joan Baez

Gulf Winds is a 1976 album by Joan Baez, her final album of new material for A&M. Baez stated in her autobiography, And a Voice to Sing With, that most of the songs were written while on tour with the Rolling Thunder Revue with Bob Dylan. "O Brother!" was a clever reply to Dylan's song "Oh Sister". On the title song, a ten-minute long autobiographical recollection of her childhood, Baez accompanies herself only with her own acoustic guitar, creating a sound reminiscent of her earliest pure folk recordings.

<i>Where Are You Now, My Son?</i> 1973 studio album by Joan Baez

Where Are You Now, My Son? is an album by Joan Baez, released in 1973. One side of the album featured recordings Baez made during a US bombing raid on Hanoi over Christmas 1972. Included on the recording are the voices of Barry Romo, Michael Allen and human rights attorney Telford Taylor, with whom Baez made her famous 1972 visit to North Vietnam.

<i>Honest Lullaby</i> 1979 studio album by Joan Baez

Honest Lullaby is a 1979 album by Joan Baez. It would be her final album on CBS Records' Portrait imprint, and her last new studio album issued in the U.S. until 1987. The autobiographical title song was written for her son, Gabriel Harris, and was performed on The Muppet Show in 1980. In addition to her own compositions, the album contained work by Janis Ian and Jackson Browne. "Let Your Love Flow" was originally a 1976 hit for The Bellamy Brothers. In her 1987 memoir, And a Voice to Sing With, Baez speculated that she was likely dropped from CBS due to a political disagreement she'd had with the label's then-president.

<i>Ring Them Bells</i> 1995 live album by Joan Baez

Ring Them Bells is a live album taken from Joan Baez' April 1995 shows at New York's The Bottom Line. In addition to her own solo set, the album featured collaborations with Mary Chapin Carpenter, Mimi Farina, Dar Williams, the Indigo Girls and Mary Black. Though Baez and many of the collaborating artists were admirers of one another, this album marked the first time many of them had worked together. Baez' manager, Mark Spector, served as producer.

<i>One Day at a Time</i> (Joan Baez album) 1970 studio album by Joan Baez

One Day at a Time is a 1970 album by Joan Baez. Recorded in Nashville, the album was a continuation of Baez' experimentation with country music, begun with the previous year's David's Album. It is significant in that it was the first to include Baez' own compositions, "Sweet Sir Galahad" and "A Song for David", the former song a ballad for her younger sister Mimi Fariña, and the latter song being for her then husband, David Harris, at the time in prison as a conscientious objector. One Day at a Time also included work by The Rolling Stones, Willie Nelson and Pete Seeger.

<i>Joan</i> (album) 1967 studio album by Joan Baez

Joan is a 1967 album by Joan Baez. Having exhausted the standard voice/guitar folksong format by 1967, Baez collaborated with arranger-conductor Peter Schickele, on an album of orchestrated covers of mostly then-current pop and rock and roll songs. Works by Donovan, Paul Simon, Tim Hardin, the Beatles, and Richard Fariña were included, as well as selections by Jacques Brel and Edgar Allan Poe.

Mimi Fariña American musician

Margarita Mimi Baez Fariña was an American singer-songwriter and activist, the youngest of three daughters to a Scottish mother and Mexican-American physicist Albert Baez. She was the younger sister of the singer and activist Joan Baez.

<i>Rare, Live & Classic</i> 1993 box set by Joan Baez

Rare, Live & Classic is a 1993 box set compilation by Joan Baez. Released on Vanguard, where Baez had recorded her most influential work during the first twelve years of her career, the set also included material from her subsequent record labels, A&M, Columbia and Gold Castle Records, as well as a number of previously unreleased studio and live recordings. Bob Dylan, Bob Gibson, Mimi Fariña, Judy Collins, Odetta and Kris Kristofferson are among those who make guest appearances on the various tracks; also included were two tracks from a never-released album recorded in 1981 with the Grateful Dead.

<i>Joan Baez: Classics</i> 1986 greatest hits album by Joan Baez

Joan Baez: Classics is a 1986 compilation, focusing on her A&M period (1972–76). Released in the mid-1980s, the album was significant for being the first Joan Baez compilation to appear on CD, and remains one of the more comprehensive collections of her 1970's work. The CD was part of A&M's series of compilations from artists associated with their label to commemorate their 25th anniversary.

Richard Fariña

Richard George Fariña was an American folksinger, songwriter, poet and novelist.

'Linda Solomon is an American music critic and editor. Although she has written about various aspects of popular culture, her main focus has been on folk music, blues, R&B, jazz and country music. Living at 95 Christopher Street in Greenwich Village during the early 1960s, she became a columnist for The Village Voice, capturing Village night life in club reviews for the weekly "Riffs" column.

Albert Vinicio Báez was a Mexican-American physicist and the father of singers Joan Baez and Mimi Fariña, and an uncle of John C. Baez. He made important contributions to the early development of X-ray microscopes and later X-ray telescopes.

<i>The First Ten Years</i> (Joan Baez album) 1970 greatest hits album by Joan Baez

The First Ten Years is a 1970 Joan Baez compilation album, which rounds up highlights of her first decade with the Vanguard label.

"Diamonds & Rust" is a song written, composed, and performed by Joan Baez. It was written in November 1974 and released in 1975.

Celebration at Big Sur is a film of the 1969 Big Sur Folk Festival in Big Sur, California, featuring Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, Joan Baez, Joni Mitchell and others.

Jules Halfant was an American painter and printmaker. He is notable as a Federal Art Project (FAP) artist during the Great Depression of the 1930s in both mural and easel categories of the New York Works Progress Administration (WPA). While in the WPA, he worked alongside such well-known artists as Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Milton Avery and Stuart Davis. From 1953 to 1988 Jules Halfant was Art Director of Vanguard Records where he designed albums featuring Joan Baez, Tom Paxton, Country Joe and the Fish, Buffy Sainte-Marie and many other musicians.

<i>Woodstock 40 Years On: Back To Yasgurs Farm</i> 2009 live album by Various artists

Woodstock 40 Years On: Back To Yasgur's Farm is a 6-CD live box-set album of the 1969 Woodstock Festival in Bethel, New York. Its release marked the 40th Anniversary of the festival.

<i>Woodstock: Three Days of Peace and Music</i> 1994 live album by Various artists

Woodstock: Three Days of Peace and Music is a 4-CD live box-set album of the 1969 Woodstock Festival in Bethel, New York. Its release marked the 25th Anniversary of the festival. The box set contains tracks from Woodstock: Music from the Original Soundtrack and More, Woodstock 2, and numerous additional, previously unreleased performances from the festival as well as the stage announcements and crowd noises. Just prior to the box set's release, Atlantic Records released a much shorter 1-CD version entitled The Best of Woodstock. In 2019, Rhino Records issued a 38-CD box set called Woodstock – Back to the Garden: The Definitive 50th Anniversary Archive which includes every musical performance as well as stage announcements and other ancillary material.

Big Sur Folk Festival

The Big Sur Folk Festival, held from 1964 to 1971 in California, was an informal gathering of prominent and emerging folk artists from across the United States. Nancy Jane Carlen (1941-2013) was working at the Esalen Institute when Joan Baez was asked to lead workshops on music. Carlen was a good friend of Baez, and they decided to invite other artists, which turned into the first festival.

References

  1. Pete Fornatale (30 June 2009). Back to the Garden: The Story of Woodstock. Simon & Schuster. pp. 49–. ISBN   978-1-4165-9677-6.
  2. Markus Jaeger (1 April 2010). Popular Is Not Enough: The Political Voice Of Joan Baez: A Case Study In The Biographical Method. Columbia University Press. p. 109. ISBN   978-3-8382-0106-1.
  3. Joan Baez (10 April 2012). And A Voice to Sing With: A Memoir. Simon & Schuster. pp. 317–. ISBN   978-1-4516-8840-5.