JOAN BAEZ - THE NIGHT THEY DROVE OLD DIXIE DOWN

THE NIGHT THEY DROVE OLD DIXIE DOWN

JOAN BAEZ

SONGWRITER: ROBBIE ROBERTSoN

COUNTRY: U. S. A.

ALBUM: 20^th CENTURY (HOW SWEET THE SONG)

LABEL: VANGUARD RECORDS

GENRE: COUNTRY FOLK

YEAR: 1971

 

             Joan Chandos Baez (/baɪz/; born January 9, 1941) 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.

              Baez is generally regarded as a folk singer, but her music has diversified since the counterculture era of the 1960s and encompasses genres such as folk rock, pop, country, and gospel music. She began her recording career in 1960 and achieved immediate success. Her first three albums, Joan Baez, Joan Baez, Vol. 2 and Joan Baez in Concert, all achieved gold record status. Although a songwriter herself, Baez generally interprets other composers' work, having recorded songs by the Allman Brothers Band, the Beatles, Jackson Browne, Leonard Cohen, Woody Guthrie, Violeta Parra, the Rolling Stones, Pete Seeger, Paul Simon, Stevie Wonder, Bob Marley, and many others. She was one of the first major artists to record the songs of Bob Dylan in the early 1960s; Baez was already an internationally celebrated artist and did much to popularize his early songwriting efforts. On her later albums she has found success interpreting the work of more recent songwriters, including Ryan Adams, Josh Ritter, Steve Earle, Natalie Merchant, and Joe Henry.

          Baez's acclaimed songs include "Diamonds & Rust" and covers of Phil Ochs's "There but for Fortune" and The Band's "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down". She is also known for "Farewell, Angelina", "Love Is Just a Four-Letter Word", "Forever Young", "Here's to You", "Joe Hill", "Sweet Sir Galahad" and "We Shall Overcome". Baez performed fourteen songs at the 1969 Woodstock Festival and has displayed a lifelong commitment to political and social activism in the fields of nonviolence, civil rights, human rights, and the environment. Baez was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on April 7, 2017.

           The most successful version of the song was the one by Joan Baez, which became a RIAA-certified Gold record on 22 October 1971. Besides its aforementioned chart action on the Hot 100, the record spent five weeks atop the easy listening chart. Billboard ranked it as the Nº. 20 song for 1971. The version reached number six in the pop charts in the UK in October 1971.

          The Baez recording had some changes in the lyrics. Baez later told Rolling Stone's Kurt Loder that she initially learned the song by listening to the recording on the Band's album, and had never seen the printed lyrics at the time she recorded it, and thus sang the lyrics as she had (mis)heard them. In more recent years in her concerts, Baez has performed the song as originally written by Robertson.

Virgil Caine is my name and I drove on the Danville train

'til Soneman’s cavalry came and tore up the tracks again

In the winter of '65, we were hungry, just barely alive

I took the train to Richmond that fell

It was a time I remember, oh, so well

 

(CHORUS)

The night they drove old Dixie down

And all the bells were ringin'

The night they drove old Dixie down

And all the people were singin'

They went, "Na, na, na, na, na, na, ¡¦¡¦¡¦ "

 

Back with my wife in Tenesse

Whene one day she said to me,

"Virgil, Quick! Come see!

There goes Robert E. Lee."

Now I don't mind, I'm chopping wood

And I don't care if the money's no good

Just take what ya need and ya leave the rest

But they should never have taken the very best

 

(CHORUS)

Like my father before me, I'will work the land

And like my brother above me, I took a rebel stand

Oh, he was just eighteen, proud and brave

But a yankee laid him in his grave

I swear by the blood below my feet

You can't raise the Cane back up when he's in defeat.

 

(CHORUS)