UM crowd savors Baez’s new, old songs > Singer, fiddler Eliza Carthy complements 59-year-old folk legend’s diverse offerings

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ORONO — They came to the University of Maine last Wednesday to hear the angels sing — and sing they did when folk legend Joan Baez and protege Eliza Carthy took the stage at the Maine Center for the Arts.

Four decades after her set at the Newport Folk Festival kicked her career into gear, a serene but still socially conscious Baez used her rich voice to burrow quickly into the hearts of baby boomers and youngsters alike.

Right off the bat, she showed you don’t have to be a teen-ager to fear losing in love, leading off with a Dar Williams song, “If I Wrote You,” from Baez’s “Gone from Danger” album. She sang:

You would know me,

And not write me again.

Of course, it wouldn’t have been a Joan Baez concert without “Joe Hill,” and she didn’t disappoint, her voice resonating up and down the scale in the ballad about the labor organizer.

Now 59, Baez didn’t hesitate to poke fun at her length of service on the folk scene, noting how much simpler recording was in the days of her early albums.

“I just stood next to the black-and-white dog and sang into the trumpet,” she said with good humor, referring to the logo from the RCA label.

It didn’t seem possible that Baez could bring along a young singer who could really add something to a Joan Baez concert, but Eliza Carthy more than filled the bill.

In a strong, pure voice, Carthy mesmerized listeners with lines such as:

Your eyes are just as blue

Across the table

As the sky in Tennessee.

But her real chance to shine was the a cappella “The Americans Have Stolen My True Love Away,” which she described as her favorite traditional English folk song.

Carthy, who will have her own album released on Warner’s in August, also jumped in with both feet when Baez and the band let loose with “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down.” Carthy is also a heck of a fiddler.

While the evening was less overtly political than Baez concerts of years ago, the activist still made her points — especially with “There But For Fortune.”

Singing of the prisoner, the hobo, the addicted, she added the refrain:

I’ll show you a young girl

With so many reasons why.

Baez also offered Betty Elders’ haunting piece about child sexual abuse, “Crack in the Mirror,” with music that rolled between Josh Segal’s plaintive saxophone and Carol Steele’s insistent congas. Bassist Mark Petersen, guitarist Adam Kirk and Carthy’s accompanist, Martin Green, were also excellent.

Patrons were reluctant to let Baez leave the stage, calling her back for a nice encore of “Gracia La Vida,” and “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right.” The latter included a cute imitation of Bob Dylan, who had appeared at the Bangor Auditorium with Baez in the Rolling Thunder Revue in 1975.

For her second encore, Baez aimed for her listeners’ souls. Lifting her hands toward the audience, she fed them the lines that would lift them heavenward as they sang with her:

Amazing Grace,

How sweet the sound,

That saved a soul like me.

I once was lost,

But now I’m found,

Was blind, but now I see.

And with that, the angels went on their way.