Honest Lullaby

The late \'70s and the \'80s weren\'t an easy time for musicians who\'d made their reputations with the natural sounds of previous eras; pop music was moving into slicker terrain. Undaunted, Joan Baez, veteran producer Barry Beckett, and a studio band in Muscle Shoals, Ala., went to work at maintaining the adult-contemporary feel of Baez\'s previous album, *Blowin\' Away*. The title track was Baez\'s song for her son Gabriel Harris, and it captures the poignancy the singer/songwriter movement was capable of. \"Let Your Love Flow,\" a 1976 hit for The Bellamy Brothers, gives her the chance to have fun and sink her teeth into an easy pop melody. \"No Woman, No Cry\"—a reggae standard from Bob Marley & The Wailers—gets its most literal rendition. The centerpiece is Jackson Browne\'s \"Before the Deluge,\" which benefits from being the sort of \"message song\" Baez could always get behind. Its environmental concerns were close to her heart. Times were changing; Baez would soon be dropped by her record label and wouldn\'t make another studio album until 1987. 

For the first time since 1992,Rolling Stone'sdefinitive classic returns to the scene, completely updated and revised to include the past decade's artists and sounds. When it comes to sorting the truly great from the merely mediocre, the enduring from the fleeting,The New Rolling Stone Album Guideprovides music buffs and amateurs alike with authoritative guidance from the best voices in the field. Filled with insightful commentary, it not only reviews the most influential albums of all time, but also features biographical overviews of key artists' careers, giving readers a look at the personalities behind the music.This fourth edition contains an impressive -- 70 percent -- amount of new material. Readers will find fresh updates to entries on established artists, hundreds of brand-new entries on the people and recordings that epitomize the '90s and the sounds of the 21st century -- from Beck to OutKast to the White Stripes and beyond -- along with a new introduction detailing changes in the music industry.Celebrating the diversity of popular music and its constant metamorphoses, with thousands of entries and reviews on every sound from blues to techno,The New Rolling Stone Album Guideis the only resource music lovers need to read.