Gulf Winds

Gulf Winds is the seventeenth studio album (and nineteenth overall) by Joan Baez, released in 1976. It was 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 (the rest of the album features standard mid-1970s pop/rock backup), creating a sound reminiscent of her earliest pure folk recordings.

Gulf Winds
Studio album by Joan Baez
Released	November 1976
Recorded	1976
Studio	Sound Labs, Los Angeles; synthesizers at TONTO, Santa Monica
Genre	Folk
Length	44:05
Label	A&M
Producer	David Kershenbaum
Joan Baez chronology
From Every Stage (1976) Gulf Winds (1976) Blowin' Away (1977)

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic

Gulf Winds is the only Baez album without any covers; each song was written by Baez herself.

From the album's liner notes:

"Sometimes, I wake up at night and write a song. Sometimes a tune comes to my head when I'm walking in the hills, and I have to make up words for it. Sometimes I sit in a bar in San Francisco and scribble into a notepad what I call my 'streams of unconsciousness.' When I have enough scribbles in the pad, and enough tunes in my head, I go into the studio and make an album. That's how I made this one."

- Joan Baez

Track listing

All tracks composed by Joan Baez

Side One

1. "Sweeter for Me" 4:25
2. "Seabirds" 4:32
3. "Caruso" 3:42
4. "Still Waters at Night" 3:01
5. "Kingdom of Childhood" 7:51

Side Two

1. "O Brother!" 3:19
2. "Time Is Passing Us By" 3:43
3. "Stephanie's Room" 4:05
4. "Gulf Winds" 10:29

Personnel

• Joan Baez – vocals, acoustic guitar, piano, synthesizer
• Duck Dunn – bass
• Jim Gordon – drums
• Ray Kelley – cello
• Jesse Ehrlich – cello
• Larry Knechtel – acoustic and electric piano, organ
• Dean Parks – acoustic and electric guitar, mandolin, string arrangements, conductor
• Sid Sharp – violin
• Malcolm Cecil – synthesizer effects, synthesizer programming

Technical

• Tommy Vicari – mix engineer
• Bernard Gelb – executive producer
• Roland Young – art direction
• Chuck Beeson – design
• Johanna Van Zantwyk – photography

"Special thanks to Carlos Bernal"

Chart positions

Year	Chart	Position
1976	The Billboard 200	62