Diamonds & Rust by Joan Baez

Diamonds & Rust, cut for A&M and released in 1975, finds Joan Baez loosening her folk collar, with producer David Kershenbaum wrapping her voice in easy folk-rock sway and a jazzy, late-night slink. She still leans on other people's songs, borrowing from Bob Dylan, Stevie Wonder, the Allman Brothers, Jackson Browne and John Prine, but the real news here is her own pen.

The title track, a Baez original, is a rueful look back at an old love that most likely points straight at Dylan, one of several songs the two wrote about each other over the years, and plenty of other artists have since taken a crack at it. "Dida" turns up too, in a different take from the one on the previous year's Gracias a la Vida.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.