I knew Joan Baez more by reputation than her music when I was growing up – as a folk singer, and a protester, and for her Bob Dylan connection. But I do have fond memories of this song, which gave Joan her only hit in 1971.

Nowadays I associate it more with The Band, who first performed it a couple of years earlier, but I was way too young to appreciate their roots music back when I was I was a child, and only discovered them much later. I’m not sure Joan’s flutey warble is entirely to my taste, but she certainly conveys the emotional intensity of the song.

It was written by Robbie Robertson and it’s a rare account of the American Civil War to focus on the suffering of a poor white Southerner (the ficitional Virgil Caine).

It’s not intended as an endorsement of slavery and the Confederate ideology, but as a human tale of loss about a poor man who loses his brother and his livelihood.

Being from Canada himself, Robertson sought help researching the details of the war from The Band’s drummer Levon Helm, who was from Arkansas.

Apparently the reason The Band never played it again after The Last Waltz film is because Helm disliked Joan Baez’s version so much.
On that we will have to disagree.