Despite The Location, Baez, Morrissey Shine

Joan Baez/Bill Morrissey Sunday, Aug. 11, Masonic Temple

Aside from the fact the Masonic Temple is a rotten place to see a concert, the Joan Baez/Bill Morrissey show Sunday evening was a real winner.

Morrissey is a New England songwriter-cum-novelist whose thin, quavery voice does not distract in the least from his brilliant little slice of-life song/vignettes.

Like a Raymond Carver-of-song, he writes spare, clear-eyed tales of characters who are hanging on by their fingernails. Among the most moving songs Saturday was a new one, “Different Currency,” a story about the trade-offs that drag you down that included this lyric: “This was no time in her life to be held back by the truth.”

He was wickedly funny, too, and kept the crowd in stitches with offhanded asides, clever songs and wry stories.

Baez kept the good-time feel going with a relaxed, laid-back set that touched on all phases of her three-decade career. She performed her dead-on Dylan imitation, told funny stories about herself and led the crowd in a campfire sing-along on “Amazing Grace.”

A ‘60s sentiment accompanied her performance, but surfaced directly only once, in a short monologue introducing the Australian anti-war song, “And the Band Played ‘Waltzing Matilda.”’

“War is about young people killing each other,” she said. “It’s usually about land and other things that are less important than human lives, in my opinion.”

Baez renewed her commitment to her music eight years ago, and the effort shines through in her guitar playing - it’s both better and more technical now than ever - and her majestic voice. Untended, voices may grow brittle and less rich with middle age, but not Baez’s. It has grown richer and more resonant. One of the most remarkable voices in American popular music, it still rang pure and unforced Sunday night.

Many musicians like to think their audiences span the generations, but it’s no exaggeration in Baez’s case. The core of her audience is the older baby boom set - now in their 40s and early 50s - but she drew liberally from older and younger crowds, too.

And you can pretty much take it to the bank that she’s the only performer around who could get a group like that to its feet for a choir-like a capella group-sing on “Amazing Grace.” It was a moving moment as the voices wound ‘round themselves in the old spiritual.

“That was beautiful,” she said at the hushed conclusion, and it was.

, DataTimes