A limited-edition spoken-word vinyl featuring selections from Joan Baez’s acclaimed debut poetry collection, When You See My Mother, Ask Her to Dance, is now available via Acoustic Sounds. Produced by Alan Abrahams, the special hand-signed and numbered edition of 1000 features an original insert drawing and translucent red vinyl. See below for track listing. Full purchase details can be found HERE.

Published last year by Godine, the intimate, autobiographical poetry collection was released to widespread praise—Vanity Fair calls it, “The result of an American icon revisiting her archives and taking back her history,” while Gabriel Byrne (author of Walking with Ghosts) asserts, “In these courageous and soul-searching poems, Joan Baez reveals the joy and sorrow of a life lived fully. Her deceptively simple and elegant verses resonate with profound insight into what it means to be alive, looking Janus-like from past to present. Beautiful” and Bernie Taupin (author of Scattershot: Life, Music, Elton, and Me) declares, “Joan’s ideas and musings ricochet from the profound and humanly factual to the observant and slyly humorous. Her words can be both poignantly executed and captivating in a colorful closeness that pin-points the chinks in our armor that mirror all facets of the world we inhabit. A National treasure she is indeed.”

While Baez has been writing poetry for decades, she’s never shared it publicly. Poems about her life, her family, about her passions for nature and art, have piled up in notebooks and on scraps of paper. Now, for the first time ever, her life is shared in verse, revealing pivotal life experiences that shaped an icon, offering a never-before-seen look into the reminiscences and musings of a great artist.

Throughout the collection, Baez shares poems for or about her contemporaries, reflections from her childhood, personal thoughts, and cherished memories of her family, including pieces about her younger sister, singer-songwriter Mimi Fariña. Speaking to the people, places, and moments that have had the greatest impact on her art, this collection is an inspiring personal diary in the form of poetry.

ABOUT JOAN BAEZ
Joan Baez is a dynamic force of nature. Her commitment to music and social activism has earned global recognition, ranging from induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, to the Ambassador of Conscience Award, Amnesty International’s highest honor. Retired from active touring since 2019, she has devoted much of her time to the “Mischief Makers” series of paintings, portraits that immortalize risk-taking visionaries she has known, who have brought about social change through history, from Dr. Martin Luther King and Bob Dylan to the Dalai Lama and Patti Smith.

In 2023, Baez was the subject of the documentary Joan Baez I Am a Noise, which premiered at the 73rd Berlin International Film Festival and was released to widespread acclaim on Magnolia Pictures. That same year, Baez’s acclaimed book of drawings Am I Pretty When I Fly? was published by Godine.

ABOUT ACOUSTIC SOUNDS
Headquartered in Salina, Kansas, Acoustic Sounds, Inc. is the world leader in audiophile music. Owned by CEO Chad Kassem, who founded the company in 1986, Acoustic Sounds is a global retailer of the largest selection of highest-quality music in a variety of formats. Along with LPs, SACDs, reel-to-reel tape and other forms of high-quality audio recordings, they also sell turntables, cartridges, amplifiers, speakers and accessories - all designed to exceed the expectations of audiophiles.

Continuous refinement in packaging and shipping methods have led us to perfection in the art of boxing LPs so that they arrive in perfect condition, warding off abuse in transit.

The company owns its own record pressing plant, Quality Record Pressings, and its own vinyl reissue label (Analogue Productions), an original production label (APO Records), its own print shop (Acoustic Sounds Printing), its own recording studio (Blue Heaven Studios), and its own LP mastering business (The Mastering Lab at Blue Heaven Studios).

WHEN YOU SEE MY MOTHER, ASK HER TO DANCE TRACK LIST

Side One

1. Poetry and Me: An Author’s Note

2. Goodbye to the Black and White Ball

3. Baa Baa

4. Lily

5. My Beautiful Young Mom

6. Maybe

7. Gabe at Three

8. Bucket of Snow

9. Logic

10. Little Fellow

11. Colleen

12. Laughter and Cognac

13. Writing

14. Star: A Reverie

15. Heron and Blackberries

16. Birdsong

17. Thelma

18. Phobia

19. Dog Death Heat

Side Two

1. Jimi

2. Judy

3. Portrait

4. Jasmine

5. Big Sur

6. Queen of the Mountain

7. Just Because

8. Together in the Light in the Darkness

9. Into the Ether

10. When You See My Mother, Ask Her to Dance

11. Waves