Folk Duets

As a compilation, this 20-track disc is one of the better recent Vanguard releases, assembling a quartet of key Ian & Sylvia (including "You Were On My Mind" and "Someday Soon") and Mimi and Richard Farina songs, alongside duets between Bob Dylan and Joan Baez at Newport, Bob Gibson and Hamilton Camp, Dylan and Pete Seeger, Flatt & Scruggs, and Doc and Merle Watson. In essence, Vanguard has distilled down some of the highlights of its early catalog and its recent box sets (Joan Baez and Donovan together), and remastered some of the early stuff that needed it. There isn't much more to tell that isn't self-explanatory, except that the range of styles here makes this a good profile of the early 1960s folk boom in all its myriad forms, and a decent starter kit to the rest of the Vanguard catalog from that era. ~ Bruce Eder