POP MUSIC REVIEW : Joan Baez Blends Old, New

Conspicuously absent from the Bob Dylan tribute in New York last weekend were some significant figures in his career--notably, Joan Baez. At the Troubadour on Tuesday, Baez offered the locals her own belated Bobby homage by opening with “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right” and singing the last verse with her approximation of the patented Dylan vocal sneer.

From that point on, the career Baez paid tribute to was her own, which has been even longer--and stands in greater need of reviving--than her erstwhile partner’s. Baez’s faultless performance at the first of her two shows provided just the right mixture of classics and strong material from her new album, “Play Me Backwards,” to suggest she should easily groove right into that neo-folk thing that’s happening now as if she hadn’t skipped a beat. Don’t call it a comeback . . . just call her “the new Mary-Chapin Carpenter.”

All irony aside, Baez did introduce a terrific Carpenter song, the Americana-spanning “Stones in the Road.” Most of the new material on the new album is her own, but the outside choices show Baez sensing what she does plaintively best,

Accompanied only by an acoustic lead guitarist and a bassist, Baez pointed out that not since before her first album made a splash in ’59 had she played such gigs as these: “This is my L.A. club debut. Welcome,” she announced. Still in top form as a vocalist, and back on track stylistically, Baez couldn’t have picked a better dive to bless with “Amazing Grace.”