The video above brings you way back (we think) to 1958, when Joan Baez was only 17, to a con­cert she played at the leg­endary Club 47 in Cam­bridge, Mass. While the teenage ingénue broke onto the folk scene, Bob Dylan was still a stu­dent back in Hib­bing, Min­neso­ta. Five years lat­er, Baez intro­duced Dylan to the music world; the two dat­ed for a while; and then, even while going their sep­a­rate ways, they put their stamp on the 60s folk scene – a sto­ry that gets well doc­u­ment­ed in the book, Pos­i­tive­ly 4th Street: The Lives and Times of Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Mimi Baez Fari­na and Richard Fari­na. If you click here, you can watch Baez, now in her prime, per­form a com­plete con­cert in 1965. The show runs 65 min­utes and fea­tures 18 songs.

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Relat­ed Con­tent:

Woody Guthrie’s Fan Let­ter To John Cage and Alan Hov­haness (1947)

Two Leg­ends Togeth­er: A Young Bob Dylan Talks and Plays on The Studs Terkel Pro­gram, 1963

The Alan Lomax Sound Archive Now Online: Fea­tures 17,000 Record­ings

Antho­ny Tom­masi­ni, the chief music crit­ic for the New York Times, has start­ed the year with a play­ful way of find­ing out “what makes great music great?” To answer the ques­tion, he has invit­ed read­ers to make a list of the Top 10 com­posers in his­to­ry. And that invites answers to a series of sec­ondary ques­tions: “Should influ­ence mat­ter, or just the works them­selves? What about pop­u­lar­i­ty? Are there any objec­tive cri­te­ria?” The Times will actu­al­ly post a bal­lot next week. (Keep an eye on the Arts­Beat blog.) But, in the mean­time, Tom­masi­ni has kicked off the project by post­ing a video (above) focus­ing on the tow­er­ing Baroque com­pos­er, J.S. Bach. And, speak­ing of Bach, don’t miss our pre­vi­ous post show­ing where you can down­load the com­plete organ works of Johann Sebas­t­ian Bach for free.  Thanks to Joshua and Robin for the tip on the NYTimes project!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

How a Bach Canon Works

A Young Glenn Gould Plays Bach

The Lit­tle Drum­mer Boy. Ani­mat­ed. Off of Dylan’s 2009 Christ­mas album. Have a joy­ful and safe hol­i­day…

This Mon­day, the great Shaquille O’Neal, now play­ing for the Boston Celtics, made his con­duct­ing debut, lead­ing the Boston Pops Orches­tra and Tan­gle­wood Fes­ti­val Cho­rus at the Hol­i­day Pops Con­cert. You’ll imme­di­ate­ly rec­og­nize the tunes: the Christ­mas stan­dard, “Sleigh Ride,” lead­ing into Queen’s pow­er bal­lad “We Are the Cham­pi­ons.”

via Moth­er Jones

They had a big falling out in 1962. But that was all over Brahms. When it came to Bach, things were more har­mo­nious. So let’s rewind the video­tape to 1960. Glenn Gould per­forms with Leonard Bern­stein and the New York Phil­har­mon­ic, play­ing (if I have this right) J. S. Bach’s Key­board Con­cer­to in d minor BWV 1052. Enjoy…

Relat­ed Con­tent:

A Young Glenn Gould Plays Bach

Bern­stein Breaks Down Beethoven

This was too good to pass up. This week’s cel­e­bra­tion of John Lennon’s life unearthed a price­less pic­ture of The Bea­t­les prepar­ing to take their icon­ic walk across Abbey Road. One detail worth point­ing out: Sir Paul has yet to kick off his shoes.

Although tak­en back in 1969, tourists still flock to the same cross­walk today, hop­ing to snap a quick imi­ta­tive pho­to before a car races by. You can watch the some­times hair-rais­ing action on this great live web­cam pro­vid­ed by Abbey Road Stu­dios. There’s obvi­ous­ly more to see dur­ing day­light hours in the UK. Thanks to Kot­tke for flag­ging this…

Bea­t­les Box Sale: Just a heads up. We noticed that Amazon.com has deeply dis­count­ed the remas­tered Bea­t­les Box Sets. The Stereo Box Set now goes for $126.32 for 14 discs, and the Mono Box Set runs $129.99 for 12 discs. Respec­tive­ly, that’s 51% and 57% off list price, and it’s right in time for the hol­i­day sea­son…