For her second album, 1961's VOLUME 2, Joan Baez stuck to the traditional folk of her debut, but moved away from that album's solo guitar-and-voice arrangements. Most of VOLUME 2 features instrumental backing from the great bluegrass group the Greenbriar Boys, making the album much more exciting and musically interesting than the somewhat wan debut. The song selection sticks largely to familiar folk favourites like "Barbara Allen", "Wagoner's Lad" and "The Trees They Do Go High", although the Leadbelly-styled "Silkie" and the French-language "Plaisir d'Amour" open things up a bit. Baez's voice was a moderately limited instrument in this stage of her career, with little of the range she would later develop, but it's resonant and clear, and the simple arrangements do much to showcase it. A fine example of folk from the early '60s college revival.