Gulf Winds was an album composed of songs written and performed by Joan Baez

Joan Baez

Joan Chandos Baez is an American folk singer, songwriter, musician and a prominent activist in the fields of human rights, peace and environmental justice....

. The album was released in 1976, and was her final album of new material for A&M

A&M Records

A&M Records is an American record label owned by Universal Music Group that operates under the mantle of its Interscope-Geffen-A&M division.-Beginnings:...

. Baez stated in her autobiography, And a Voice to Sing With, that most of the songs were written while on tour with the Rolling Thunder Revue

Rolling Thunder Revue

The Rolling Thunder Revue was a famed U.S. concert tour consisting of a traveling caravan of musicians, headed by Bob Dylan, that took place in late 1975 and early 1976; the prevailing theory was that the tour was named after the Native American shaman Rolling Thunder. Others maintained that tour...

 with Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...

. "O Brother!" was a clever reply to Dylan's song "Oh Sister". On the title song, a ten-minute long autobiographical recollection of her childhood, Baez accompanies herself only with her own acoustic guitar (the rest of the album features standard mid-1970s pop/rock backup), creating a sound reminiscent of her earliest pure folks recordings.

Gulf Winds is the only Baez album without one single cover; each song was written by Baez herself.

From the album's liner notes:

"Sometimes, I wake up at night and write a song. Sometimes a tune comes to my head when I'm walking in the hills, and I have to make up words for it. Sometimes I sit in a bar in San Francisco and scribble into a notepad what I call my 'streams of unconsciousness.' When I have enough scribbles in the pad, and enough tunes in my head, I go into the studio and make an album. That's how I made this one."

- Joan Baez

Track listing

All tracks composed by Joan Baez

1. "Sweeter for Me" 4:25
2. "Seabirds" 4:32
3. "Caruso" 3:42
4. "Still Waters at Night" 3:01
5. "Kingdom of Childhood" 7:51
6. "O Brother!" 3:19
7. "Time Is Passing Us By" 3:43
8. "Stephanie's Room" 4:05
9. "Gulf Winds" 10:29

Personnel

• Joan Baez – vocals, guitar, piano
• Donald "Duck" Dunn – bass
• Jim Gordon
  Jim Gordon (musician)
  James Beck "Jim" Gordon is an American recording artist, musician and songwriter. The Grammy Award winner was one of the most requested session drummers in the late 1960s and 1970s, recording albums with many well-known musicians of the time, and was the drummer in the blues-rock supergroup Derek...
  
   – drums
• Ray Kelly – cello
• Jesse Ehrlich – cello
• Larry Knechtel
  Larry Knechtel
  Lawrence William "Larry" Knechtel was an American keyboard player and bassist, best known for his work as a session musician with such artists as Simon & Garfunkel, Duane Eddy, The Beach Boys, The Mamas & the Papas, The Partridge Family, The Doors, and Elvis Presley, and as a member of the 1970s...
  
   – piano
• Dean Parks
  Dean Parks
  Dean Parks is an American session guitarist and record producer from Ft. Worth, TX.-Albums:Dean was member of The North Texas State One O'clock Lab Band before moving to Los Angeles to work with Sonny and Cher in 1970. Dean is best-known through his many contributions to albums by Steely Dan...
  
   – guitar
• Sid Sharp – violin
• Malcolm Cecil
  Malcolm Cecil
  Malcolm Cecil is a British jazz bassist and Grammy Award-winning record producer.A founding member of the UK's leading jazz quintet of the late 1950s, The Jazz Couriers, he went on to join a number of British jazz combos led by Dick Morrissey, Tony Crombie and Ronnie Scott in the late 50s and...
  
  – synthesizer

Chart positions

Year	Chart	Position
1976	The Billboard 200	62