In “Diamonds and Rust,” the main problems are literally drawn out in black-and-white.

For anyone who gets a secret kick out of dysfunctional behavior multiplied to the nth degree, “Diamonds and Rust” is one of the year’s must-see films. Poseidon seem mild-mannered and convivial in comparison. However, the real gems here are the 38 members of the endlessly obstreperous crew, a hopelessly ill-matched group whose undisguised tempers and flaring idiocy are so pungent that they make the passengers on the S.S. In the new documentary “Diamonds and Rust,” this rusting vessel is moored off the coast of southwestern Africa with the purpose of vacuuming up diamonds from the ocean floor for processing and sale by the De Beers conglomerate. The cover songs were typically accomplished, making this the strongest album of Baez's post-folk career.Diamonds might be a girl’s best friend, but friendship is barely alive aboard the diamond mining trawler called The Spirit of Namibia. But those who bought the disc for 'Diamonds & Rust' also got to hear 'Winds of the Old Days,' in which Baez forgave Dylan for abandoning the protest movement, as well as the jazzy 'Children and All That Jazz,' a delightful song about motherhood, and the wordless vocals of 'Dida,' a duet with Joni Mitchell accompanied by Mitchell's backup band, Tom Scott and the L.A. It was her finest moment as a songwriter and one of her finest performances, period, and when A&M finally released it on 45, it made the Top 40, propelling the album to gold status. Outdoing the current crop of confessional singer/songwriters at soul baring, Baez sang to Dylan, reminiscing about her '60s love affair with him intensely, affectionately, and unsentimentally. But the real hit was the title track, a self-penned masterpiece on the singer's favorite subject, her relationship with Bob Dylan. A&M, no doubt recalling the success of her cover of the Band's 'The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down,' released her version of the Allmans' 'Blue Sky' as a single, and it got halfway up the charts. But she did it on her own terms, putting together a session band of contemporary jazz veterans like Larry Carlton, Wilton Felder, and Joe Sample, and mixing a wise selection from the work of current singer-songwriters like Jackson Browne and John Prine with pop covers of Stevie Wonder and the Allman Brothers Band, and an unusually high complement of her own writing. 'With the Vietnam War winding down, Joan Baez, who had devoted one side of her last album to her trip to Hanoi, delivered the kind of commercial album A&M Records must have wanted when it signed her three years earlier. It served as the title song on Baez's gold-selling album Diamonds & Rust, which was released in 1975. pop singles chart, is regarded by a number of critics, as well as by Baez fans, as one of her best compositions. The song, which was a top-40 hit for Baez on the U.S. Baez has stated that the lyrics refer to her relationship with Bob Dylan. In the song, Baez recounts an out-of-the-blue phone call from an old lover, which sends her a decade back in time, to a 'crummy' hotel in Greenwich Village in about 1964 or 1965 she recalls giving him a pair of cufflinks, and summarizes that memories bring 'diamonds and rust'. It was written in November 1974 and released in 1975. 'Diamonds & Rust' is a song written, composed, and performed by Joan Baez.

Diamonds and rust