Gulf Winds was an album composed of songs written and performed by Joan Baez. The album was released in 1976, and was her final album of new material for A&M. 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 with Bob Dylan. "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 folk recordings.

Gulf Winds is the only Baez album without any covers; 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

Side One

    "Sweeter for Me" 4:25
    "Seabirds" 4:32
    "Caruso" 3:42
    "Still Waters at Night" 3:01
    "Kingdom of Childhood" 7:51

Side Two

    "O Brother!" 3:19
    "Time Is Passing Us By" 3:43
    "Stephanie's Room" 4:05
    "Gulf Winds" 10:29

Personnel

    Joan Baez – vocals, guitar, piano
    Donald "Duck" Dunn – bass
    Jim Gordon – drums
    Ray Kelly – cello
    Jesse Ehrlich – cello
    Larry Knechtel – piano
    Dean Parks – guitar
    Sid Sharp – violin
    Malcolm Cecil – synthesizer