IT MAY be five decades since Joan Baez first began performing in folk clubs, but she still knows how to captivate an audience. During those years, her voice has mellowed and her hair has gone from long and brown to a neat grey crop, but there is still much of the barefooted young singer in her unassuming manner.

Last night, her feet were covered by a pair of red shoes as she opened the concert with the traditional folk song Lily of the West, moving on to the more recent Scarlet Tide, co-written by Wirral’s Elvis Costello.

God is God, a gentle second song from her 2008 album Day After Tomorrow, followed, before she broke off to recall her discovery of folk music when she would “fall asleep with my guitar on my chest and start playing it again when I woke up”.

With an almost instantaneous rapport with the audience, the 68-year-old also recalled meeting the Beatles during their first US tour – they were impressed when she warmed the pot before making them a cup of tea.

And you got the feeling that she would be quite happy to do so again, so unaffected she appears to be by her fame.

There were plenty of the oldies for those who love her early work – including Bob Dylan’s Farewell Angelina, the Carter Family’s Gospel Ship and Handsome Molly – but Baez hasn’t stood still.

The programme also featured later material, including the beautiful ballad Just the Way You Are, penned by Dirk Powell, one of the members of her extremely talented, multi-instrumentalist band.

Dylan’s influence showed its face again with Forever Young and Love is Just a Four-Letter Word, in which she sang a few lines in an imitation of the gravelly-voiced musician.

It took three encore numbers to satisfy the Philharmonic crowd, who rewarded her with a well deserved standing ovation and thunderous applause.

Finally, an spiritual performance of Angel Band, acapella-style with her musicians in harmony, demonstrated that the richness of Baez’s unique voice is here to stay.