Joan Baez

Joan Chandos Baez (born 1941 January 9) is an American folk singer and songwriter known for her highly individual vocal style. She is a soprano with a three-octave vocal range and a distinctively rapid vibrato. Many of her songs are topical and deal with social issues.

She is best known for her seventies hits "Diamonds & Rust" and "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" -- and to a lesser extent,"We Shall Overcome" "Sweet Sir Galahad" and "Joe Hill" (songs she performed at the 1969 Woodstock festival). She is also well known due to her early and long-lasting relationship with Bob Dylan and her even longer-lasting passion for activism, notably in the areas of nonviolence, civil and human rights and, in more recent years, the environment. She has performed publicly for nearly fifty years, released over thirty albums and recorded songs in over eight languages. She is considered a folksinger although her music has strayed from folk considerably after the sixties, encompassing everything from rock and pop to country and gospel. Although a songwriter herself, especially in the mid-seventies, Baez is most often regarded as an interpreter of other people's work, covering songs by Bob Dylan, The Beatles, Jackson Browne, Paul Simon, The Rolling Stones, Stevie Wonder and myriad others. In more recent years, she has found success interpreting songs of diverse songwriters such as Steve Earle, Natalie Merchant and Ryan Adams.

Biography

The Beginning

Joan Baez's father, Albert Baez, was born in Puebla, Mexico. His father (and Joan's grandfather), the Rev. Alberto Baez, had left the Catholic faith to become a Methodist minister and moved to the U.S. when Albert was two. Albert Baez grew up in Brooklyn, where his father preached to - and advocated for - a Spanish-speaking congregation. [1] Joan Baez's father considered becoming a minister as well before he turned to the study of mathematics and physics.

Baez's mother, Joan Bridge Baez (often referred to as Joan Senior or "Big Joan" due to her daughter's fame) was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, the second daughter of an Episcopal minister. Joan Senior and Albert met at a High School dance in Madison, New Jersey and quickly fell in love. After their marriage, the newlyweds moved to California. Due to Albert's work in education and with UNESCO, the couple moved around the country (and around the world) bringing with them their growing brood of three young daughters; Pauline Thalia, Joan Chandos and Margarita Mimi.

Early life & political influences

Joan Baez was born on Staten Island to a family of Mexican, English and Scottish descent. The family converted to Quakerism during her early childhood. Her father Albert Baez, a physicist (co-inventor of the x-ray microscope and author of one of the most widely used physics textbooks in the U.S.), refused to work on the "Manhattan Project" to build an atomic bomb at Los Alamos, a decision which had a profound effect on young Joan; he also refused lucrative defense industry jobs during the height of the Cold War.

The family was forced to move frequently because of Albert Baez's work, living in different towns across the United States, as well as in France, Switzerland, Italy, and the Middle East, including Iraq, where they stayed in 1951. Joan, at the time only ten years old, was deeply influenced by the poverty and inhumane treatment suffered by the local population in Baghdad. While there, she saw animals and people beaten to death, and legless children dragging themselves down filthy streets begging for money. She later wrote that she felt a certain affinity with the beggars in the streets, and that Baghdad and the suffering of its people became a "part" of her.

In 1956, Baez first heard a young Martin Luther King, Jr speak about nonviolence, civil rights and social change, and the speech brought tears to her eyes. Several years later, the two became friends, later marching and demonstrating together on numerous occasions. That same year, Baez also bought her first guitar and began entertaining her fellow students at school by singing and playing. It was her only means of making friends, as she was alienated both from the Mexican-American students because she did not speak Spanish, and from the white students on account of her darker skin and Mexican last name and heritage.

In 1957, at age 16, Joan committed her first act of civil disobedience by refusing to leave her Redlands Senior High School classroom in southern California for an air-raid drill. After the bells rang, students were to leave the school, make their way to their home air-raid shelters, and pretend they were surviving an atomic blast. Protesting what she believed to be misleading government propaganda, Baez refused to leave her seat when instructed and continued reading a book. For this act she was punished by school officials, and was ostracized by the local population for being a "communist infiltrator."

That same year, for 50 dollars, Baez bought her first Gibson guitar. At her aunt's behest, Baez attended a concert by the "daddy of folk music," Pete Seeger and soon began practicing the songs of his repertoire and performing them publicly. She also began teaching herself the ukulele, and before long began singing for her classmates.

The college music scene in Massachusetts

In 1958, Dr. Baez accepted a faculty position at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and moved his family to Belmont in the Boston area. The area was at the time the center of the up-and-coming folk music scene, and Joan began busking locally in the Boston/Cambridge area, also performing in clubs, and attending Boston University (which she later quit attending in order to concentrate on her career.) It was in '58, at the Club 47 Mount Auburn in Cambridge (which would later become her most noted venue), where she gave her first concert. The audience consisted of Baez's two parents, her sister Mimi, and a small group of friends (a grand total of eight patrons.) She was paid ten dollars. Baez was later asked back and began performing twice a week for $20 per show. A scant few months later, Baez and two other folk enthusiasts made plans to record an album in the cellar of a friend's house. The three sang solos and duets, a family friend designed the album cover, and it was released that same year as Folksingers 'Round Harvard Square. Baez later met Bob Gibson (musician) and the reigning queen of folk Odetta, whom Baez cites as a primary influence alongside Marian Anderson and Pete Seeger. Gibson invited Baez to perform alongside him at the 1959 Newport Folk Festival, where the two did two duets to "Virgin Mary Had One Son" and "We Are Crossing Jordan River." The performance generated substantial buzz for the "barefoot Madonna" with the otherworldly voice and it was this appearance that led to Baez signing with Vanguard Records the following year (although not before the more established label, Columbia Records tried to nab her for their own. Baez later claimed that she felt she would be given more artistic license at a more "low key" label.)

Amidst this, Baez met her first real boyfriend -- and first lover -- , a young man by the name of Michael, who, in 1979, inspired her song "Michael". Michael was a fellow student from the West Indies who, like Baez, only attended classes occasionally. The two spent a considerable amount of time together, but Baez was unable to balance her blossoming career and her relationship. The two bickered and made love back and forth, but it was apparent to Baez that Michael was beginning to resent her success and newfound local celebrity. One night she saw him kissing another woman on a street corner. The relationship remained intact for several years, long after the two moved to California together in 1960. Baez also had a relationship with a woman named Kim, and in later years told reporters that she considered herself bisexual.

First albums & 1960s breakthrough

Baez' true professional career began at the 1959 Newport Folk Festival; she recorded her first album for a major label, Joan Baez, the following year on Vanguard Records. The collection of traditional folk ballads, blues and laments sung to her own guitar accompaniment sold moderately well. The album featured many popular Child Ballads of the day, such as "Mary Hamilton" and was recorded in only four days in the ballroom of New York's Manhattan Towers Hotel. The album also included "El Preso Numero Nueve," a song sung entirely in Spanish. The same song would later appear on Baez' 1974 Spanish-language album, "Gracias A La Vida."

Her second release, Joan Baez, Vol. 2 in 1961 went gold, as did Joan Baez in Concert, Parts 1 and 2 (released in 1962 and 1963, respectively). Like its immediate predecessor, Joan Baez, Vol. 2 containted strictly traditional material. Her two albums of live material, Joan Baez in Concert and its second counterpart, were unique in that, unlike most live albums, they contained only new songs, rather than established favorites. It was the second installment of "In Concert" that features Baez' first ever Bob Dylan cover. From the early to mid-1960s, Baez emerged at the forefront of the American roots revival, where she introduced her audiences to the then-unknown Bob Dylan (the two became romantically involved in late 1962, remaining together through early 1965), and was emulated by artists such as Emmylou Harris, Judy Collins, Joni Mitchell and Bonnie Raitt.

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Pack up Your Sorrows, French single, 1966

Baez first got a taste of commercial success when the single "There But For Fortune" (written by Phil Ochs) became a top-ten hit in the UK in 1964. Baez was profoundly influenced by the British Invasion and began augmenting her acoustic guitar on 1965's Farewell Angelina, which features a number of Dylan songs interspersed with more traditional fare. Deciding to experiment after having exhausted the "folksinger with guitar" format, Baez turned to Peter Schickele, a classical composer, who in turn provided classical orchestration for her next three albums: 1966's Noël, 1967's Joan and 1968's Baptism. Noël was a Christmas album of traditional material, while Baptism was akin to a concept album; it featured Baez reading and singing poems written by world-famous poets such as James Joyce, Federico García Lorca and Walt Whitman.

In the tumultuous year that was 1968, Baez traveled to Nashville, where a marathon recording-session resulted in not one, but two albums: Any Day Now, a record consisting exclusively of Dylan covers (one, "Love Is Just A Four-Letter Word," was never recorded by Dylan and has become a Baez staple) and the country-fused David's Album recorded for husband David Harris, a prominent anti-Vietnam War protester and organizer eventually imprisoned for draft resistance. The pair married in 1968 and divorced in 1973. Harris, a country music fan, turned Baez toward more complex country rock influences beginning with David's Album. In 1969, Baez' appearance at the historic Woodstock music festival in upstate New York afforded her an international musical and political podium, particularly upon the successful release of the like-titled documentary film. Her 1971 cover of "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" was a top 10 hit in the United States. Beginning in the late 1960s, Baez began writing many of her own songs, beginning with "Sweet Sir Galahad" and "A Song For David" (the latter written after husband David Harris was imprisoned for draft-evasion.) Her most famous self-penned tune is "Diamonds & Rust", which is theorized to be a wistful recollection of her affair with Dylan.

Baez and David Harris: "The Wedding Of The Century"

In October 1967, Baez, her mother, and nearly seventy other women had been arrested for supporting young men who refused military induction. They were esconced in the Santa Rita Jail, and it was here that Baez met David Harris, who was kept on the men's side but who still managed to visit with Baez regularly. The two formed a close bond upon their release and Baez moved into his draft resistance commune in the hills above Stanford. The pair had only known each other for three months when they decided to wed. After confirming the news to the Associated Press, media outlets began dedicating ample press to the impending nuptials (at one point, Time magazine referred to it as the "Wedding of the century".)

After finding a pacifist preacher, a church outfitted with peace signs and perfecting a blend of Episcopalian and Quaker wedding vows, Baez and Harris married in New York City. Baez's good friend and fellow folkie Judy Collins sang at the ceremony. After the wedding, Joan Baez-Harris and her husband moved into a home in the Los Altos Hills on a quarter-acre of land called Struggle Mountain next to a commune, where they tended gardens and were strict vegetarians. A short time later, Harris refused induction and was indicted. On July 15, 1969, a patrol car came rumbling up Struggle Mountain and carried Harris away, leaving Baez alone -- and pregnant. (Son Gabriel Harris was born in December 1969.) She would be very visibly pregnant in public in the months that followed, most notably at the Woodstock festival, where she performed a handful of songs in the early morning. Among the Baez compositions written about this strained time of her life are "A Song For David," "Myths," "Prison Trilogy (Billy Rose)" and "Fifteen Months," (the amount of time Harris was imprisoned.)

Harris was released from his Texas prison and the relationship began to dissolve amicably and the couple divorced in 1973. Although Baez had been unfaithful while Harris was away, the reason for the split was due in large part to Baez's admission that she belonged alone. "I am made to live alone," Baez writes in her autobiography. She has never remarried.

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Joan Baez' 1975 bestseller Diamonds & Rust.

Motherhood, music & moog synthesizers: the end of the Vanguard years

Baez decided in 1971 to cut ties with Vanguard Records after eleven years, the label which had released her albums since her first in 1960. She delivered one last success for them in the form of the gold-selling record Blessed Are... which spawned a top-ten hit in "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down." With 1972's Come from the Shadows, Baez switched to A&M Records, where she remained for four years and six albums. During this period, in late-1971, she united with composer Peter Schickele to record two tracks (Rejoice in the Sun and Silent Running) for the science fiction opus, Silent Running. The film's releasing company, Universal Studios, hoped either would prove to be a hit single, but the film proved to be unsuccessful, and plans to release the songs as singles were scratched. 1973's Where Are You Now, My Son? featured a 23-minute title song which took up all of side B of the album. Half spoken word poem and half tape recorded sounds, the song documented Baez' visit to Hanoi, North Vietnam in December 1972, in which she and her traveling companions survived a week long bombing campaign. 1974's Gracias A La Vida followed and was a success in both the United States and Latin America. Flirting with mainstream pop music as well as writing her own songs for her best-selling 1975 release Diamonds & Rust, the album became the highest selling of Baez' career and spawned a second top-ten single in the form of the title track, a nostalgic piece about her ill-fated relationship with Bob Dylan. After Gulf Winds, an album of entirely self-composed songs, and From Every Stage, a live album that had Baez performing songs 'from every stage' of her career, Baez again parted ways with a label when she moved on to CBS Records for 1977's Blowin' Away and 1979's Honest Lullaby. Baez later found herself without an American label for the release of 1984s Live -Europe '83. She didn't have an American release until 1987's Recently on Gold Castle Records. She recorded two more albums with Gold Castle, Speaking of Dreams, (1989) and Brothers in Arms (1991 compilation), then landed a contract with a major label, Virgin Records, recording Play Me Backwards for Virgin in 1992 shortly before the company was bought out by EMI. She then switched to Guardian, with whom she produced a live CD (Ring Them Bells) and a studio CD, Gone from Danger. Her 2003 album, Dark Chords on a Big Guitar, found her performing songs by composers half her age, while a November 2004 performance at New York's Bowery Ballroom was recorded for a 2005 live release, Bowery Songs.

Rippin' along towards middle-age: The eighties

In 1980, Joan was given Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degrees by both Antioch University and Rutgers University for her political activism and the "universality of her music." In 1983, she appeared on the Grammy Awards for the first time, performing Bob Dylan's anthemic "Blowin' in the Wind," a song she first performed twenty years earlier. Baez also played a significant role in the 1985 Live Aid concert for African famine relief, opening the U.S. segment of the show in Philadelphia. She also has toured on behalf of many other causes, including Amnesty International's 1986 A Conspiracy of Hope Tour and a guest spot on their subsequent Human Rights Now! Tour.

In 1987, Baez' second autobiography And a Voice to Sing With was published and became a New York Times bestseller. That same year, she traveled to the Middle-East to visit with and sing songs of peace for the people of Israel, Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

In 1988, Baez was invited to perform at a communist music festival in communist Czechoslovakia. While there, she met future president Vaclav Havel, whom she let carry her guitar so as to prevent his arrest by government agents. During her performance, she greeted members of Charter 77, a dissident human rights group, which resulted in her microphone being shut off abruptly. Baez then proceeded to sing a cappella for the nearly four thousand gathered. Havel (who was in attendance) cited Baez as a great inspiration and influence in that country's so-called Velvet Revolution, the bloodless revolution in which the Soviet-dominated communist government there was overthrown.

The '90s & beyond

At the invitation of Refugees International and sponsored by The Soros Foundation, Joan travelled to the war-torn Bosnia-Herzegovina region in an effort to help bring more attention to the suffering there. She was the first major artist to perform in Sarajevo since the outbreak of the civil war. In October of that year, Baez became the first major artist to perform in a professional concert presentation on Alcatraz Island (former Federal Penitentiary) in San Francisco in a benefit for her sister Mimi Fariña's Bread & Roses organization.

In August, 2001 Vanguard Records begin re-releasing Baez' first 13 albums that she recorded with them between 1960 and 1971 as part of their Original Master Series. Each reissue features digitally restored sound, unreleased bonus songs, new and original artwork, and new liner notes essays written by Arthur Levy. Likewise, her six A&M records were reissued in 2003.

On January 13, 2006, Baez performed at the funeral of singing legend Lou Rawls, where she led Jesse Jackson, Stevie Wonder, and others in the singing of "Amazing Grace". On June 6th, Baez joined Bruce Springsteen onstage at Springsteen's San Francisco concert, where the two performed the rolling anthem "Pay Me My Money Down." The title track of Springsteen's latest album, "We Shall Overcome", was popularized by Baez in the early sixties, at the height of the Civil Rights movement. On July 17, Baez received the Distinguished Leadership Award from the Legal Community Against Violence. At the annual dinner event they honored Joan for her lifetime of work against violence of all kinds. In September, Baez contributed a live, retooled version of her classic song "Sweet Sir Galahad" to Starbucks' exclusive XM Artist Confidential CD. In the new version, Joan changes the lyric "here's to the dawn of their days" to "here's to the dawn of her days," a tribute to sister Mimi Fariña, who died in 2001. The song, written by Baez in 1969, tells of Fariña's remarriage after the death of her first husband, folk singer-songwriter and author Richard Fariña, who died in 1966.

On October 8th, 2006, Baez appeared as a special surprise guest at the opening ceremony of the Forum 2000 international conference in Prague. Baez' performance was kept secret from former President Vaclav Havel until the moment she appeared onstage. Havel remains a great admirer of both Baez and her work.

On December 2nd, Joan made a guest appearance at the Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir's Christmas Concert in Oakland, California, at the Paramount Theatre. Joan's participation included versions of "Let Us Break Bread Together" and "Amazing Grace," and she joined the choir in the finale of "O Holy Night."

The Future: Lifetime Achievement & 'Ring Them Bells' Reissued

In late November, 2006, it was announced that Baez's 1995 live album Ring Them Bells, which featured memorable duets with songstresses ranging from Dar Williams and Mimi Fariña to The Indigo Girls and Mary Chapin Carpenter, would be re-released on February 12th, 2007 on Proper records. The reissue will feature a 16-page booklet and 6 unreleased live tracks from the original recording sessions. The unreleased songs now included are "Love Song To A Stranger," "You Ain't Goin' Nowhere," "Geordie," "Gracias A La Vida," "The Water Is Wide" and "Stones In The Road," bringing the total tracklisting to 21 songs (on two discs). As Proper is a European label, it is presumed the reissue will only be available in European territories (although available to others over the internet.)

In addition, Baez has recorded a duet with John Mellencamp called "Jim Crow," which appears on Mellencamp's album "Freedom Road" (released in January 2007.) Mellencamp has called the album a "Woody Guthrie rock album" heavily influenced by albums from the '60s and this is why he invited an icon of that era to appear with him on "Jim Crow."

In February 2007, Baez received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. The day after she received the honor, she appeared at the Grammys ceremony and introduced a performance by The Dixie Chicks.

Social & political involvement

During the early years of her career, as the Vietnam War and the Civil Rights struggle in the United States both became more prominent issues, Baez focused more of her attention on both areas, until eventually her music and her political involvement became inseparable. Her performance of "We Shall Overcome," the civil rights anthem popularized by Pete Seeger, at Martin Luther King's March on Washington permanently linked her with the anthem --she sang it again in Sproul Plaza during the UC Berkeley Free Speech Movement-- and she was frequently highly visible in civil rights marches. She also became more vocal about her disagreement with the U.S. war in Vietnam, publicly disclosing that she was withholding sixty percent of her income taxes (as that was the figure commonly determined to fund the military), and encouraging draft resistance at her concerts. In 1965 she founded the Institute for the Study of Nonviolence. In 1967, she was arrested twice --and jailed for a month-- for participating in civil disobedience against the Vietnam War, blocking the entrance of the Armed Forces Induction Center in Oakland, California.

During Christmas of 1972, she joined a peace delegation traveling to North Vietnam, both to address human rights in the region, as well as to deliver Christmas mail to American POW's. During her time there, she was caught in the U.S. military's "Christmas bombing" of Hanoi, during which the city was bombed for eleven straight days. She also devoted a substantial amount of her time in the early 1970s to helping establish a U.S. branch of Amnesty International, and has since worked on improving human rights in Latin America, Southeast Asia, South Africa, Europe, and the United States. Her disquiet at the human rights violations of communist Vietnam made her increasingly critical of its government and she organized the publication, on May 30, 1979, of a full-page advertisement, published in four major U.S. newspapers, in which the communists were described as having created a nightmare (which put her at odds with a large segment of the domestic left wing, who were uncomfortable criticizing a leftist regime. In a letter of response, Jane Fonda said she was unable to substantiate the "claims" Baez made regarding the atrocities being committed by the Khmer Rouge). This experience ultimately led Baez to found her own human rights group, Humanitas International, whose focus was to target oppression wherever it occurred, criticizing right and left wing regimes equally. She toured Chile, Brazil and Argentina in 1981, but was prevented from performing in any of the three countries, fearful her criticism of their human rights practices would reach mass audiences if she were given a podium. While there, she was surveiled and subjected to death threats. (A film of the ill-fated tour, There but for Fortune, was shown on PBS in 1982.)

In a second trip to Southeast Asia, Joan assisted in an effort to take food and medicine into the western regions of Cambodia and participated in a United Nations Humanitarian Conference on Kampuchea (Cambodia).

Baez has also been prominent in the struggle for gay and lesbian rights. In 1978, she performed at several benefit concerts to defeat Proposition 6 ("the Briggs Initiative"), which proposed banning all openly gay people from teaching in the public schools of California. Later that same year, she participated in memorial marches for the assassinated San Francisco city supervisor, openly gay Harvey Milk. In the 1990s, she appeared with her friend Janis Ian at a benefit for the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, a gay lobbying organization, and performed at the San Francisco Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Pride March. Her song "Altar Boy and the Thief" from 1977's Blowin' Away was written as a dedication to her gay fanbase.

On Earth Day, 1998, Baez and her friend Bonnie Raitt were hoisted by a giant crane to the top of a redwood tree to visit environmental activist Julia Butterfly Hill[2], who was camped out in the ancient tree in order to protect it from loggers. In early 2003, Baez performed at two rallies of hundreds of thousands of people in San Francisco protesting the U.S. invasion of Iraq (as she had earlier done before smaller crowds in 1991 to protest the Persian Gulf War). In August of 2003, she was invited by Emmylou Harris (who also credits her as a primary influence) and Steve Earle to join them in London at the Concert For a Landmine Free World. In the summer of 2004, she joined Michael Moore's "Slacker Uprising Tour" on American college campuses, encouraging young people to get out and vote for peace candidates in the upcoming national election. In August 2005, Baez appeared at the Texas anti-war protest that had been started by Cindy Sheehan. The following month, she sang "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" and "Amazing Grace" at the Temple in Black Rock City during the annual Burning Man festival as part of a tribute to New Orleans and the victims of Hurricane Katrina, and during that month she also performed several songs at the Operation Ceasefire rally [3] against the Iraq War in Washington, DC.

In December 2005, Baez appeared at the California protest at San Quentin prison against the execution of Tookie Williams. [4] There, she sang "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot". She had previously performed the same song at San Quentin at the 1992 vigil protesting the execution of Robert Alton Harris, the first man to be executed in California after the death penalty was reinstated.

On May 23, 2006, Baez once again joined Julia "Butterfly" Hill, this time in a "tree sit" in a giant tree on the site of the South Central Farm in a poor neighborhood of downtown Los Angeles. Baez and Hill were hoisted into the tree, where they remained overnight. The women, in addition to many other activists and celebrities, were protesting the imminent eviction of the community farmers and demolition of the site, which is the largest urban farm in the state. Due to the fact that many of the South Central Farmers are immigrants from Central America, Baez sang several songs from her 1974 Spanish-language album, Gracias A la Vida, including the title track and "No Nos Moveran" ("We Shall Not Be Moved").

Relationship with Bob Dylan

Baez first met Bob Dylan in 1961 at Gerde's Folk City in Greenwich Village. At the time, Baez had already released her debut album and her popularity as the emerging 'Queen of Folk' was on the rise. Baez was initially unimpressed with the "urban hillbilly" but was impressed with one of Dylan's first compositions, "Song to Woody" and remarked that she would like to record it (though she never did). At the start, Dylan was more interested in Baez's younger sister, Mimi, but under the glare of media scrutiny that began to surround Baez and Dylan, their relationship began to blossom into something more. By 1963, Baez had already released three albums, two of which had been certified Gold, and she invited Dylan onstage to perform alongside her. The two performed the Dylan composition "With God on Our Side", a performance which set the stage for many more duets like it in the months and years to come. Typically while on tour, Baez would invite Dylan to sing onstage partly by himself and partly with her, much to the chagrin of Baez's fans, who were often booing him. Before meeting Dylan, Baez's topical songs were few and far between: "Last Night I Had The Strangest Dream," "We Shall Overcome" and an assortment of black spirituals. Baez would later say that Dylan's songs seemed to update the topics of protest and justice.

By the time of Dylan's 1965 tour of England, his and Baez' relationship had slowly begun to fizzle. After having been romantically involved off-and-on for nearly two years, Dylan had begun seeing another woman at the same time (his future wife Sara) and likewise treated Baez badly. The tour and simultaneous disintegration of Baez and Dylan's relationship was documented in the rock-doc Dont Look Back [sic]. Although bad-blood existed between the two for a short time, the pair managed to bury the hatchet and tour together as part of Dylan's Rolling Thunder Revue in 1975 and 1976. Her later reflections on this relationship appear in Martin Scorsese's 2005 documentary No Direction Home.

Baez songs about Dylan:

• "To Bobby" (1972)
• "Diamonds & Rust" (1975)
• "Winds Of The Old Days" (1975)
• "O Brother!" (1976)
• "Time Is Passing Us By" (1976)

Dylan songs possibly about Baez:

• "To Ramona" (1964)
• "She Belongs to Me" (1964)
• "Positively 4th Street" (1965)
• "Visions of Johanna" (1966)
• "Queen Jane Approximately" (1965)
• "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" (1965)

Family & personal life

Baez is one of three sisters, her older sister being Pauline Baez; her younger sister was singer, guitarist, and activist Mimi Fariña, founder of the organization Bread and Roses. [5] Mimi had been married to singer/songwriter Richard Farina, who was killed in a motorcycle crash shortly after publishing his only novel, on Mimi's 21st birthday. Mimi died in July 2001 of neuroendocrine cancer [6]. Her father, noted physicist Albert Vinicio Baez, died March 20, 2007[7]; her mother, Joan Bridge Baez, died April 20, 2013. Joan Baez has a son, Gabriel Harris, a percussionist, and is a grandmother to Jasmine, the daughter of Gabriel and his wife, Pamela.

The mathematical physicist and Usenet guru, John C. Baez, is her cousin, as is well-known medical marijuana activist Peter Baez. [8] She dated Apple Computer cofounder Steve Jobs. She was a frequent authorized guest in the highly-secret lab of the Macintosh project, at a time when most Apple employees were refused admission. It is believed that Jobs asked her to marry him and that she refused.

Baez is a resident of [[Woodside, California] in a house complete with a backyard treehouse, which she spends a good deal of time in, meditating, writing, and "being close to nature." [9] She is a graduate of Peninsula School and Palo Alto High School. Her son, Gabriel Harris, also attended Peninsula School as well as public school in the Palo Alto area.

Trivia

• Baez cites Elvis Presley as a major early influence on her vocal style.
• When designing the poster for her first concert in 1958, Baez flirted with the idea of changing her performing name to either Rachel Sandperl (Sandperl is the surname of her high school teacher and long-time mentor, the pacifist scholar Ira Sandperl) or Mariah (from the song "They Call The Wind Mariah" by The Kingston Trio.) She later opted against it, fearful people would accuse her of changing her last name because it was Mexican, a la Ritchie Valens.
• She has been nominated for a Grammy Award six times but never won. In recent years during live performances of "Diamonds & Rust", Baez often changed the final lyric to "If you're offering me diamonds and rust... I'll take the Grammy." Baez finally received a lifetime achievement Grammy in February 2007.
• Baez is fond of inserting spot-on Dylan impressions into her recordings of his songs, the earliest being in her up-tempo version of "Simple Twist Of Fate." In later years, she has given the same treatment to "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall" and "Love Is Just A Four-Letter Word".
• Her only music video to date is for 1992's "Stones In The Road," although she is featured in "Live at Sing Sing," a video recording of her appearance at the prison along with her sister Mimi Farina and blues singer B.B. King.
• She stars as the "Woman In White" in Bob Dylan's 1978 film "Renaldo And Clara."
• Led Zeppelin recorded "Babe I'm Gonna Leave You" for their 1969 debut album after hearing Baez' version of the song from her 1962 album Joan Baez in Concert.
• Paul McCartney has stated on several occasions that the tune for The Beatles' "I'll Get You" was inspired after hearing Baez' "All My Trials".
• Emmylou Harris taught herself to play the guitar to Baez's "Silver Dagger".
• Judas Priest covered Baez's "Diamonds & Rust" and the song has since become a concert staple of theirs.
• Linda Ronstadt cites Baez's 1974 Spanish-language album Gracias a la Vida as a primary influence in her decision to record her own album in Spanish, 1987's Canciones de Mi Padre.
• The Paul Simon song "A Simple Desultory Philippic (Or How I Was Robert McNamara'd Into Submission)", generally thought to be a parody of Bob Dylan's work, contains the line "I been Mick Jaggered, 'Silver Dagger'ed." "Silver Dagger" is one of Baez's most well-known early songs, appearing on her 1960 début album.
• Baez is one of the subjects of Apple's Think Different campaign.
• She was slammed by right-wing political cartoonist Al Capp as "Joanie Phoanie".

Pop culture

• In the 1994 film Forrest Gump, Forrest's love Jenny reveals that she wants "to be a famous folksinger. Like Joan Baez." A Baez tour poster can be seen above her dorm room bed in the same scene. A live Baez version of "Blowin' in the Wind" is featured on the film soundtrack.
• In the 1991 Vietnam War-era drama Dogfight, a copy of Baez' debut album can be seen on the protagonist's nightstand beside her bed. Baez's recording "Silver Dagger", appearing on the soundtrack, plays during a pivotal scene in the film.
• In the 2004 film Eulogy, Hank Azaria's character gets high while Baez's song "Diamonds & Rust" plays. The song also appears on the film's soundtrack.
• "Here's To You" (music by Ennio Morricone, lyrics by Baez), a song Baez originally performed for the 1971 Italian film Sacco e Vanzetti, also appears on the movie soundtrack for the 2004 film The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. The song is also played over the credits of the 1977 quasi-documentary Deutschland im Herbst.
• The 1972 comedy album National Lampoon's Radio Dinner includes a Baez parody, "Pull the Tregroes", performed by Diana Reed.
• In a 2003 episode of the HBO series Six Feet Under, a character, after watching the film Silent Running, comments "I've always loved Joan Baez." Joan's song "Rejoice In The Sun" can be heard in the background.
• In an episode of the '70s series The Partridge Family, David Cassidy's character says "One lousy sit-in and suddenly she's Joan Baez."
• Spike Lee used Baez's 1964 recording of Richard Fariña's "Birmingham Sunday" as the opening song in his 1997 film 4 Little Girls.
• Baez has been lampooned multiple times on Saturday Night Live, by comedienne Nora Dunn. One skit features a game show entitled "Make Joan Baez Laugh!" where a dour Baez is ushered onstage while celebrity guests try their hand at getting her to a crack a smile.
• Her name appears under the "Special thanks" section of Michael Moore's film Fahrenheit 9/11; Baez dedicated her 2003 album Dark Chords on a Big Guitar to Moore.

Discography

Studio & live albums

1. Joan Baez, Vanguard (November 1960)
2. Joan Baez, Vol. 2, Vanguard (October 1961)
3. Joan Baez in Concert, Vanguard (September 1962)
4. Joan Baez in Concert, Part 2, Vanguard (November 1963)
5. Joan Baez/5, Vanguard (November 1964)
6. Farewell Angelina, Vanguard (November 1965)
7. Noël, Vanguard (December 1966)
8. Joan, Vanguard (August 1967)
9. Baptism: A Journey Through Our Time, Vanguard (June 1968)
10. Any Day Now (Songs of Bob Dylan), Vanguard (December 1968)
11. David's Album, Vanguard (May 1969)
12. One Day at a Time, Vanguard (January 1970)
13. Carry It On (Soundtrack Album), Vanguard (1971)
14. Blessed Are..., Vanguard (1971)
15. Come from the Shadows, A&M (April 1972)
16. Where Are You Now, My Son?, A&M (March 1973)
17. Gracias A la Vida, A&M (July 1974)
18. Diamonds & Rust, A&M (April 1975)
19. From Every Stage, A&M (February 1976)
20. Gulf Winds, A&M (November 1976)
21. Blowin' Away, CBS (July 1977)
22. Honest Lullaby, CBS (April 1979)
23. Live -Europe '83, Gamma (January 1984)
24. Recently, Gold Castle (July 1987)
25. Diamonds & Rust in the Bullring, Gold Castle (December 1988)
26. Speaking of Dreams, Gold Castle (November 1989)
27. Play Me Backwards, Virgin (October 1992)
28. Ring Them Bells, Guardian (August 1995)
29. Gone from Danger, Guardian (September 1997)
30. Dark Chords on a Big Guitar, Koch (October 2003)
31. Bowery Songs, Proper Records (September 2005)
32. Ring Them Bells (reissue double-disc with bonus tracks), Proper Records(February 2007)

Compilations

1. Folksingers 'Round Harvard Square (1959)
2. The First 10 Years, Vanguard (November 1970)
3. The Joan Baez Ballad Book, Vanguard (1972)
4. Hits: Greatest and Others, Vanguard (1973)
5. The Contemporary Ballad Book, Vanguard (1974)
6. The Joan Baez Lovesong Album, Vanguard (1976)
7. The Joan Baez Country Music Album (1977)
8. Best of Joan C. Baez, A&M (1977)
9. Joan Baez: Classics, A&M (1986)
10. Brothers in Arms, Gold Castle (1991)
11. No Woman No Cry, Laserligh (February 1992)
12. Rare, Live & Classic (boxed set), Vanguard (1993)
13. Greatest Hits, A&M (1996)
14. Best of Joan Baez: The Millennium Collection, A&M/Universal (1999)
15. The Complete A&M Recordings, Universal/A&M (2003)

References

Baez, Joan. 1988. And a Voice to Sing With: A Memoir. Century Hutchinson, London. ISBN 0-7126-1827-9

Further reading

• Baez, Joan. 1968. Daybreak - An Intimate Journal. The Dial Press, New York.
• Baez, Joan, 1987. "And a Voice to Sing With."
• Heller, Jeffrey, 1991. "Joan Baez: Singer With a Cause (People of Distinction Series)," Children's Press.
• Fuss, Charles J., 1996. "Joan Baez: A Bio-Bibliography (Bio-Bibliographies in the Performing Arts Series," Greenwood Press, Westport, CT.
• Romero, Maritza, 1998. "Joan Baez: Folk Singer for Peace (Great Hispanics of Our Time Series." Powerkids Books.
• Garza, Hedda, 1999. "Joan Baez (Hispanics of Achievement)." Chelsea House Publications.
• Hajdu, David. 2001. Positively 4th Street. The Lives and Times of Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Mimi Baez Fariña And Richard Fariña. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, New York.
• Jaeger, Markus. 2006. "Joan Baez and the Issue of Vietnam." ibidem-Verlag, Austria. [book is in English]

External links

You can help Anarchopedia by expanding this article by adding some of these files from Wikicommons

You can help Anarchopedia by expanding this article by adding some of these quotes from Wikiquote

• Joan Baez official website
• Joan Baez Current European Record Label
• Joan Baez's career on A&M Records with gallery, international discography
• Joan Baez Main Page by Richard L. Hess
• the text of "Open letter to the Socialist Republic of Vietnam" (half way down the page)
• Joan Baez at QuasimodoBell inc. lyrics, charts & other releases... all with original covers

Video Links

• Joan Baez - It Ain't Me Babe (LIVE 1965)

This article is based on a GNU FDL LGBT Wikia article: Baez Joan Baez

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