Imagine a young woman, free of makeup, a curtain of black hair, barefoot even in the Massachusetts winter, burnishing 200-year-old ballads in a crammed Cambridge coffeehouse, picking like an old hand at her acoustic guitar. At the launch of the 1960s, this was radical, inverting music on its shiny, hair-sprayed head. Joan Baez landed on Time magazine’s cover, lauded as the Queen of Folk. All at the august age of 21.
Joan Baez will be honored by the Kennedy Center, along with country musician Garth Brooks, dancer-choreographer Debbie Allen, violinist Midori and actor Dick Van Dyke. If anyone deserves it, she does.
Her music has been so much a part of my life.
The Washington Post article from which the top quote is taken is excellent and will bring a tear to many eyes. Here are some of her songs to enjoy.
Open thread!
The Dangerman
Have managed to see her twice live; both fine shows.
MattF
Hadn’t realized how much I’d missed her.
dnfree
One of the sound tracks of my life as well. Thank you for sharing. I always enjoyed the Wild Mountain Thyme one of her traditional songs.
Nina
She was two years behind my dad in high school. He confessed later to having a crush on her but never got the nerve to do anything with it. My aunt J was in her class and sort of friends, but they drifted apart when Aunt J married a soldier.
Catherine D.
She and Judy Collins did a wonderful version of Diamonds and Rust at her 75th birthday concert. Also glad to see Debbie Allen and Dick Van Dyke on the list.
HumboldtBlue
She’s not a 21-year-old dark-haired beauty with wonderful music skills, but she’s going to be internet famous for interrupting her dad.
zhena gogolia
@HumboldtBlue:
So cute!
rikyrah
I am a little??
Peanut is back from getting Pfizer #1!
Thank you, science??
HumboldtBlue
This absolutely brilliant reenactment.
prostratedragon
I had forgot about this brilliant performance until local radio played it by request recently. It was my introduction years ago both to Joan Baez and to Villa Lobos, not played for so many years on that station that the informed but young program host had not even known of it. [Spelling correction]
debbie
@HumboldtBlue:
These kids need their own website. Remember this one?
debbie
@rikyrah:
Yay for Peanut!
Mike in NC
Fat Bastard never attended the Kennedy Center Honors because he couldn’t personally profit from it. But he did have time to hang a medal around Rush Limbaugh’s dying neck.
debbie
I think Joan Baez may have been the first female singer I ever heard. I remember getting one of her albums for Christmas back when this was my music system.
cckids
@Mike in NC: I’m pretty sure it was also because it couldn’t be ALL ABOUT HIM. Not to mention, he has no regard for art or creativity. And loads of artists would have declined to receive any “honor” from him. As Mel Brooks did with W.
Cermet
Fantastic voice and great music. What more could anyone ask for?
satby
@rikyrah: It’s a very good day!
J R in WV
@Cermet:
She is also beautiful and a kind and wonderful soul. Not asking for that, just saying she has all of that as well as her ample musical gifts.
J R in WV
@rikyrah:
Hurray for Peanut~!!!~ So glad for you, too.
cckids
@rikyrah: Yay! It’s such a relief! My last nephew who’s under 16 has an appointment next week to join the rest of the vaxxed family. Now we’ve only got the great-nieces/nephews who are all under 5. :) It’s a good month.
trollhattan
“Diamonds and Rust” led me to reappraising her voice, which I hadn’t cared for before (not a decision, mind, just never connected). I think she had grown into it, similar to Joni with “Blue.”
Another Joan, Didion, has a piece on Baez in “Slouching Towards Bethlehem” when she ran a training center in Carmel Valley, CA and the neighbors weren’t necessarily welcoming her with open arms. Seems Baez was an old soul at an early age.
If Trump were in office I could see her being there alongside Kid Rock and Jon Voigt.
HumboldtBlue
@debbie:
Oh yes, that’s the gold standard.
JPL
@debbie: Many moons ago, I had an opportunity to attend a Joan Baez concert with thousands of other people. She introduced an unknown at the time, named Bob Dylan. I didn’t go, because it was summertime, and someone was having a backyard party.
debbie
@HumboldtBlue:
They’re all gold!
Ceci n est pas mon nym
There is a professor John Baez who was very well-known in physics discussion circles back in the Usenet days. He authored a lot of the sci.physics FAQ, which is still a pretty good place to go for tutorials on various physics concepts, especially relativity.
He was most well known for coming up with the Crackpot Index by which you can score the crackpot level of an internet posting.
As cool as I thought he was, my admiration for him went up even farther when I discovered that he is Joan Baez’ cousin.
HumboldtBlue
@debbie:
They sure as hell never get old!
The way that little girl in yellow enters the room is simply gut-busting funny.
trollhattan
“What, is the terminal velocity of a cat?”
“Evidently, just enough.”
PT&S
An open-thread-y kind of question: can anyone shed light on what happened just now when I tried to visit No More Mister Nice Blog? Firefox gave me a big red page with a warning “Firefox blocked this page because it may trick you into doing something dangerous like installing software or revealing personal information like passwords or credit cards.” I’m wondering whether someone’s performed some kind of ratf-ck to get him taken down.
cope
A closed carrel in my college library with my girlfriend listening to the double album of Joan Baez singing only Dylan songs as we do school work…glorious memories.
HumboldtBlue
This is just an absurdly good Stevie Wonder-Guns ‘N Roses mashup.
CaseyL
I was more of a rock’n’roller than a folkie, so I didn’t collect Baez’s music – but I would stop in my tracks whenever I heard her and listen.
I think the first time I ever heard her was when I was a teenager, watching the documentary movie Woodstock. She sang “Joe Hill,” and that song has haunted me ever since.
And “Diamonds and Rust” captures so perfectly what it’s like to hear from an old flame who once owned, exalted, and then broke your heart.
I’m glad to see Joan is getting Kennedy Center honors. She is a legend; and one who has always walked the walk.
SiubhanDuinne
@rikyrah:
That news makes me beyond happy! I hope you’ve shown her the lavish choice of stickers.
Wyatt Salamanca
Thank God for Joan Baez! An amazing singer and an equally amazing human being. This honor is well-deserved and fuck the stupid Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for waiting so goddamn long to induct her. She should have been admitted in her first year of eligibility.
zhena gogolia
@rikyrah:
Oh, wonderful!
zhena gogolia
@PT&S:
I don’t know — that sounds scary.
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
For some reason I was just mild about later Joan Baez songs, but I adored her early albums filled with Child ballads. What a beautiful pure voice. I read somewhere she uses the name “Queenie” to describe her famous dive/persona. Clearly, she has a sense of perspective on her extraordinary life.
Steeplejack (phone)
@trollhattan:
WTF?! Joan Baez or Joan Didion? I can’t imagine Baez being anywhere with those two, and I wouldn’t think it of Didion either.
Pete Downunder
caphilldcne
I lobe her version of Guantanamera.
https://youtu.be/MRTC3cfWfGk
I swear that she sang the best version of La Quinta Brigada but I can’t find it. So heresPete Seeger with el Quinta regimento: https://youtu.be/2IACRw_ky8I
Zelma
Folk was the music I loved in high school and college. Never was fond of rock. I never heard Joan Baez but I remember hearing an unknown singer named Judy Collins at a venue in New Haven. Perhaps a purer voice than Baez whose voice was pretty darn pure.
Ruckus
Haven’t listened to her in a long time and just listening to that voice! It is an amazing sound, so clear and clean and amazing to remember how good she is. I am very glad she is getting this award.
opiejeanne
@The Dangerman: A boyfriend (it lasted the first two weeks of college) took me to one of Joan Baez’s concerts at The Forum in Inglewood, Fall of 1968 when I was 18. This was her set list: https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/joan-baez/1968/the-forum-inglewood-ca-bf7d122.html
At intermission she told the young men in the audience that she would burn their draft cards for them if they were afraid to, to just bring them to the edge of the stage.
The next night I was home and my dad was watching the news, and they were talking about the riot at that concert. I said, “That didn’t happen.”
Dad asked how I would know, so I said “I was there last night, and that “riot” is the will-call line. I was in that line before the concert.”
He was so agitated he didn’t know what to say, but it should have been a revelation for him that sometimes the news people were not telling us the truth, especially about the Vietnam War
ETA: that setlist page says it was November 16, 1968, so maybe Blair lasted about a month.
Barbara
Joan’s sister Mimi (died in 2001) is the Mimi of Mimi and Richard Farina. What a talented family.
steve g
The answer my friend,
Is still frickin’ blowin’ in the wind,
The answer is blowin’ in the wind.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@trollhattan:
I am reading this book for the first time, and really love it. I enjoyed the essay about Joan Baez and her non-violence academy (and the neighbor’s reactions!)
Rekster
Thank you Cheryl for this beautiful post. It was a highlight of my life to see Joan live at The Greek Theatre in Berkeley sometime around 1977. It was a magical concert. I lived in San Francisco during the time of the murder of Harvey Milk and George Moscone, I’ll never forget hearing Joan sing a capella Amazing Grace at the candlelight ceremony.