Joan Baez, one of the most prominent female folk singers since
the 1960s, will perform at Royce Hall tonight, treating students to
a voice that has brought sweet chills to listeners for over forty
years.
Baez, who has collaborated with folk heroes like Bob Dylan,
toured with The Beatles, and performed at the original Woodstock,
continues to strive for freshness in her art and to keep from
fading into merely an icon of the past.
“Being fresh combats being a legend of the ’60s
““ which isn’t a bad thing, but it’s dull unless
you’ve updated yourself,” Baez said.
At the age of only 18, Baez was jump-started into a singing
career by her unscheduled appearance at the Newport Folk Festival
in 1959. A crowd of over 13,000 people ecstatically received
her performance and within one year, she released her first album
for Vanguard Recording Society and returned to the festival as a
headlining performer. However, despite her immediate success, Baez
had never imagined the extent to which her fame would grow.
“Back then there wasn’t the kind of (singing) career
talk that there is now,” Baez said. “My idea of the
future was the following Wednesday. I remember when I was 15
someone asked me, “˜Do you think you’re going to be
famous?’ and I just looked at them. I didn’t know what
they were talking about, I had never thought about it.”
In fact, it was Baez’s love of music that paved the way to
her successful career and not the allure of stardom that drives so
many pop stars today. At a young age, Baez started playing ukulele
in order to ease frustration and boredom with school.
“Music became bigger and bigger in my life as school
became more and more impossible. I was a terrible student. I
wasn’t made for it, and it wasn’t made for me. And
luckily, I had a talent,” Baez said.
Baez’s parents were both Quakers, and she grew up
listening to philosophical discussions on nonviolence that sparked
her intense interest in human behavior. This, along with the
emotional turbulence that love and adolescence often lends to the
human spirit, inspired Baez’s early songwriting.
“My songs reflected where my head was,” Baez said.
“I was a kid, kind of neurotic. I wouldn’t have known a
happy love song if I had seen one. A happy love song might be
an oxymoron. I was full of angst and those were the songs I related
to and delivered fairly well.”
However, singing songs is only one side of the coin when it
comes to Baez’s two great loves. Like the steady guitar
backing up her lyrics, political activism has consistently played a
part right alongside her singing career. Her songs are often
littered with socially conscious themes, and in return, she aided
her protest efforts with music.
“The situation in the world back then, starting with civil
rights and then the Vietnam War, took me so easily into my two
greatest loves, music and politics, and they fit like gloves. I
think that in whatever we do we reflect the world around us or our
denial of it,” she said.
Since her first breakthrough performance at the Newport Folk
Festival, Baez has taken great strides in promoting both folk music
and social change. Her upcoming album and public appearance in
the San Francisco’s anti-war protest in January goes to show
time has not dampened her spirit. Her life’s work so far has
shown the importance of music and social awareness and the way they
can combine to further both causes.
“Personally speaking, I would say that I would not want to
be involved in social change if there was not music in it,”
Baez said. “It helps solidify a movement by bringing its
heart, soul and emotion to the cause. You can go to a rally where
there are twenty speeches in a row, but nothing will effect the
people the way a song will.”
Joan Baez performs at Royce Hall tonight. For tickets, call the
Central Ticket Office at
(310) 825-2101.