The folk music star and activist Joan Baez was born on January 9, 1941, in Staten Island, New York. She was a self-taught singer and guitarist who fell in love with folk music when she was in high school in Belmont, Massachusetts. She started to play at local clubs, usually appearing with other local folk musicians, though as her star rose she became the headliner to these shows. She attended college at Boston University for a time before leaving school to pursue her music career.
Her family were Quakers, and this influenced her interest and participation in political and social activism and her music's messages of hope and nonviolence.
Her first album, Folksingers 'Round Harvard Square, was a recording made with two other folk musicians, Bill Wood and Ted Alevizos. Six of the thirteen tracks were solos by Baez, and she performed with the others on several of the other tracks. When reviewed in the Boston Globe in March of 1960, the critic says that Wood and Alevizos aren't as talented as she is, and that "she sings softly, beautifully, and with a haunting grace which traces an almost tangible mood of sadness and joy."
When she was 18 years old, she made her debut on a national stage at the first annual Newport Folk Festival in 1959. The first half of the 1960s saw releases of several albums on Vanguard Records and lots of touring performing traditional folk songs and covers of works by other songwriters. By the mid 1970s, she was writing her own songs and branching out into contemporary pop and country sounds. She has continued to record and tour, with her last album Whistle Down the Wind released in 2018 when she was 77.
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Books for Revolutionary Music Fans: Joan Baez
Joan Baez has been a strong activist and supporter for social justice. She has marched with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. during the Civil Rights Movement, encouraged a draft resistance during the Vietnam War, protested the death penalty in California and Georgia, performed concerts in support of LGBTQ+ rights, walked in memorial marches for San Francisco city supervisor Harvey Milk, and worked to protect a redwood forest and urban farmers, among other things.
This staff booklist of fiction and nonfiction books will appeal to Joan Baez fans both new and old. To learn more about Joan Baez and her music, read the blog post linked at the bottom of the list!
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