JOAN BAEZ, THE GREATEST VOICE FROM STATEN ISLAND

Today, The Grangers & The Grandma have met Joan Baez, the American singer, songwriter, musician, and activist, who was born in Staten Island, New York.

 

Before this visit, The Grangers have been preparing their Cambridge Exam. They have studied The Superlative & May.

 

More info: The Superlative

 

Joan Chandos Baez (born January 9, 1941) is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and activist whose contemporary folk music often includes songs of protest or social justice.

Baez has performed publicly for over 60 years, releasing over 30 albums. Fluent in Spanish and English, she has also recorded songs in at least six other languages. Although generally regarded as a folk singer, her music has diversified since the counterculture era of the 1960s, and encompasses genres such as folk rock, pop, country, and gospel music.

Although a songwriter herself, Baez generally interprets other composers' work, having recorded songs by Bob Dylan, the Allman Brothers Band, the Beatles, Jackson Browne, Leonard Cohen, Woody Guthrie, Violeta Parra, the Rolling Stones, Pete Seeger, Paul Simon, Stevie Wonder and many others. On her past several albums, she has found success interpreting songs of more recent songwriters, including Ryan Adams, Josh Ritter, Steve Earle, Natalie Merchant and Joe Henry.

More information: Joan Baez

She began her recording career in 1960 and achieved immediate success. Her first three albums, Joan Baez, Joan Baez, Vol. 2, and Joan Baez in Concert all achieved gold record status.

Songs of acclaim include Diamonds & Rust and covers of Phil Ochs's There but for Fortune and The Band's The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down. She is also known for Farewell, Angelina, Love Is Just a Four-Letter Word, Forever Young, Here's to You, Joe Hill, Sweet Sir Galahad and We Shall Overcome.

She was one of the first major artists to record the songs of Bob Dylan in the early 1960s; Baez was already an internationally celebrated artist and did much to popularize his early songwriting efforts.

Baez also performed fourteen songs at the 1969 Woodstock Festival and has displayed a lifelong commitment to political and social activism in the fields of nonviolence, civil rights, human rights and the environment.

Baez was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on April 7, 2017.

Baez was born on Staten Island, New York, on January 9, 1941. Joan's grandfather, the Reverend Alberto Baez, left the Catholic Church to become a Methodist minister and moved to the U.S. when her father was two years old. Her father, Albert Baez (1912–2007), was born in Puebla, Mexico and grew up in Brooklyn, New York, where his father preached to -and advocated for- a Spanish-speaking congregation.

Due to her father's work with UNESCO, their family moved many times, living in towns across the U.S, as well as in England, France, Switzerland, Spain, Canada, and the Middle East, including Iraq.

Joan Baez became involved with a variety of social causes early in her career, including civil rights and non-violence. Social justice, she stated in the PBS series American Masters, is the true core of her life, looming larger than music.

More information: DW

The opening line of Baez's memoir And a Voice to Sing With is I was born gifted, referencing her singing voice, which she explained was given to her and for which she can take no credit. A friend of Joan's father gave her a ukulele. She learned four chords, which enabled her to play rhythm and blues, the music she was listening to at the time. Her parents, however, were fearful that the music would lead her into a life of drug addiction.

When Baez was 13, her aunt and her aunt's boyfriend took her to a concert by folk musician Pete Seeger, and Baez found herself strongly moved by his music. She soon began practicing the songs of his repertoire and performing them publicly. One of her very earliest public performances was at a retreat in Saratoga, California for a youth group from Temple Beth Jacob, a Redwood City, California Jewish congregation. A few years later in 1957, Baez bought her first Gibson acoustic guitar.

Her true professional career began at the 1959 Newport Folk Festival. Following that appearance, she recorded her first album for Vanguard, Joan Baez (1960), produced by Fred Hellerman of The Weavers, who produced many albums by folk artists.

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, and was emulated by artists such as Judy Collins, Emmylou Harris, Joni Mitchell, and Bonnie Raitt.

Baez's distinctive vocal style and political activism had a significant impact on American popular music. She was one of the first musicians to use her popularity as a vehicle for social protest, singing and marching for human rights and peace.

More information: ThoughtCo

May your hands always be busy
May your feet always be swift
May you have a strong foundation
When the winds of changes shift
May your heart always be joyful
May your song always be sung
And may you stay

Forever young

Bob Dylan/Joan Baez