Born Gifted

Joan Baez, born January 9, 1941 on Staten Island, NY, is a folk singer, songwriter, musician, and activist whose contemporary folk music often includes songs of protest or social justice.  Joan has performed publicly for over 55 years, releasing over 30 albums.  Her music has diversified since the counterculture days of the 1960s and now encompasses everything from folk rock and pop to country and gospel music.  Although a songwriter herself, Joan is generally regarded as an interpreter of other people's work, having recorded songs by the Allman Brothers Band, the Beatles, Jackson Browne, Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones, Pete Seeger, Paul Simon, Stevie Wonder and many others. The opening line of Joan's memoir And a Voice to Sing With is : "I was born gifted".  Referencing her singing voice - a stunning soprano, with a natural vibrato, which she explained was given to her, and for which she can not take 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.  When Joan was 13, her aunt and her aunt's boyfriend took her to a concert by folk musician Pete Seeger, and Josn found herself strongly moved by his music.  She soon began practicing the songs of his repertoire and performing them publicly.  A few years later in 1957, Joan bought her first Gibson acoustic guitar.

Joan's true professional career began at that 1959 Newport Folk Festival.  Following that appearance, recorded her first self titled, solo LP for Vanguard Records in the summer of 1960, the beginning of a prolific 14-album, 12-year association with the label.  Her earliest records, with their mix of traditional ballads and blues, lullabies, Carter Family songs, Weavers and Woody Guthrie songs, cowboy tunes, ethnic folk staples of American and non-American vintage, and much more - won strong followings in the US and abroad. Her second release, Joan Baez, Vol. 2 (1961) went gold, as did Joan Baez in Concert, Part 1 (1962) and Joan Baez in Concert, Part 2 (1963).  Like its immediate predecessor, Joan Baez, Vol. 2 contained strictly traditional material.  Her two albums of live material, Joan Baez in Concert, Part 1 and its second counterpart, were unique in that, unlike most live albums, they contained only new songs, rather than established favorites.  It was Joan Baez in Concert, Part 2 that featured Joan's first-ever Dylan cover. From the early-to-mid-1960s, Joan 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.  On November 23, 1962, Joan appeared on the cover of Time Magazine—a rare honor then for a musician.

In 1968, Joan traveled to Nashville, Tennessee, where a marathon recording session resulted in two albums.  The first, Any Day Now (1968), consists exclusively of Dylan covers.  The other, the country-music-infused David's Album (1969) was recorded for then-husband David Harris, a prominent anti-Vietnam War protester eventually imprisoned for draft resistance.  Harris, a country-music fan, turned Joan toward more complex country-rock influences beginning with David's Album. In 1969, her appearance at Woodstock in upstate New York afforded her an international musical and political podium, particularly upon the successful release of the documentary film Woodstock (1970).  After eleven years with Vanguard, Joan decided in 1971 to cut ties with the label that had released her albums since 1960.  She delivered them one last success with the gold-selling album Blessed Are... (1971) which spawned a top-ten hit in Robbie Robertson's The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down, her cover of The Band's signature song. Joan's distinctive vocal style and political activism had a significant impact on 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.  She sang about freedom and Civil Rights everywhere, from the backs of flatbed trucks in Mississippi to the steps of the Lincoln Memorial at Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King's March on Washington in 1963.  In 1965 Joan co-founded the Institute For The Study Of Nonviolence near her home in Carmel Valley.  The Vietnam war, fair wages, capitol punishment and gay rights were issues that Joan also spoke for.

Diamonds & Rust (by Joan Baez) Well I'll be damned Here comes your ghost again But that's not unusual It's just that the moon is full And you happened to call And here I sit Hand on the telephone Hearing a voice I'd known A couple of light years ago Heading straight for a fall As I remember your eyes Were bluer than robin's eggs My poetry was lousy you said Where are you calling from? A booth in the midwest Ten years ago I bought you some cufflinks You brought me something We both know what memories can bring They bring diamonds and rust

Wanderin' Spirit
November, 2014
"Born Gifted"

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