Joan Baez (1941-01-09 – )
One track: Diamonds and Rust (1975)
One quotation: “I think music has the power to transform people, and in doing so, it has the power to transform situations – some large and some small.” Why the Sound Is Still Sweet: Q&A with Joan Baez. Interview with Marlene Kelly, 2009-11-04.
One comment: Baez continues to be relevant. Starting with Charles Albert Tindley’s (1851 – 1933) I’ll Overcome Some Day (1901) that was transformed by Pete Seeger (1919 – 2014) and Guy Carawan (1927 – 2015) into We Shall Overcome (1947), it was sung by Baez at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom (1963-08-28). She appeared at Woodstock (1969-08-15 to 18). Her musical success and activism continuing through the 1970s, and 1980s ending with China (1989), which condemned the violence of the Chinese government in its attack on student protesters. After a 27 year hiatus, she released Nasty Man (2017), about “a man gone wrong”, Donald Trump.
More information.
Note: This is the first of twelve tidbits to be published in 2021 that comment on influential women musicians (mainly singer/ songwriters). While today’s tidbit is being published on Baez’ 80th birthday, others will be published once a month throughout the year. The reason for this is that women in general, and people with non-European backgrounds, are under-represented in my weblog posts. This series is an attempt to compensate for this shortcoming. In 2022 similar posts will feature multicultural women scientists, followed in 2023 with posts about multicultural women writers (mainly novelists), the posts in 2024 will focus on multicultural women artists (mainly painters and sculptors). The series will end in 2025 with 12 posts about women photographers.
As above, at the end of every tidbit, there will be a link to further information, usually from the English edition of Wikipedia. This allows people to link to similar Wikipedia articles in other languages.
This tidbit was inspired by an article in the Norwegian monthly magazine Vi over 60 = We over 60. My dear wife, Trish, gave me a subscription to this magazine when I was still in my 50s, admittedly 59 shortly before I turned 60. I asked her to discontinue it after a year. Instead, she transferred the subscription to her name, so we have been receiving it for the last 12.5 years. Sometimes, she points out an article she thinks I might be interested in. This happened with the 2021-01 edition, when she pointed out an article on Joan Baez titled, Fredens førstedame = The first lady of peace (p. 21).
Many LPs in my Canadian record collection were published by Vanguard. This company was started by Maynard (1930 – 2020, a music producer and later a biographer of classical composers) and Seymour Solomon (1922 – 2002, a music business executive). They specialized in classical music, but then expanded into folk music, then into rock (less successfully). In addition to Baez, my collection included Vanguard records by Linda Ronstadt, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Ian & Sylvia (Tyson) and Country Joe and the Fish. None of these LPs moved to Norway, although some were repurchased as CDs. It is now over ten years since the last CD was purchased. Music is now stored on files, in folders, on a server, where it can be accessed by any computer in our house. This system even allows remote access. More importantly, the collection occupies no space. After having bought most of the music I listen to twice (once on LPs and once on CDs), I see no need to rent it in perpetuity from Spotify.