Jan 09: Happy Birthday Joan Baez

And Joan Baez means more to me than 100 of these singers around today. She’s more powerful. That’s what we’re looking for. That’s what we respond to. She always had it and always will, power for the species, not just for a select group.
~Bob Dylan (to Neil Hickey, Sept. 1976)

“I’ve never had a humble opinion. If you’ve got an opinion, why be humble about it?”
― Joan Baez

I went to jail for 11 days for disturbing the peace; I was trying to disturb the war.
~Joan Baez (Pop Chronicles interview – 1967)

Diamonds and Rust – Live, 1975:

Birth name	Joan Chandos Báez
Born	January 9, 1941 (age 77)
Origin	Staten Island, New York City, United States
Genres	Folk, folk rock, country
Occupations	Musician, songwriter, activist
Instruments	Vocals, guitar, piano, ukulele
Years active	1958–present
Labels	Vanguard (1960–1971) A&M (1972–1977) Portrait/CBS (1977–1981) Gold Castle (1987–1991) Virgin (1991–1993) Guardian (1995–2002) Koch (2003–present)
Associated acts	Jackson Browne, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Judy Collins,Donovan, Bob Dylan, Steve Earle, Mimi Fariña, the Grateful Dead, Janis Ian, the Indigo Girls, Odetta, Pete Seeger, Paul Simon, Rocker T, Dar Williams
Website	joanbaez.com

Joan Baez (pron.: /ˈbaɪ.ɛz/) (born January 9, 1941 as Joan Chandos Báez) is an American folk singer, songwriter, musician, and a prominent activist in the fields of human rights, peace, and environmental justice.

Baez has a distinctive vocal style, with a strong vibrato. Her recordings include many topical songs and material dealing with social issues.

Baez began her career performing in coffeehouses in Boston and Cambridge, and rose to fame as an unbilled performer at the 1959 Newport Folk Festival. 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, and stayed on the charts of hit albums for two years.

Baez has had a popular hit song with “Diamonds & Rust” and hit covers of Phil Ochs’s “There but for Fortune” and The Band’s “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down”. Other songs associated with Baez include “Farewell, Angelina”, “Love Is Just a Four-Letter Word”, “Joe Hill”, “Sweet Sir Galahad” and “We Shall Overcome”. She performed three of the songs at the 1969 Woodstock Festival, helped to bring the songs of Bob Dylan to national prominence, and has displayed a lifelong commitment to political and social activism in the fields of nonviolence, civil rights, human rights and the environment.

The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down:

Baez has performed publicly for over 53 years, releasing over 30 albums. Fluent in Spanish as well as in English, she has also recorded songs in at least six other languages. She is regarded as a folk singer, although her music has diversified since the 1960s, encompassing everything from folk rock and pop to country and gospel music. Although a songwriter herself, Baez is generally regarded as an interpreter of other people’s work, having recorded songs by The Allman Brothers Band, The Beatles, Jackson Browne,Bob Dylan, Violeta Parra, Woody Guthrie, The Rolling Stones, Pete Seeger, Paul Simon, Stevie Wonder, Leonard Cohen, and many others. In recent years, she has found success interpreting songs of modern songwriters such as Ryan Adams, Josh Ritter, Steve Earle and Natalie Merchant.

Album of the day:

Diamonds & Rust (1975):

Other January 08:

 

• James Patrick “Jimmy” Page OBE (born 9 January 1944) is an English guitarist, songwriter and record producer. Page began his career as a studio session musician in London and by the mid-1960s, had become the most sought-after session guitarist in the UK. He was a member of The Yardbirds from 1966 to 1968. He achieved worldwide fame as the lead guitarist, record producer and founder of the English rock band Led Zeppelin beginning in late 1968.
  
• Joshua Hayes Carll (born January 9, 1976), known as Hayes Carll, is a Texas Country singer-songwriter from The Woodlands,Texas (a Houston suburb). Carll was a 2011 nominee for Artist of the Year at the 2011 Americana Music Association awards
  
• David Roger Johansen (born January 9, 1950) is an American rock, protopunk, blues, and pop singer, songwriter and actor. He is best known as a member of the seminal protopunk band The New York Dolls. He is also known for his work under the pseudonym Buster Poindexter.
  
• David John “Dave” Matthews (born January 9, 1967) is a South African-born American singer-songwriter, musician and actor, best known as the lead vocalist, songwriter, and guitarist for the Dave Matthews Band. He performs mainly with acoustic guitar and favors rhythm rather than solos in his playing. His band Dave Matthews Band sold more tickets than any act in North America from 2000 to 2010.
  

-Egil & Hallgeir