Joan Baez

Joan Chandos Baez (born January 9, 1941) is an American folk singer and songwriter known for her highly individual vocal style. She is a soprano with a three-octave vocal range and a distinctively rapid vibrato. Many of her songs are topical and deal with social issues. She is best known for her 1970s hits "Diamonds & Rust" and "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" -- and to a lesser extent,"We Shall Overcome" "Sweet Sir Galahad" and "Joe Hill" (songs she performed at the 1969 Woodstock festival). She is also well known due to her early and long-lasting relationship with Bob Dylan and her even longer-lasting passion for activism, notably in the areas of nonviolence, civil and human rights and, in more recent years, the environment. She has performed publicly for nearly 50 years, released over 30 albums and recorded songs in over eight languages. She is considered a folksinger although her music has strayed from folk considerably after the 1960s, encompassing everything from rock and pop to country and gospel. Although a songwriter herself, especially in the mid-1970s, Baez is most often regarded as an interpreter of other people's work, covering songs by Bob Dylan, Jackson Browne, Paul Simon, Stevie Wonder and myriad others. She was born on Staten Island to a Mexican father and a mother of English and Scottish descent. The family converted to Quakerism during her early childhood. Her father Albert Baez, a physicist (co-inventor of the x-ray microscope and author of one of the most widely used physics textbooks in the U.S.). Perhaps one of the most picvital moments in her life was in 1956, when she heard a young Martin Luther King, Jr speak about nonviolence, civil rights and social change, and the speech brought tears to her eyes. Several years later, the two became friends, later marching and demonstrating together on numerous occasions. That same year, Baez also bought her first guitar and began entertaining her fellow students at school by singing and playing. It was her only means of making friends, alienated both from the Mexican students because she did not speak Spanish, and from the white students on account of her darker skin and Mexican last name and heritage. The following year, she bought her first Gibson guitar and attended a concert by the "daddy of folk music," Pete Seeger and soon began practicing the songs of his repertoire and performing them publicly. The rest is history. Find out more at: http://www.joanbaez.com/

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