Joan Báez

By Ismael Murillo Torres

Biography

Joan Chandos Baez is an American singer,

songwriter, musician, and activist. Her
contemporary folk music often includes
songs of protest and social justice. She
has performed in public for more than 60
years and has released more than 30
albums. In addition to speaking Spanish
and English, she has recorded songs in at
least six other languages.
1970s
After eleven years with Vanguard, Baez decided in 1971 to cut ties with the
company that had released his records since 1960. His last work for Vanguard
was Blessed Are..., which included a cover of The Band's "The Night They
Drove Old Dixie Down," a top 10 hit in the United States. With Come from
the Shadows (1972), Baez switched to A&M Records, where he released six
albums and stayed for four years.

His next album, Gracias a la vida, with songs sung in Spanish, was a notable
success in both the United States and Latin America. A year later, Baez
achieved his greatest commercial success with Diamonds & Rust, an album
with a sound closer to pop and whose single "Diamonds & Rust", which tells
the story of his relationship with Dylan, gave him his second top 10 hit in his
native country. After Gulf Winds (1976), an album composed of his own
songs, and From Every Stage, a live album, Baez left A&M to sign with CBS
Records, where he released Blowin' Away (1977) and Honest Lullaby (1979).
1980s and 1990s
In 1980, Baez received honorary doctorates of letters from Antioch University
and Rutgers University for his political activism and the "universality of his
music".

In May 1989, Baez played at the Bratislavská lýra festival in Czechoslovakia.

During his stay in the country, he met the future president Václav Havel,
whom he allowed to take his guitar with him to avoid arrest by communist
government agents.

In 1993, at the invitation of Refugees International and sponsored by the

Soros Foundation, she travelled to the devastated region of Bosnia and
Herzegovina in an effort to help attract international attention. She was the
first internationally renowned artist to perform in Sarajevo since the outbreak
of the Yugoslav Wars.
 2000s and 2010s
Since 2000, Baez focused his musical career on live
performances, recording only three studio albums during the
decade. In August 2001, Vanguard reissued all thirteen of Baez's
albums recorded between 1960 and 1971 through the Original
Master Series, with remastered sound, new liner notes and
essays written by Arthur Levy. Two years later, his six A&M
Records albums were also reissued.

In 2008, he released Day After Tomorrow, a new album

produced by Steve Earle with a mix of his own compositions and
covers by other artists.

During the 2010s, Baez cut back on his musical performances

and began to publicly showcase his plastic artist side through
socially conscious drawing and painting. In 2017 he held his first
exhibition "Mischief Makers" where he presented portraits,
including a self-portrait and the figures of Martin Luther King Jr.,
Aung San Suu Kyi, Bob Dylan...
Socio-political
activism

In 1956, Baez first heard Martin Luther King, Jr. speak about non-violence, civil rights
and social change. Several years later, Baez and King became friends, and the singer
participated in several civil rights marches organised by King.

In 1958, at the age of seventeen, Baez committed her first act of civil disobedience as
a conscientious objector by refusing to leave a Palo Alto (California) school class where
an air raid drill was to be staged.

In addition to participating in civil rights marches, Baez was also publicly opposed to
the Vietnam War. In 1964, he publicly supported the tax resistance by withholding
60% of his income taxes in 1963. A year later, he founded the Institute for the Study of
Nonviolence, together with his mentor Sandperl, and encouraged insubordination
during his concerts. The Institute later branched out into the Nonviolence Resource
Centre.
Socio-political
activism
Baez was arrested twice in 1967, blocking the
entrance to the US Armed Forces recruiting centre
in Oakland, California, for which she spent a month
in prison. She also participated in anti-war protests
and marches such as the one organised by the Fifth
Avenue Peace Parade Committee, which began with
a peace parade in March 1966.

Baez was instrumental in founding the US section of

Amnesty International in the 1970s, an organisation
with which she has continued to be active. His
experience with human rights violations in Vietnam
led him to found Humanitas International, his own
human rights group, whose focus was on oppression
of all kinds, criticising democratic and totalitarian
regimes of fascist and communist persuasion alike.
THE END