Joan Chandos Baez
10 min read
Reading time
1,803
Words
Published
86
Film credits
5
Books
12
Awards
Bob Gibson invited Baez to perform at the 1960 Newport Folk Festival, launching her career. Her debut album, Joan Baez 1960, became a commercial success. She performed at the 1963 March on Washington and actively protested the Vietnam War. In 2017, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducted Baez.
Names, aliases, and relatives of Joan Baez — birth name, kin, and personal ties.
Joan Baez by the numbers — life, work, and family.
Joan Baez — early life, career, personal life, and legacy.
Joan Baez was born on January 9, 1941, in Staten Island, New York City. Her father, Albert Baez, a physicist, moved the family to Baghdad when she was 10, then to Palo Alto, California. In 1956, she bought her first guitar and heard Martin Luther King Jr. speak on nonviolence. She graduated from Palo Alto High School in 1958 and briefly attended Boston University.
In 1960, Bob Gibson invited Baez to perform at the Newport Folk Festival. That performance led to a recording contract with Vanguard. Her debut album, Joan Baez 1960, became a commercial success. In 1961, she met Bob Dylan and released a second successful album. She performed at the 1963 March on Washington and joined anti-war protests, spending time in jail in 1967. Two 1971 films — Sacco & Vanzetti and Celebration at Big Sur — featured her music.
Baez married anti-war activist David Harris in 1968; their son Gabriel Harris was born in 1969 while Harris served a prison sentence for draft resistance. The couple divorced in 1974. She had a brief romantic relationship with Bob Dylan in the 1960s; they reportedly have not spoken since 1984. She lived with her mother in Woodside, California.
Baez has influenced both music and activism. She inspired singer-songwriters such as Judy Collins and Joni Mitchell. In 2017, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducted her. She received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2016. Baez is remembered for her clear soprano voice and her commitment to civil rights and peace.
Browse the complete filmography of Joan Baez — every film, TV show, and documentary credit, ranked by popularity.
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Every award, honor, and recognition received by Joan Baez — Grammys, hall-of-fame inductions, civic honors, lifetime achievements.
Joan Baez's bibliography — every authored, edited, and co-written book, ranked by edition count.
A wall of memorable lines from Joan Baez — lyrics, interviews, and off-the-cuff remarks captured over a lifetime.
You Don’t Get to Choose How You’re Going to Die, or When. You Can Only Decide How You’re Going to Live. Now.
It Seems to Me That Those Songs That Have Been Any Good, I Have Nothing Much to Do with the Writing of Them. the Words Have Just Crawled Down My Sleeve and Come Out on the Page.
On Truth: Hypothetical Questions Get Hypothetical Answers.
The Fact Is I Can’t Sing Most of These Early Folk Ballads Any More, Because I’ve Lost That High Register. When I Do Sing Them I Have to Take Them Down a Few Semitones. I’m Much More Comfortable Singing Songs by Steve Earle or Natalie Merchant or Ryan Adams, Where I’m in a Different Zone. My Voice Is Much Lower These Days, and I Prefer It. There’s Also a Lot Less Vibrato, Because the Ends of the Vocal Cords Start to Calcify. You Do Hear Some People My Age Who Shouldn’t Still Be Singing, Where the Vibrato Is Very Wide and Out of Control and Not Very Attractive. I Try to Avoid That!
The Era in Which I Came on the Scene Was a Ten Year Period of Exceptional Talent. I Mean, Nobody Could Top Dylan; They’ve Been Trying for Years. Nobody Can Really Top John Lennon. so What What We’re Looking for What People in General Are Looking for and Longing for Are the Universal Songs That Bring Us Together, and That Are of Really High Quality. but Those Are Hard to Find. I Know That the Occupy Movement Was Looking for the Right Songs and They Ended up Singing ‘We Shall Overcome’ and ‘Blowin’ in the Wind’ Because the Songs That the Group Was Looking for Didn’t Exist.
Little-known facts about Joan Baez — origins, oddities, and behind-the-scenes details from a public life.
Baez opened the US segment of Live Aid in Philadelphia on July 13, 1985.
She once lived next door to Hunter S. Thompson.
Her son Gabriel Harris makes musical instruments.
She lived with her ninety-year-old mother in a home in Woodside, California.
Baez has recorded songs in eight languages.
She unsuccessfully sued cartoonist Al Capp for libel after he parodied her as Joanie Phoanie in his comic strip Li’l Abner in 1966.
She was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2017.
Hunter S. Thompson corresponded with her and nicknamed her Joanie.
She was six months pregnant with her son Gabriel Harris when she performed at Woodstock.
Baez frequently collaborated with Bob Dylan in the 1960s and was briefly his romantic partner; they reportedly haven’t spoken in person since 1984 after a disastrous reunion tour attempt.
She was a close friend of Kris Kristofferson.
She ranked #27 on VH1’s 100 Greatest Women of Rock N Roll.
She strongly supported the Civil Rights and anti-war movement in the 1960s and 1970s, joining a peace delegation to North Vietnam during Christmas 1972.
Her sister is Mimi Fariña.
She built a treehouse in a tall oak tree behind her home.
From age eighteen into her forties, she sought therapy to handle intense stage fright.
She travels by bus on musical tours of the United States.
Her father was a physicist and inventor of the X-ray reflection microscope.
Her father, Albert Vinicio Baez, was from Puebla, Mexico.
Her mother, Joan Bridge, was born in Edinburgh, UK and was of English-Scottish descent.
Her father, Albert V. Baez, died on March 20, 2007 at a nursing home in San Mateo County, California.
She met her husband David Harris in Santa Rita jail after being arrested in a large action to shut down the Oakland Armed Forces Induction Center.
She attended Boston University.
She resides in Woodside, California.
Her sister-in-law was Richard Farina.
Her ex-sister-in-law was Milan Melvin.
Her paternal grandfather was a Methodist minister in Mexico and founded the First Spanish Methodist Church in New York City.
Quick answers to the questions readers ask most about Joan Baez.
Celebrities similar to Joan Baez — same craft, ranked by reach.
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