Joan Baez

Such a lovely little book. I've been reading from my own shelves lately, books that I picked up here and there planning to read one day and now the day has come. This one is a yellowed paperback with a 1969 publishing date, a book I never knew existed (until I saw it) although I've liked Miss Joanie most of my life, first for her music, later for her spirit.
There is nothing anywhere in the little volume about about performing or about her career, although she was really on top in those show more years. Instead it's a collection of personal stories, all sweetly and simply written, about her mother, her father, Mimi, her childhood terrors, group therapy, Ira Sandperl, her belief in the power of non-violent resistance to evil, and these stories are interspersed with dreams and poem. Unexpected and a real treat for me. show less

7 stars: GOod

A star knocked down because this was written in the late 80s and sorely needs an update. Of some interest was how much she spoke of deep anxiety, and come to find out that much later both she and her sister related to abuse at the hands of her father that had been deeply suppressed. Read this after seeing A Complete Unknown and revisiting so much of the music I grew up on that my parents loved.

I found between this and the subsequent biography I read to have deep respect for show more Baez who is truly a humanitarian in every way. I am glad I got to hear her at the Amnesty concert in 1986 and wish I had seen her more recently as I revisited my love of live music.

From the back cover:

• The perfect time for a reissue: In October 2009, PBS will air a ninety-minute primetime special on Joan Baez as part of the Emmy Award-winning American Masters series. Told often from Baez’s perspective, but supported by a rich performance and historical archive, the documentary centers on her career as a musician, power as an artist, those who influenced her, and those she championed. She will also be on a 27-city U.S. tour starting July 2009..

• A musical force and a catalyst for social change: At the age of eighteen Baez was an international star with a Time magazine cover story; fifty years later she has thirty-three albums to her credit. She also marched alongside Martin Luther King, Jr., was jailed for supporting the draft resistance, and sang in the first Amnesty International tour. An extraordinary woman who has led an eventful life, Baez’s memoir is as honest, unpretentious, and courageous as she is. . show less

Read when I was in high school and was very meaningful to me at the time. It has a lot of nice things about her family, and a great chapter about arguing about non-violence and how pointless that is.

Originally released in 1969, much of Baez's career still lay ahead when this came out. Still, this is a great read; part prose poetry, part dream journal, part hallucinatory childhood recollections. Even then she had a full life to look back on; a peripatetic one with her Quaker-physicist father, being a house parent at Perkins School for the Blind, and more. Her music career underway by the time of the book, she gets to name drop. She paints an obscure of Bob Dylan as "The Dada King" and show more recalls poignantly her departed brother-in-law Richard Fariña. Baez also recounts her close friendship and collaboration with Antiwar activist Ira Sandperl, mentions Badger King in an aside and also recalls Florence Beaumont's self-immolationas a Vietnam War protest. show less