She was the Queen of Folk Music, Bob Dylan’s lover and is still a vision of loveliness
By Stephen Pate – Joan Baez is still proudly and beautifully singing out her songs of freedom after 57 years.
Joan Baez was captured in this photograph performing at the Palacio Euskaduna Jauregia, in Bilbao, Spain on March 17th, 2015 by photographer Dena Flows. Doesn’t she look radiant and engaged?
“If you have to put labels on me then first I am a human being, second a pacifist and then third a folk singer,” said Joan Baez in a 1960’s press conference. Unlike many artists, this generous and gracious singer has existed for her music, to serve others and to satisfy herself.
When Bob Dylan met Joan Baez in the early 1960’s, she was already the Queen of Folk Music. Her strong clear soprano voice introduced many people to the joy of folk music. Her presence was so important that we argued if Judy Collins or Carolyn Hester might be better than Joan Baez.
Bob Dylan was an aspiring and struggling new artist when he met Joan Baez. He admits being impressed by her knowledge of folk music, guitar playing and singing. “I couldn’t play like that,” he said on the PBS special How Sweet The Sound
They became lovers, a love that over-lapped with the end of Dylan’s relationship with Suze Rotolo. Joan Baez took Dylan on her concert stages and introduced him to her huge audiences. She introduced Bob Dylan at Newport and every important place a folk artist could appear. Joan Baez was the inspiration for several Bob Dylan songs and with him when he wrote many others.
By 1964, folk music had peaked, killed by The Beatles and the essential monotony of everyone signing old songs and playing acoustic guitars. Protest songs had also peaked as the market turned to hedonism with fun and drugs, or drugs and fun depending on your mood.
In 1964 Bob Dylan was recording songs about personal relationships in Another Side of Bob Dylan
Their relationship was fated to fail. A Queen can’t stay with a man who wants to be King and Bob Dylan wanted success. By late 1964 Dylan was already dating Sarah Lownds and would marry her in the fall of 1965, while winding down his relationship with Joan Baez.
Dylan invited Joan Baez on his electric acoustic tour of England from April to May 1965 but did not reciprocate by inviting Baez on stage with him. Now Dylan was the bigger star and he was less than magnanimous with his lover.
Baez might have seen the writing on the wall but she was still deeply smitten with Dylan as you can see in the scenes from D.A. Pennebaker’s documentary movie about the tour Bob Dylan: Don’t Look Back 
She is obviously hurt by the “treatment”. In one scene Dylan allows his nasty sidekick Bob Neuwirth to horribly insult Joan Baez. She left the hotel room and caught a plane back to the United States.
It took Bob Dylan 44 years to apologize – I mean that’s no way to treat your lover, benefactor and a woman – on camera for How Sweet The Sound
“I feel very bad about it,” Dylan said. “I was sorry to see our relationship end.”
Dylan makes several appearances in the PBS documentary with more revealing comments about his feelings towards Joan Baez.
Joan Baez got over her writer’s block and started writing her own songs in the late 60’s. By 1974 she had penned Diamonds & Rust
“Now I see you standing
With brown leaves falling around
And snow in your hair
Now you’re smiling out the window
Of that crummy hotel
Over Washington Square
Our breath comes out white clouds
Mingles and hangs in the air
Speaking strictly for me
We both could have died then and there.” (words and music copyright Joan Baez)
Joan Baez may have been hurt but she took up with Dylan once again during the Rolling Thunder Review of 1975/76. More about that later.
Joan Baez stayed true to her beliefs in political and social activism throughout her long career. She has been a tireless advocate for many causes and a tremendous performing artist.
Joan Baez still sings strong and true today and is a lifetime gift to her art and our lives.
Get the music and video
Diamonds & Rust
DVD How Sweet The Sound
Follow Stephen Pate
- Twitter – @sdpate
- Facebook at NJN Network
- OyeTimes and IMA News Buzz
- Add the NJN icon to your desktop
- Subscribe and get new stories by email
timetogohome
Nice to see that you’re a JB fan, but I don’t see what the point of this article is. People interested in Baez or Dylan already know all this stuff. Would rather learn what her current repertoire is, how often she’s playing, how she’s being received, if she’s recording, what her political views are these days etc.
Alex from Longboat
Just to get the facts straight, the 1965 tour was acoustic.
Stephen Pate
Arf and arf.
The electric part was what got the Brits slow clapping, cat calling and the ultimate “Judas” cat call.Check out “Don’t Look Back”Stephen Pate
Nothing more current than the picture. Stay tuned.
Alex from Longboat
That was 1966. Baez was nowhere to be seen. You must have a very odd copy of Dont Look Back
Stephen Pate
Sorry. I have 3 copies and Joan Baez is in all 3 – laserdisc and DVD/ deluxe. From wikipedia “Dont Look Back [sic] is a 1967 American documentary film by D. A. Pennebaker that covers Bob Dylan’s 1965 concert tour in the United Kingdom. The film features Joan Baez, Donovan and Alan Price (who had just left the Animals), Dylan’s manager Albert Grossman and his road manager Bob Neuwirth. Marianne Faithfull, John Mayall, Ginger Baker, and Allen Ginsberg may also be glimpsed in the background. The film shows a young Dylan: confident if not arrogant, confrontational and contrary, but also charismatic and charming. ” Along with video of Joan Baez in the London hotel with Donovan and Alan Price the back cover of the Deluxe Edition says “The digitally remastered version of the cinema verite classic follows Dylan on his extraordinary 1965 concert tour of England, the last as an acoustic performer.”
Alex from Longboat
That part is accurate. But there was no electric, no booing, etc. This tour was Joan’s swan song vis-a-vis Dylan until 1975 and Rolling Thunder
Stephen Pate
Sorry I misunderstood your first comment which was that the 1965 tour was acoustic not electric. Corrected in the story and first reply.
timetogohome
Alex is correct. This is basic stuff. Don’t Look Back documents the British tour that was absolutely all-acoustic. Dylan didn’t play anything electric in Britain before 1966, and that was when the “Judas” call, etc, was made. Baez exited the scene in 1965 and did not hang around Dylan in 1966. Basic facts, in all the biographies, Wikipedia etc. C’mon now.
timetogohome
Sorry guys, I’m not writing well today. There were two tours. The first, 1965, is what’s documented in DLB, Joan Baez was there, and the tour was all acoustic. BD & JB then went their separate ways. Dylan returned to the US and played electric for the first time at Newport in the summer of 1965. The next year, 1966, he toured England with a band, and Joan Baez was elsewhere. The 1966 footage is in the Scorcese film, No Direction Home. And that’s the tour with the slow-clapping and the Judas call. Anyway, we all enjoy all of it, right? Great stuff.
Stephen Pate
Thanks for the correction. I made edit in the story and my comments. JB no electric guitars. Electric guitars – no Joan Baez. A one word error in the story that has nothing to do with the thread.
timetogohome
Right…. Well, sorry to be so snarky earlier. Hey, here’s one of my favorites, well worth a listen: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_Them_Bells