Joan Baez ( b29 )

 

• The Power of Their Song: The Untold Story of Latin America's New Song Movement (2008)
• Joan Baez: How Sweet the Sound (2009)
• Hugh Hefner: Playboy, Activist and Rebel (2009)
• Leonard Cohen: Live at the Isle of Wight 1970 (2009)
• Welcome to Eden (2009)
• In Performance at the White House: A Celebration of Music from the Civil Rights Movement (2010)
• Phil Ochs: There but for Fortune (2010)
• Save the Farm (2011)
• For the Love of the Music: The Club 47 Folk Revival (2012)
• The March (2013)
• Another Day, Another Time: Celebrating the Music of 'Inside Llewyn Davis' (2014)
• The Stars Behind the Iron Curtain (2014)
• Sharon Isbin: Troubadour (2014)
• Snapshots from the Tour (2015)
• Taylor Swift: The 1989 World Tour Live (2015)
• Joan Baez: Rebel Icon (2015)
• King in the Wilderness (2018)
• Hugh Hefner's After Dark: Speaking Out in America (2018)
• Don't Get Trouble In Your Mind: The Carolina Chocolate Drops' Story (2019)
• Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese (2019)
• Woodstock (2019)

Joan Baez ( b28 )

 

• Woody Guthrie: Hard Travelin' (1984)
• Live Aid (1985)
• In Remembrance of Martin (1986)
• We Shall Overcome (1989)
• Woodstock: The Lost Performances (1990)
• Kris Kristofferson: His Life and Work (1993)
• Life and Times of Allen Ginsberg (1993)
• Woodstock Diary (1994)
• A Century of Women (1994)
• The History of Rock 'n' Roll (1995)
• Rock & Roll (1995)
• Message to Love: Isle of Wight Festival 1970 (1996)
• Tree Sit: The Art of Resistance (2001)
• Smothered: The Censorship Struggles of The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour (2002)
• Soundstage: Joan Baez, Gillian Welch and Nickel Creek (2004)
• Fahrenheit 9/11: A Movement in Time (2004)
• Words and Music in Honor of Fahrenheit 9/11 (2005)
• The Carter Family: Will the Circle Be Unbroken (2005)
• No Direction Home (2005)
• Captain Mike Across America (2007)
• Pete Seeger: The Power of Song (2007)
• 65 Revisited (2007)
• The Other Side of the Mirror (2007)
• South Central Farm: Oasis in a Concrete Desert. (2008)
• Fierce Light: When Spirit Meets Action (2008)

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Joan Baez ( b27 )

 

• Come from the Shadows (1972)
• Where Are You Now, My Son? (1973)
• Gracias a la Vida (1974)
• Diamonds & Rust (1975)
• Gulf Winds (1976)
• Blowin' Away (1977)
• Honest Lullaby (1979)
• Recently (1987)
• Speaking of Dreams (1989)
• Diamonds & Rust in the Bullring (1989)
• Play Me Backwards (1992)
• Gone from Danger (1997)
• Dark Chords on a Big Guitar (2003)
• Day After Tomorrow (2008)
• Whistle Down the Wind (2018)

Filmography

• The March on Washington (1963)
• The March (1964)
• The Big T.N.T. Show (1966)
• Dont Look Back (1967)
• Festival (1967)
• Woodstock (1970)
• Carry It On (1970)
• Woody Guthrie All-Star Tribute Concert (1970)
• Celebration at Big Sur (1971)
• Dynamite Chicken (1971)
• Earl Scruggs: The Bluegrass Legend - Family & Friends (1972)
• Sing Sing Thanksgiving (1974)
• The Making of 'Silent Running' (1974)
• A War is Over (1975)
• Banjoman (1975)
• Bob Dylan: Hard Rain TV Special (1976)
• The Memory of Justice (1976)
• Renaldo and Clara (1978)
• Sag nein (1983)
• In Our Hands (1984)

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Joan Baez ( b26 )

 

•  Capp's satirized Joanie was an unabashed communist radical who sang songs of class warfare while hypocritically traveling in a limousine and charging outrageous performance fees to impoverished orphans. Capp had this character singing bizarre songs such as "A Tale of Bagels and Bacon" and "Molotov Cocktails for Two". Although Baez was upset by the parody in 1966, she admits to being more amused in recent years. "I wish I could have laughed at this at the time", she wrote in a caption under one of the strips, reprinted in her autobiography. "Mr. Capp confused me considerably. I'm sorry he's not alive to read this, it would make him chuckle." Capp stated at the time: "Joanie Phoanie is a repulsive, egomaniacal, un-American, non-taxpaying horror, I see no resemblance to Joan Baez whatsoever, but if Miss Baez wants to prove it, let her."
• Baez's serious persona was parodied several times on the American variety show Saturday Night Live in impersonations by Nora Dunn, notably in the 1986 mock game show Make Joan Baez Laugh.

Discography

• Folksingers 'Round Harvard Square (1959)
• Joan Baez (1960)
• Joan Baez, Vol. 2 (1961)
• Joan Baez in Concert (1962)
• Joan Baez in Concert, Part 2 (1963)
• Joan Baez/5 (1964)
• Farewell, Angelina (1965)
• Noël (1966)
• Joan (1967)
• Baptism: A Journey Through Our Time (1968)
• Any Day Now (1968)
• David's Album (1969)
• One Day at a Time (1970)
• Sacco & Vanzetti (1971)
• Carry It On (1971)
• Blessed Are... (1971)

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Joan Baez ( b25 )

 

Steve Jobs

Joan Baez at The Egg (Albany, NY), March 2016

Baez dated Apple Computer cofounder Steve Jobs during the early 1980s. A number of sources have stated that Jobs—then in his mid-20s—had considered asking Baez to marry him, except that her age at the time (early 40s) made the possibility of their having children unlikely. Baez mentioned Jobs in the acknowledgments in her 1987 memoir And a Voice to Sing With and performed at the memorial for him in 2011. After Jobs' death, Baez spoke fondly about him, stating that even after the relationship had ended, the two remained friends, with Jobs having visited Baez shortly before his death, and stating that "Steve had a very sweet side, even if he was as ... erratic as he was famous for being. But he gets genius licence for that, because he was somebody who changed the world."

2000s–2010s

Baez is a resident of Woodside, California, where she lived with her mother until the latter's death in 2013. She has said that her house has a backyard tree house in which she spends time meditating, writing, and "being close to nature". She remained close to her younger sister Mimi up until Mimi's death in 2001, and mentioned in the 2009 American Masters documentary about her life that she had grown closer to her older sister Pauline in later years.

In popular culture

• Cartoonist Al Capp, creator of the comic strip Li'l Abner, satirized Baez as "Joanie Phoanie" during the 1960s.

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Joan Baez ( b24 )

 They were incarcerated in the Santa Rita Jail, and it was here that Baez met David Harris, who was kept on the men's side but who still managed to visit with Baez regularly.

The two formed a close bond upon their release and Baez moved into his draft-resistance commune in the hills above Stanford, California. The pair had known each other for three months when they decided to wed. After confirming the news to Associated Press, media outlets began dedicating ample press to the impending nuptials (at one point, Time magazine referred to the event as the "Wedding of the Century").

After finding a pacifist preacher and a church outfitted with peace signs and writing a blend of Episcopalian and Quaker wedding vows, Baez and Harris married in New York City on March 26, 1968. Her friend Judy Collins sang at the ceremony. After the wedding, Baez and Harris moved into a home in the Los Altos Hills on 10 acres (4.0 hectares) of land called Struggle Mountain, part of a commune, where they tended gardens and were strict vegetarians.

A short time later, Harris refused induction into the armed forces and was indicted. On July 16, 1969, Harris was taken by federal marshals to prison. Baez was visibly pregnant in public in the months that followed, most notably at the Woodstock Festival, where she performed a handful of songs in the early morning. The documentary film Carry It On was produced during this period, and was released in 1970. The film's behind-the-scenes looks at Harris's views and arrest and Baez on her subsequent performance tour was positively reviewed in Time magazine and The New York Times.

Among the songs Baez wrote about this period of her life are "A Song for David", "Myths", "Prison Trilogy (Billy Rose)" and "Fifteen Months" (the amount of time Harris was imprisoned).

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Joan Baez ( b23 )

 Baez also starred as 'The Woman in White' in the film Renaldo and Clara (1978), directed by Bob Dylan and filmed during the Rolling Thunder Revue. They performed together at the Peace Sunday anti-nuke concert in 1982. Dylan and Baez toured together again in 1984 along with Carlos Santana.

Baez discussed her relationship with Dylan in Martin Scorsese's documentary film No Direction Home (2005), and in the PBS American Masters biography of Baez, How Sweet the Sound (2009).

Baez wrote and composed at least three songs that were specifically about Dylan. In "To Bobby", written in 1972, she urged Dylan to return to political activism, while in "Diamonds & Rust", the title track from her 1975 album, she revisited her feelings for him in warm, yet direct terms. "Winds of the Old Days", also on the Diamonds & Rust album, is a bittersweet reminiscence about her time with "Bobby".

The references to Baez in Dylan's songs are far less clear. Baez herself has suggested that she was the subject of both "Visions of Johanna" and "Mama, You Been on My Mind", although the latter was more likely about his relationship with Suze Rotolo. Baez implied when speaking about the connection to "Diamonds and Rust" that "Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts" is, at least in part, a metaphor for Dylan's view of his relationship with her. As for "Like A Rolling Stone", "Visions of Johanna", "She Belongs to Me", and other songs alleged to have been written about Baez, neither Dylan nor biographers such as Clinton Heylin and Michael Gray have had anything definitive to say, either way, regarding the subject of these songs.

David Harris

In October 1967, Baez, her mother and nearly 70 other women were arrested at the Oakland, California, Armed Forces Induction Center for blocking its doorways to prevent entrance by young inductees, and in support of young men who refused military induction.

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Joan Baez ( i1 )

 

Joan Baez ( b21 )

 

Catalan independence movement

Baez has been a strong defender of the Catalan independence movement due to its non-violent nature. On July 21, 2019, she described jailed Catalan independence leaders as political prisoners. A few days later, on July 26, 2019, she visited former President of the Parliament of Catalonia Carme Forcadell in prison; she has been accused of rebellion during the 2017–18 Spanish constitutional crisis.

Personal life

Early relationships

Baez's first real boyfriend was Michael New, a fellow student from Trinidad whom she met at her college in the late 1950s. Years later in 1979, he inspired her song "Michael". Like Baez, he attended classes only occasionally. The two spent a considerable amount of time together, but Baez was unable to balance her blossoming career and her relationship. The two bickered and made up repeatedly, but it was apparent to Baez that New was beginning to resent her success and new-found local celebrity. One night she saw him kissing another woman on a street corner. Despite this, the relationship remained intact for several years after the two moved to California together in 1960.

Bob Dylan

Baez with Bob Dylan at the civil rights March on Washington, August 28, 1963

Baez first met Dylan in April 1961 at Gerde's Folk City in New York City's Greenwich Village. At the time, Baez had already released her debut album and her popularity as the emerging "Queen of Folk" was on the rise. 

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Joan Baez ( b20 )

 Although a highly political figure throughout most of her career, Baez had never publicly endorsed a major political party candidate prior to Obama. However, after Obama was elected, she expressed that she would likely never do so again, saying in a 2013 interview in The Huffington Post that "In some ways I'm disappointed, but in some ways it was silly to expect more. If he had taken his brilliance, his eloquence, his toughness and not run for office he could have led a movement. Once he got in the Oval Office he couldn't do anything.".

She performed at the White House on February 10, 2010, as part of an evening celebrating the music associated with the civil rights movement, performing "We Shall Overcome".

Joan Baez Award

On March 18, 2011, Baez was honored by Amnesty International at its 50th Anniversary Annual General Meeting in San Francisco. The tribute to Baez was the inaugural event for the Amnesty International Joan Baez Award for Outstanding Inspirational Service in the Global Fight for Human Rights. Baez was presented with the first award in recognition of her human rights work with Amnesty International and beyond, and the inspiration she has given activists around the world. In future years, the award is to be presented to an artist – music, film, sculpture, paint or other medium – who has similarly helped advance human rights.

Occupy Wall Street

On November 11, 2011, Baez played as part of a musical concert for the protestors at Occupy Wall Street. Her three-song set included "Joe Hill", a cover of the Rolling Stones' "Salt of the Earth" and her own composition "Where's My Apple Pie?"

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Joan Baez ( b19 )

 In August 2003, she was invited by Emmylou Harris and Steve Earle to join them in London, UK, at the Concert For a Landmine-Free World.

In the summer of 2004, Baez joined Michael Moore's "Slacker uprising Tour" on American college campuses, encouraging young people to get out and vote for peace candidates in the upcoming national election.

In August 2005, Baez appeared at the Texas anti-war protest that had been started by Cindy Sheehan.

Tree sit-in

On May 23, 2006, Baez once again joined Julia "Butterfly" Hill, this time in a "tree sit" in a giant tree on the site of the South Central Farm in a poor neighborhood of downtown Los Angeles, California. Baez and Hill were hoisted into the tree, where they remained overnight. The women, in addition to many other activists and celebrities, were protesting the imminent eviction of the community farmers and demolition of the site, which is the largest urban farm in the state. Because many of the South Central Farmers are immigrants from Central America, Baez sang several songs from her 1974 Spanish-language album, Gracias a la Vida, including the title track and "No Nos Moverán" ("We Shall Not Be Moved").

2008 presidential election

Throughout most of her career, Baez remained apprehensive about involving herself in party politics. However, on February 3, 2008, Baez wrote a letter to the editor at the San Francisco Chronicle endorsing Barack Obama in the 2008 U.S. presidential election. She noted: "Through all those years, I chose not to engage in party politics. ... At this time, however, changing that posture feels like the responsible thing to do. If anyone can navigate the contaminated waters of Washington, lift up the poor, and appeal to the rich to share their wealth, it is Sen. Barack Obama." Playing at the Glastonbury Festival in June, Baez said during the introduction of a song that one reason she likes Obama is because he reminds her of another old friend of hers: Martin Luther King, Jr.

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Joan Baez ( b18 )

  In 1978, she performed at several benefit concerts to defeat the Briggs Initiative, which proposed banning all gay people from teaching in the public schools of California. Later that same year, she participated in memorial marches for the assassinated San Francisco city supervisor, Harvey Milk, who was openly gay.

In the 1990s, she appeared with her friend Janis Ian at a benefit for the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, a gay lobbying organization, and performed at the San Francisco Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Pride March.

Her song "Altar Boy and the Thief" from Blowin' Away (1977) was written as a dedication to her gay fanbase.

Iran

On June 25, 2009, Baez created a special version of "We Shall Overcome" with a few lines of Persian lyrics in support of peaceful protests by Iranian people. She recorded it in her home and posted the video on YouTube and on her personal website. She dedicated the song "Joe Hill" to the people of Iran during her concert at Merrill Auditorium, Portland, Maine on July 31, 2009.

Environmental causes

On Earth Day 1999, Baez and Bonnie Raitt honored environmental activist Julia "Butterfly" Hill with Raitt's Arthur M. Sohcot Award in person on her 180-foot (55 m)-high redwood treetop platform, where Hill had camped to protect ancient redwoods in the Headwaters Forest from logging.

War in Iraq

In early 2003, Baez performed at two rallies of hundreds of thousands of people in San Francisco protesting the U.S. invasion of Iraq (as she had earlier done before smaller crowds in 1991 to protest the Gulf War).

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Joan Baez ( b17 )

 In 1989, after the Tiananmen Massacre in Beijing, Baez wrote and released the song "China" to condemn the Chinese government for its violent and bloody crackdown on thousands of student protesters who called for establishment of democratic republicanism.

In a second trip to Southeast Asia, Baez assisted in an effort to take food and medicine into the western regions of Cambodia, and participated in a United Nations Humanitarian Conference on Kampuchea.

On July 17, 2006, Baez received the Distinguished Leadership Award from the Legal Community Against Violence. At the annual dinner event, they honored her for her lifetime of work against violence of all kinds.

In 2015, Baez received the Ambassador of Conscience Award.

In 2016, Baez advocated for the Innocence Project and Innocence Network. At each concert, Baez informs the audience about the organizations' efforts to exhonerate the wrongfully convicted and reform the system to prevent such incidents.

Opposing the death penalty

In December 2005, Baez appeared and sang "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" at the California protest at the San Quentin State Prison against the execution of Tookie Williams. She had previously performed the same song at San Quentin at the 1992 vigil protesting the execution of Robert Alton Harris, the first man to be executed in California after the death penalty was reinstated. She subsequently lent her prestige to the campaign opposing the execution of Troy Davis by the State of Georgia.

LGBT rights

Baez has also been prominent in the struggle for gay and lesbian rights.

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Joan Baez ( b16 )

 During the Christmas season 1972, Baez joined a peace delegation traveling to North Vietnam, both to address human rights in the region, and to deliver Christmas mail to American prisoners of war. During her time there, she was caught in the U.S. military's "Christmas bombing" of Hanoi, North Vietnam, during which the city was bombed for eleven straight days.

Her disquiet at the human-rights violations of communist Vietnam made her increasingly critical of its government and she organized the May 30, 1979, publication of a full-page advertisement (published in four major U.S. newspapers) in which the communists were described as having created a nightmare. Her one-time anti-war ally, Jane Fonda, refused to join in Baez's criticism of Hanoi, leading to what was publicly described as a feud between the two.

Human rights

Baez was instrumental in founding the USA section of Amnesty International in the 1970s, and has remained an active supporter of the organization.

Baez's experiences regarding Vietnam's human-rights violations ultimately led her to found her own human-rights group in the late 1970s, Humanitas International, whose focus was to target oppression wherever it occurred, criticizing right and left-wing régimes equally.

In 1976, she was awarded the Thomas Merton Award for her ongoing activism.

She toured Chile, Brazil and Argentina in 1981, but was prevented from performing in any of the three countries, for fear her criticism of their human-rights practices would reach mass audiences if she were given a podium. While there, she was kept under surveillance and subjected to death threats. A film of the ill-fated tour, There but for Fortune: Joan Baez in Latin America, was shown on PBS in 1982.

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Joan Baez ( b15 )

 

Vietnam War

Highly visible in civil-rights marches, Baez became more vocal about her disagreement with the Vietnam War. In 1964, she publicly endorsed resisting taxes by withholding sixty percent of her 1963 income taxes. In 1964, she founded the Institute for the Study of Nonviolence (along with her mentor Sandperl) and encouraged draft resistance at her concerts. The Institute for the Study of Nonviolence would later branch into the Resource Center for Nonviolence.

In 1966, Baez's autobiography, Daybreak, was released. It is the most detailed report of her life through 1966 and outlined her anti-war position, dedicating the book to men facing imprisonment for resisting the draft.

Baez was arrested twice in 1967 for blocking the entrance of the Armed Forces Induction Center in Oakland, California, and spent over a month in jail. (See also David Harris section below.)

She was a frequent participant in anti-war marches and rallies, including:

• numerous protests in New York City organized by the Fifth Avenue Vietnam Peace Parade Committee, starting with the March 1966 Fifth Avenue Peace Parade;
• a conversation with then husband David Harris at UCLA in 1968 discussing the resistance to the draft during the Vietnam war.
• a free 1967 concert at the Washington Monument in Washington, D.C., that had been opposed by the Daughters of the American Revolution which attracted a crowd of 30,000 to hear her anti-war message;
• the 1969 Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam protests.

There were many others, culminating in Phil Ochs's The War Is Over celebration in New York City in May 1975.

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Joan Baez ( b14 )

 In 1958, at age 17, Baez committed her first act of civil disobedience by refusing to leave her Palo Alto High School classroom in Palo Alto, California, for an air raid drill.

Civil rights

The early years of Baez's career saw the Civil Rights Movement in the U.S. become a prominent issue. Her performance of "We Shall Overcome", the civil rights anthem written by Pete Seeger and Guy Carawan, at the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom permanently linked her to the song. Baez again sang "We Shall Overcome" in Sproul Plaza during the mid-1960s Free Speech Movement demonstrations at the University of California, Berkeley in Berkeley, California, and at many other rallies and protests.

Her recording of the song "Birmingham Sunday" (1964), written by her brother-in-law, Richard Fariña, was used in the opening of 4 Little Girls (1997), Spike Lee's documentary film about the four young victims killed in the 1963 16th Street Baptist Church bombing.

In 1965, Baez announced that she would be opening a school to teach nonviolent protest. She also participated in the 1965 Selma to Montgomery marches for voting rights.

In November 2017 as part of a release of documents from the National Archives that were supposed to relate to the assassination of John F. Kennedy, a 1968 FBI report alleged that Baez was involved in the 1960s in an intimate affair with Dr. Martin Luther King, an accusation described by history professor Clayborne Carson, the director of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute and a Stanford University, as "part of a smear campaign" against King.

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Joan Baez ( b13 )

 On August 2, 2009, Baez played at the 50th Newport Folk Festival, which also marked the 50th anniversary of her breakthrough performance at the first festival. On October 14, 2009, PBS aired an episode of its documentary series American Masters, entitled Joan Baez: How Sweet the Sound. It was produced and directed by Mary Wharton. A DVD and CD of the soundtrack were released at the same time.

2010s

On April 4, 2017, Baez released on her Facebook page her first song in twenty-seven years, "Nasty Man", a protest song against US President Donald Trump which became a viral hit. On April 7, 2017, she was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. On March 2, 2018, she released a new studio album entitled Whistle Down the Wind, and has been undertaking her "Fare Thee Well Tour" to support the album. On April 30, 2019, Baez told Rolling Stone that she had been approached to perform at the Woodstock 50 festival, but had turned the offer down for "it was too complicated to even get involved in" and her "instincts" were telling her "no".

On June 25, 2019, The New York Times Magazine listed Joan Baez among hundreds of artists whose material was reportedly destroyed in the 2008 Universal fire.

Social and political involvement

To reward her decades of dedicated activism, Baez was honoured with the Spirit of Americana/Free Speech award at the 2008 Americana Music Honors & Awards.

1950s

In 1956, Baez first heard Martin Luther King, Jr., speak about nonviolence, civil rights and social change which brought tears to her eyes. Several years later, the two became friends, with Baez participating in many of the Civil Rights Movement demonstrations that Dr. King helped organize.

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Joan Baez ( b12 )

 In February 2007, Proper Records reissued her live album Ring Them Bells (1995), which featured duets with artists ranging from Dar Williams and Mimi Fariña to the Indigo Girls and Mary Chapin Carpenter. The reissue features a 16-page booklet and six unreleased live tracks from the original recording sessions, including "Love Song To A Stranger", "You Ain't Goin' Nowhere", "Geordie", "Gracias a la Vida", "The Water Is Wide" and "Stones in the Road", bringing the total track listing to 21 songs (on two discs). In addition, Baez recorded a duet of "Jim Crow" with John Mellencamp which appears on his album Freedom's Road (2007). He has called the album a "Woody Guthrie rock album". The recording was heavily influenced by albums from the 1960s, which is why he invited an icon from that era to appear with him. Also in February 2007, she received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. The day after receiving the honor, she appeared at the Grammy Awards ceremony and introduced a performance by the Dixie Chicks.

August 13, 2009, Seattle

September 9, 2008, saw the release of the studio album Day After Tomorrow, produced by Steve Earle and featuring three of his songs. The album was Baez's first charting record in nearly three decades. On June 29, 2008, Baez performed on the acoustic stage at the Glastonbury Festival in Glastonbury, UK, playing out the final set to a packed audience. On July 6, 2008, she played at the Montreux Jazz Festival in Montreux, Switzerland. During the concert's finale, she spontaneously danced on stage with a band of African percussionists.

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Joan Baez ( b11 )

 On October 1, 2005, she performed at the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival, at San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. Then, on January 13, 2006, Baez performed at the funeral of Lou Rawls, where she led Jesse Jackson, Sr., Wonder, and others in the singing of "Amazing Grace". On June 6, 2006, Baez joined Bruce Springsteen on stage at his San Francisco concert, where the two performed the rolling anthem "Pay Me My Money Down". In September 2006, Baez contributed a live, retooled version of her classic song "Sweet Sir Galahad" to a Starbucks's exclusive XM Artist Confidential album. In the new version, she changed the lyric "here's to the dawn of their days" to "here's to the dawn of her days", as a tribute to her late sister Mimi, about whom Baez wrote the song in 1969. Later on, October 8, 2006, she appeared as a special surprise guest at the opening ceremony of the Forum 2000 international conference in Prague, Czech Republic. Her performance was kept secret from former Czech Republic President Havel until the moment she appeared on stage. Havel was a great admirer of both Baez and her work. During Baez's next visit to Prague, in April 2007, the two met again when she performed in front of a sold-out house at Prague's Lucerna Hall, a building erected by Havel's grandfather. On December 2, 2006, she made a guest appearance at the Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir's Christmas Concert at the Paramount Theatre in Oakland, California. Her participation included versions of "Let Us Break Bread Together" and "Amazing Grace". She also joined the choir in the finale of "O Holy Night".

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Joan Baez ( b10 )

 Havel cited her as a great inspiration and influence in that country's Velvet Revolution, the revolution in which the Soviet-dominated communist government there was overthrown.

Baez recorded two more albums with Gold Castle: Speaking of Dreams, (1989) and Brothers in Arms (1991). She then landed a contract with a major label, Virgin Records, recording Play Me Backwards (1992) for Virgin shortly before the company was purchased by EMI. She then switched to Guardian, with whom she produced a live album, Ring Them Bells (1995), and a studio album, Gone from Danger (1997).

In 1993, at the invitation of Refugees International and sponsored by the Soros Foundation, she traveled to the war-torn Bosnia and Herzegovina region of former-Yugoslavia in an effort to help bring more attention to the suffering there. She was the first major artist to perform in Sarajevo since the outbreak of the Yugoslav civil war.

In October of that year, Baez became the first major artist to perform in a professional concert presentation on Alcatraz Island (a former U.S. federal prison) in San Francisco, California, in a benefit for her sister Mimi's Bread and Roses organization. She later returned for another concert in 1996.

2000s

Beginning in 2001, Baez has had several successful long-term engagements as a lead character at San Francisco's Teatro ZinZanni. In August 2001, Vanguard began re-releasing Baez's first 13 albums, which she recorded for the label between 1960 and 1971. The reissues, being released through Vanguard's Original Master Series, feature digitally restored sound, unreleased bonus songs, new and original artwork, and new liner-note essays written by Arthur Levy. Likewise, her six A&M albums were reissued in 2003.

Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival 2005 at Golden Gate Park

In 2003, Baez was also a judge for the third annual Independent Music Awards to support independent artists' careers. Her album, Dark Chords on a Big Guitar (2003), features songs by composers half her age, while a November 2004 performance at New York City's Bowery Ballroom was recorded for a live release, Bowery Songs (2005)

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