"The only woman in the world to have seen both Steve Jobs and Bob Dylan naked"

[Scuba]

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/aug/31/joan-baez-singer-activist-peacenik-lover-legend-royal-festival-hall

Joan Baez: Singer, activist, peacenik, lover, legend

For more than 50 years, Baez has been a central figure in the cultural and political life of the United States. A singer, an activist, a peacenik, a beauty, a lover (of some iconic men, it must be said). She is far too self-aware to utter the phrase “been there, done that”, but if she ever did, no one would take issue. Name a significant date in American politics since the early 1960s and she will either know the characters involved or have been involved in some way herself. “Oh Lou, I knew Lou,’’ she says casually when the name of the late Lou Reed comes up.

“I didn’t know him until we ended up doing a show together in Prague. I bumped into him as he was wandering around in the hotel lobby and I said to him, ‘Come for dinner with us Lou’, and so he did. He grumbled all the way to the restaurant because we decided to walk there. I knew then what we had adopted, but by then it was too late.”

...

The mention of Dylan provokes a solitary note of reserve as Baez looks back on her life. Famously, she and Dylan were lovers in the early 1960s, when she smoothed a path for him around the folk clubs of New England and New York – a debt he later repaid by snubbing her on the UK tour famously captured in DA Pennebaker’s 1967 film documentary Don’t Look Back. Dylan later apologised for the way he treated Baez. The nature of their relationship has been the subject of much gossip through the years.

Are they still in touch? She smiles. “No one is ever in touch with Bob Dylan.”

[cali]

1. that was an interesting article, Scuba. Thanks for posting it.

[spanone]

2. k&r...

[niyad]

3. k kand r and thank you for posting.

[GliderGuider]

4. "Very clear." What a wonderful woman.

She's about a decade older than me, so she was one of the formative voices of my youth in the 60s. I owe her a lot - along with people like Pete Seeger, Phil Ochs and Tim Leary...

[hifiguy]

5. Thanks for this.

Great article on a fascinating woman who has led an amazing life. We should all age a fraction as gracefully as she has.

[bananas]

6. Her cousin John Baez is a famous physicist

http://wikipedia.org/wiki/John_C._Baez

Baez is also known to science fans as the
author of This Week's Finds in Mathematical
Physics, [5] an irregular column on the
internet featuring mathematical exposition
and criticism. He started This Week's Finds
in 1993 for the Usenet community

[bananas]

7. Her father Albert Baez was also a famous physicist

http://wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Baez

At a private dinner in 1982, when asked
how it was to be the father of a famous
person, Baez told the following story with
great delight:[7] "I was at a conference
dinner, and as usual a young man was
looking carefully at my name tag. Finally,
he got up the courage to ask the inevitable
question about my relationship to Joan
Baez. But instead he asked, 'Are you Albert
Baez, the inventor of the X-ray
microscope?' Now, THAT was a
compliment!"

[UTUSN]

8. Let's have a look at her to get the image of DYLAN and JOBS nekkid out of our minds

[Enthusiast]

9. Good idea.

[Scuba]

10. Very cool, thanks for adding. I had not seen the first one previously.

And getting that image out of our minds is good too!

[FailureToCommunicate]

11. Thanks Scuba. I've had the good fortune to meet her, and hang with her amazing family

'back in the day' in California.

Joan really 'walked the walk' when it came to social justice causes.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

12. I met her briefly at a demo against the war. Wonderful human being in every sense.

If it's natural to kill, how come men have to go into training to learn how? Joan Baez

[TomVilmer]

13. And she walked her talk...

... together with other great activists:

"We knew that the story of Joan’s trip to Sarajevo during the siege in 1993 was compelling – we had the archival footage of that trip – anyone could see that this was a great piece of Joan Baez’s history. Mark managed to track down Vedran Smailovic, who Joan had met when she was there, and arranged for him to meet us in Sarajevo for the shoot.

Vedran Smailovic was once a cellist for the Sarajevo Opera who had witnessed a horrific massacre during the war. In response, he did the only thing he could think to do – he played his cello. Every day for 22 days, in honor of the 22 people who were killed in the massacre, Vedran went into the street in his tuxedo with his cello. In an extraordinary act of bravery, he risked being shot by snipers or killed in an explosion so that he could play the same piece of music every day – Albinoni’s Adagio. (Read about Vedran’s experience in this New York Times article from 1992).

When Joan went to Sarajevo in 1993, she was taken to meet this man – at the site of the massacre, where he was performing. You can see in the archival footage that Joan is wearing a bulletproof vest. In some shots, you can hear sniper fire and explosions. We did not add any sound effects to this part of the film. Anything you hear is actual gunfire and explosions from the real footage of Sarajevo at that time. It was a difficult and dangerous time to go to Sarajevo. It is estimated that an average of 15 people were killed and 44 wounded every day during the siege. The airport was closed; roads into the city were barricaded. But that didn’t stop Joan Baez. She was told that she could help the people there, and so she dropped everything and she went."

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/episodes/joan-baez/essay-by-filmmaker-mary-wharton/1192/

[ChiciB1]

14. Have Many, Many Baez Recordings!

Loved way back when, LOVE her now! Her music has ALWAYS been an inspiration to me. So many singer/song writers of "my generation" are still influential today. Many are still performing. So many drew on their earlier experiences of those who went before them, but I've always said I was blessed to have attended so very many concerts of countless GREATS back then. The prices were so cheap and even I, who didn't make much money could afford to see them. I have another GREAT, probably for me my favorite... Jackson Browne. I LOVED Dylan, but he was never an activist, but wrote some SUPER songs hat were sung by many activists!

John Lennon was also one of the Greatest activists, but never saw him in concert. Between Baez & Browne, my collection is packed! Jackson Browne spoke to me through his songs, and I was fortunate to have seen him on at least four occasions. The last I saw was in St.Pete/Tampa and had a fantastic seat right up front. It was his Solo Acoustic Concert. I yelled out to him to sing some very political songs, he laughed and said he was surprised to hear requests for the songs I was asking for in the my area.

Had seen his Running On Empty Concert down by the Pier in St, Pete. Saw Dylan & Baez performing together and actually thought SHE upstaged him. Concert was FANTASTIC! Because of my experiences, my already extremely young introduction to politics at the age of 11 was completed fulfilled and heightened by so many of these performers. My kids recall music filling our house all the time with so much great music!

[Scuba]

16. Big Jackson Browne fan here, and not just for his music ...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10843061

[ChiciB1]

18. WOW! I Sure Wish I Had Been There...

He's always been politically active and I've followed him and many of his causes for many, many years. At first it was mostly from hearing "Dr. My Eyes," and thereafter as his music became more and more political. One of my favorite is "For America" which I actually printed the lyrics out and made many copies of. But so many of his songs have deep meaning and great significance. I know he's been arrested for demonstrating quite a few times, but has remained one who still speaks out. Recently Rolling Stone interviewed him and I didn't get the copy as yet. I always subscribed to Rolling Stone, but stopped about 2 years ago. Now I'm a subscriber again and am waiting for my copy where he talked about how he speaks through his music.

I met some people who worked as stage hands, setting up stages for events, one was an electrical technician, his wife cooked for the performers and two of their friends also did some type of work. They brought me some pictures of him from one of his concerts and I asked them about him. They said he was really down to earth and a really great person. AND, they live very close to Ferguson! Since I live in FL, they rented a house from another friend who lives in W. Alton, MO and his girlfriend bought a small house about a mile from what's happening in Ferguson. Anyway, they had great things to say about him. They were very interesting people and had mountains of stories about different entertainers. His wife was very UN-impressed with Reba McIntyre saying her red hair matched her personality.

I have always, always wanted to meet him, but knew it would never happen. I'm a forever fan and IMO you're very lucky to have been around him.

Thanks for posting this and especially the pics! Guess you and I also have something else in common, we both might have felt we would be rid of our Governors in the last election... but NO, somehow we got screwed again. Rick Scott or Scott Walker... how very weird! I don't understand what has happened in this country where we can't ride ourselves of this riff-raff. I'm always suspicious of FL voting, but what can ya do? Nothing seems to change.

[Warpy]

15. Her description of Jobs (not naked) is amazing and just what I'd expect

for a newly minted billionaire with no interests outside his company.

Otherwise, meh.

[MrMickeysMom]

17. This was a great read, Scuba...

Youth is eternal. I think it shows internally in Joan Baez. I've loved her music. I want to listen to "Cocoanuts" after reading this!