Voices of dissent act as our conscience, prodding when we would sit still, inciting dialogue about differences we would gloss over.
Folk icon Joan Baez has provided that voice to millions around the world, from her 1959 debut at the Newport Folk Festival to her current national tour, which lands at the Boulder Theater Monday and Tuesday.
She thrives when the political climate is one of turmoil, her compassionate, fiery speech offering a rallying point for the disaffected.
“In a sense I’m needed to fill a role,” said the 65-year-old Baez. “I was joking with a woman in Turkey once when 25,000 people showed up for my concert. I said, ‘I guess as long as Turkey is repressed I’ll do well over here. And she said, ‘Well, you can count on a long career.”‘
More than nearly any other musician, Baez has pushed for peace and equality in environments both welcoming and violently hostile. Many of her songs, whether original or interpreted, sound as germane today as they did during the Vietnam era, thanks to an unpopular Iraq war and divided U.S. electorate.
The list of artists she has championed, from Bob Dylan to Bruce Springsteen – reads like a who’s who of relevant Americana over the last 40 years. She stood with Cesar Chavez and Martin Luther King Jr. She concluded an extensive European tour earlier this year. And she’s not even close to being finished.
“When I’m in Europe, in whichever language, I apologize for what my government is doing to the world,” Baez said. “(The audience) is always so relieved to hear an American say that. And if I don’t know the language, I’ll just memorize it. I feel that in a sense the Germans for so many years couldn’t get rid of the stigma of World War II, and we really have the stigma now.”
Bold words, comparing 2006 America to post-World War II Germany, but Baez has never been known for mincing them. Gray-haired now, her commitment to social consciousness remains more than just rhetoric.
Raised by Quaker converts – her father was an acclaimed physicist who declined to work on Cold War defense projects – Baez received a copy of “Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl” in grade school. At 15 she heard Martin Luther King Jr. speak at a student gathering. At age 16 she was branded a “communist infiltrator” for refusing to leave her classroom at Redlands Senior High School in Southern California during an air raid drill.
She participated in historical protests, from Dr. King’s march on the Lincoln Memorial to the birth of the free speech movement at Berkeley. She co-founded the Institute for the Study of Nonviolence in Carmel Valley, Calif. She traveled to Hanoi as the Vietnam War raged and helped establish Amnesty International on the West Coast.
And that was just the ’60s.
Baez has recently performed with some of the artists she influenced (Emmylou Harris, Chrissie Hynde and Spring-
steen – whom she dubs “a doll and a sweetheart”) and continues to release new music. Her three-octave soprano and stellar guitar work are an inspiration for the new generation of socially conscious singers.
“A really good trend for me has been meeting and singing with younger writers,” Baez said. “That kind of opened up the world to me about what the hell’s going on out there. It’s really interesting because I like finding out what’s going on in the schools. What are they thinking and doing?”
Baez sees an alarming and well-rooted complacency in 2006 America, though she’s hesitant to demonize any segment of the population.
“It’s gotten so far from the immediacy of the politics of (the ’60s),” she said. “It’s perfectly understandable, it’s just that we got spoiled. I think it’s unfortunate, but if it isn’t affecting us directly, in our faces, people tend to forget about it. Part of my job has always been to try to make it more visible.”
Baez’ recent albums – 2003’s “Dark Chords on a Big Guitar” and the 2005 live album “Bowery Songs” – resist cynicism or blurry nostalgia with deft turns at tunes by Woody Guthrie, Steve Earle and Natalie Merchant. Baez takes note of contemporary artists from whom she can learn. She downloads tracks from Dar Williams, Indigo Girls and Josh Ritter to her iPod and takes mental notes.
“I’ve always felt very strongly that it’s not a mentoring situation but a co-mentoring one,” she said of Josh Ritter, who opened for her overseas. “That’s the only honest way to approach it.”
But don’t romanticize her too much. She’s just a folk singer, she said.
“I don’t keep a lot of photographs around, but there’s a picture of me walking with Dr. King and that was the first picture I thought of to hang up when I moved,” Baez said. “I feel honored to have spent 30 seconds in his presence.”
Baez wants audiences to see her as a person. One that, just like them, can effect positive change on an individual level.
“I am not a saint. I am a noise,” she was once credited with saying. Perhaps less a noise than a clarion call.
Staff writer John Wenzel can be reached at 303-954-1642 or jwenzel@denverpost.com.
Joan Baez
FOLK/PROTEST MUSIC|Boulder Theater, 2032 14th St.; 7:30 p.m., Monday (sold out) and Tuesday |$42|tickets for Tuesday available at 303-786-7030 or bouldertheater.com.
Songs of dissent
Protest songs aren’t the exclusive province of folk music, although that genre nurtured them more than any other. Here are a few of the most memorable:
“Deportee (Plane Crash at Los Gatos)”: Woody Guthrie’s classic song about the true-life crash of a plane deporting migrant workers back to Mexico.
“Masters of War”: Bob Dylan at his acerbic best, savaging those who would profit from others’ deaths.
“When the President Talks to God”: Conor Oberst of Bright Eyes compares George W. Bush to an arrogant, overtly religious king.
“A Change Is Gonna Come”: Gospel-singer-turned-soul-titan Sam Cooke released this classic in 1964, the year he died. It became a civil rights anthem.
“Let’s Impeach the President”: Neil Young’s heartfelt, if heavy-handed, plea to oust Bush from the White House.
“What’s Going On?”: Marvin Gaye was inspired to write this song after his brother returned from Vietnam.
“Ohio”: Neil Young penned this in a few hours in the wake of the Kent State shootings. It was released by Crosby Stills Nash & Young within days of the tragedy.
“American Skin”: Bruce Springsteen’s song about the 1999 slaying of Amadou Diallo, an African immigrant shot 41 times by New York police.
-William Porter and John Wenzel
