Baez, Joan (1941–)

Folk singer and activist Joan Baez was born January 9, 1941, on Staten Island, New York, to Dr. Albert Baez, a Mexican-born physicist, and Joan Bridge Baez, of Scottish and English descent. She was the second of three daughters. Joan Baez's older sister was Pauline Baez. Her younger sister, born Margarita Mimi Baez, was a singer, guitarist, and activist in her own right as Mimi Fariña (Fariña died of neuroendocrine cancer in 2001).

Dr. Baez and his wife were practicing Quakers, and Dr. Baez had turned down lucrative defense industry jobs during the Cold War. The family moved frequently due to Dr. Baez's work, living in towns across the United States as well as in France, Switzerland, Italy, and Iraq. Baez was only 10 when her family moved to Baghdad, but the poverty and inhumane treatment of the people there deeply affected her. The family ultimately settled in the Boston area in the late 1950s after Dr. Baez took a position at MIT.

As a teenager, Baez learned to play the ukulele first, then the guitar. She also sang in her school choir. She began her political involvement early. While still in high school, Baez attended a conference with the Quakers' social-action wing, the American Friends Service Committee; it was at this conference that she met 27-year-old Martin Luther King, Jr. Baez also involved herself in issues in her hometown. When she boycotted a high-school air-raid drill, saying that the drills were false and misleading, she made front-page news in her hometown.

After graduating from high school, Baez attended Boston University but dropped out after one semester to spend her time performing as a singer-songwriter at the clubs and coffeehouses that lined Harvard Square. Baez's most significant venue at that time was Club 47 on Mount Auburn Street in Cambridge, where she was paid $20 a night to perform twice a week. Baez gained substantial exposure when she made her debut at the Newport Folk Festival in 1959. She signed with Vanguard Records, which was a small folk label at the time, and released her first album, Joan Baez, in 1960; Joan Baez, Volume 2, followed in 1961. Early in her career, Baez worked within the historical folk [Page 207]repertoire, adding more political content in the 1960s. Her first albums earned her a position in the American roots revival; she worked with other artists, including Bob Dylan, with whom she toured in the 1960s.

Peace activist and singer Joan Baez performs on stage during a free performance on the National Mall near the Ellipse in conjunction with an anti-war demonstration on Saturday, September 24, 2005, in Washington.

Source: AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais.

Baez has a long history of engagement with civil rights issues. She was involved with the struggle for migrant workers' rights as well as with the black rights movement. In 1963, she sang “We Shall Overcome” at Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s March on Washington, a performance that linked her permanently to the song in the public consciousness. In 1966, she participated in the migrant farmworker strikes led by César Chávez.

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