The Magic and Aura of Joan Baez
During my elementary school days (Sacred Heart School, Kharagpur) in the 1980s, I was part of a choir that sang “We shall overcome”. The lyrics were simple, it was easy to sing, and it felt like an anthem. Fast forward to the 1990s — I fell in love with the Hindi song “Jab koi baat bigad jaye, jab koi mushkil padjaye” which resonated with the turbulent period I was going through. Years later when Obama was president, we were overcome by a sense of idealism, a feeling that something special was unfolding, and I watched “We shall overcome” being sung at the White House. On 1 June 2024, a couple of days after Donald Trump became a convicted felon, and people were divided and confused about what it meant for the country, I had the honor of meeting Joan Baez in person during the launch of her new book When You See My Mother, Ask Her to Dance, a poetry anthology.
The first time I learnt about the legendary folk singer and activist Joan Baez was during the COVID years, when I watched Woodstock, the 1970 American documentary film of the watershed counterculture Woodstock Festival that took place in August 1969 near Bethel, New York. The female counterpart to Bob Dylan, folk singer and anti-war protester Joan Baez was the last act of the first day. She was 28 years old and 6 months pregnant. She started performing at about 3 a.m. and wished everybody, rightly so, a good morning. Her perfectly arranged set combined with her beautiful and skillful voice was a fine finale for a chaotic and exhausting first day. During her performance it was merely drizzling, and afterwards it started to rain heavily.
There was a time in the 60s when everyone wanted to have an acoustic guitar and sing Joan Baez songs. When I met the strikingly beautiful Joan, she gave me a warm hug, as if she had known me forever. When I mentioned to her that I grew up listening to songs that I never knew were originally sung by her (the tune of “Jab koi baat bigad jaye” was a copy of her “500 miles”), she said, “People tell me that all the time”. For someone who has been in the spotlight more than she had ever wanted (she is 83 now and has been famous since she was 16), she has handled fame well although she says, “I am not famous, I am well known”. She accepts that she was born talented and takes no credit for it.
To understand Joan Baez, you need to look at the long arc of history especially of the 1960s in the United States. She was present at some of the most crucial moments: she walked with MLK, sang with Bob Dylan, fought against the Vietnam War, sang for Bangladesh and did much more. Many believe she was born in the right era — everything had lined up: activism, the civil rights movement, the Vietnam War, and the coming together of brilliant writers and musicians. For someone who sees the glass as empty (not even half empty), she believes she is now living in the most imperilled decade of her life. Even though she has put her musical career to bed, she has not stopped lending her voice to causes she cares about.
As an artist, she has gone beyond being the musician. Her book Am I Pretty When I Fly is a collection of line drawings she created upside down and that were executed with her non-dominant left hand. In her book When You See My Mother, Ask Her to Dance Joan Baez shares poems for or about her contemporaries (such as Bob Dylan, Judy Collins, and Jimi Hendrix), reflections from her childhood, personal thoughts, and cherished memories of her family, including pieces about her younger sister, singer-songwriter Mimi Fariña. Speaking to the people, places, and moments that have had the greatest impact on her art, this collection is an inspiring personal diary in the form of poetry. You can see glimpses of her genius scattered across the pages. My favorite is the poem Jimi, in which she writes “You came through like a magnificent natural disaster like a fucking Volcano…and you were only twenty-seven when you died”.
She has tried to bring down the barrier between the star and the person behind it with her trademark smile, witty answers and almost nonchalant attitude. She was asked: Is there a place for non-violent protests in today’s world and can it drive social change? Is there a leader like Gandhi or MLK in the world today? To which she replied that she believes if Obama had stayed on the streets, there would have been a greater possibility of social change than with him being in the White House. As someone who is seen as a grassroots activist, when she was asked, what would MLK have done if he were alive today, she said, “Like Gandhi, he would have walked with the people, and I would walk with him”.
She lives in Woodside, California and sleeps on a mattress on an oak tree. Diagnosed with Multiple Personality Disorder, she says lightly, “I adore them all” (meaning her personalities)! She had to deal with trauma throughout her life (she was not suicidal though). Her documentary “I Am a Noise” talks about her difficulty in coming to terms with her father molesting her and her sister. She says making accusations much later in life can be heartbreaking, but we choose to remember what we want to remember. When asked what she thinks of death, she narrated the story of her mother on her deathbed. When Joan asked her mother, what is your image of the place that comes after death, her mother described a beautiful room — which was the same room she was in! And finally, on how we can age with grace, she said “maybe by faking it”.
As she walked away from the stage, the audience was still clapping. Many elderly people who came to see her had grown up with her music as a constant companion. She made everyone laugh and cry, provoked them and made them ponder. When she sang a song impromptu, people got goosebumps. There was no escaping the magnetism of Joan Baez.
Now, I can proudly say, I lived to meet Joan Baez.
