Speaker 1: Pushkin. Joan Baez has always used her voice as a
Speaker 1: tool for social change. Show me the Prison, show me
Speaker 1: the jan show me the Prisoners Lie. At the height
Speaker 1: of her career in the nineteen sixties, Joan was known
Speaker 1: the world over as the Queen of Folk. She used
Speaker 1: her fame to help spread the tenets of non violence
Speaker 1: and was a close ally to doctor Martin Luther King Junior.
Speaker 1: Joan also helped introduce Bob Dylan to the world by
Speaker 1: giving them stage time at her shows when she was
Speaker 1: the biggest ticket in town and he was a complete unknown.
Speaker 1: In this conversation with Rick Rubin, Joan explains why, after
Speaker 1: performing for over sixty years, she recently made the decision
Speaker 1: to stop singing. She also talks about the time she
Speaker 1: and Pete Seeger were run out of town by local
Speaker 1: cops after a performance, and how is a badge of honor?
Speaker 1: When the Brazilian government banned her music because they felt
Speaker 1: it made people too emotional. This is broken record liner
Speaker 1: notes for the digital age. I'm justin Richmontain. You're a
Speaker 1: Rick Rubin and Joan Bias. How are you hey, mountain man.
Speaker 1: Nice to see you, Nice to see you. Everything well,
Speaker 1: it's been a minute. It's been a minute. Everything's just
Speaker 1: as good as it can be, Beautiful, Tell what's been
Speaker 1: going on? What's been going on? Let me think. Well,
Speaker 1: I made the decision and quit touring, as you know,
Speaker 1: and on New Year's Eve, I made the decision to
Speaker 1: not sing at all. So people can't say it, would
Speaker 1: you just do this one? Just that's it. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm ready to do other things and don't want to
Speaker 1: put the effort into making this voice sound right, and
Speaker 1: it doesn't anyway, So so I'm free of that, which
Speaker 1: is wonderful, beautiful. What tell me a little bit about
Speaker 1: the work that would go into keeping your voice working
Speaker 1: in the way that you wanted at work? Well, first
Speaker 1: of all, I had was just hanging on to old
Speaker 1: recordings of the last teacher I had, and that went
Speaker 1: back about a year, and I was just doing a
Speaker 1: couple of hers just to get through. I didn't bother
Speaker 1: anything new. And then my granddaughter started studying with Max
Speaker 1: and Lewis. She was an I cat back in the day,
Speaker 1: and she teaches and she's wonderful and was working well
Speaker 1: for Jasmine, and I thought, well, I'd like to sing
Speaker 1: with Jasmine a little bit before I stop all this,
Speaker 1: and so I started working with Max Sam was totally
Speaker 1: different from anybody else, but one way or another, it
Speaker 1: involves conscientious work. You know, it should be five days
Speaker 1: of weeks, even if it's twenty minutes a sec. That
Speaker 1: concentrated takes you away from everything else. And honestly, if
Speaker 1: I if the voice sounded more like what I really
Speaker 1: wanted to sound like, I made a stuck with it.
Speaker 1: But it won't matter how hard I work. Now you
Speaker 1: know they're a muscle in there is not going to
Speaker 1: be what it was, and I'd rather let it all
Speaker 1: go interesting. It's I got to work with Johnny Cash
Speaker 1: at the end of his career and his voice was
Speaker 1: definitely failing at the end, and it was really it
Speaker 1: really impacted him emotionally in a great way, in a
Speaker 1: terrible way, exactly, and we found a way through the
Speaker 1: emotion of the words that he was singing to not
Speaker 1: have it being negative but be positive that it wasn't
Speaker 1: that his voice was failing. It's that the things that
Speaker 1: he was singing about were so difficult that it made
Speaker 1: sense for to have difficulty in the words coming out.
Speaker 1: So I don't know, it was at least there was
Speaker 1: a method that worked. If you ever decide to try
Speaker 1: it again, if you ever get the mood that you
Speaker 1: can make it work for you instead of against you.
Speaker 1: I think because my saying was this voice, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, good wine and so on up to
Speaker 1: a certain point, and then you I mean, and Johnny
Speaker 1: because of the nature of himself and his work and
Speaker 1: his voice and his songs, he didn't have to do
Speaker 1: that stuff. He just bared his soul. And that's why
Speaker 1: those last albums were so gorgeous. He was apparently happy
Speaker 1: with what was coming out of him. Yeah, he was,
Speaker 1: but he during I will say, during the period, he
Speaker 1: was very uncomfortable with his voice, yeah, and really questioned it.
Speaker 1: And he would say that his voice was the one
Speaker 1: thing that he could always rely upon and now he
Speaker 1: couldn't rely upon that anymore, and it really it made
Speaker 1: him uncomfortable. And we all go through I mean, anybody
Speaker 1: who sings that. You don't know that when you're young,
Speaker 1: there's no way to know it. But it's a certain point.
Speaker 1: The muscles are like a tennis player just gonna start giving,
Speaker 1: you know, So at any rate, that was New Year's Eve,
Speaker 1: So yeah, tell me about the very what was the
Speaker 1: very last performance in front of an audience, your last concert?
Speaker 1: It was in Spain. It was in Madrid, and it
Speaker 1: was glorious. I mean there was a big concert hall.
Speaker 1: It was beautiful. It was filled with people. And I
Speaker 1: had Emanciato Prava, a guitar songwriter, singer, famous, you know
Speaker 1: the kind everybody goes ah when he walks on the stage.
Speaker 1: And he and I worked on a song together and
Speaker 1: sang it together and it was a big emotional moment
Speaker 1: for everybody. And then I sang and that was basically it.
Speaker 1: And I got an encore and I sang what I
Speaker 1: had been singing, which was if I had wings, and
Speaker 1: said goodbye that way. Yeah. What was the emotion of
Speaker 1: the feeling like this is it? Well, I was already
Speaker 1: feeling what was coming, and it was a relief. And
Speaker 1: I wondered, often, is this something I'm going to really
Speaker 1: wish that I know? Everybody says, oh yeah, I'll be
Speaker 1: back on the road, and I thought, well, maybe to
Speaker 1: be fair, I should leave that open. But I had
Speaker 1: never a second. It was my people and the bus,
Speaker 1: my friends, my co workers, the engineer, sound likes. That's
Speaker 1: what I missed, but not being on the stage, not
Speaker 1: all that stuff. It just I mean, and partly I
Speaker 1: think is I walked right into the painting. You know,
Speaker 1: it was like shifting or shifting into another gear, and
Speaker 1: so I just something final and wonderful about it. We
Speaker 1: were all exhausted because it was the end of it
Speaker 1: was the end of our emotions too. I mean, we're
Speaker 1: all wiped out with that. Yeah. Interesting that so many people,
Speaker 1: we think of, so many artists, have a difficult time
Speaker 1: walking away from it. Yeah. But for some reason, I
Speaker 1: get the sense that you've always had as much of
Speaker 1: a life outside of performance, where so many artists that's all,
Speaker 1: that's all they have, So it seems like you've always
Speaker 1: had an inner life to come back to. I think
Speaker 1: that's true. I think partly at the very beginning, when
Speaker 1: I was so disciplined and stiff, and this is you know,
Speaker 1: traditional songs and everything else was commercial, it set me
Speaker 1: on a path where I had to I had to
Speaker 1: keep my spiritual life in order. I'd keep my body
Speaker 1: in order. But I didn't fall into a lot of stuff,
Speaker 1: but a lot of my friends did. I never did
Speaker 1: the drugs. I'm sure I missed out on a lot
Speaker 1: of stuff. I'm sure that I did. But yeah, I
Speaker 1: pretty much kept it together and there even though you know,
Speaker 1: I went through some heavy duty therapy and found out
Speaker 1: stuff I hadn't known that was causing different behaviors in
Speaker 1: me that I didn't have control of. That basically, there
Speaker 1: was a core there that stayed on track. When did
Speaker 1: you first start doing therapy, Hope? You know, I mean
Speaker 1: a lot of therapists. When I was fifteen, I started
Speaker 1: getting help from different doctors. Yeah, and that went right
Speaker 1: on through. And I started the deep stuff when I
Speaker 1: was fifty, and you know, that was a different kind
Speaker 1: of therapy that was saying, Okay, there's something in here,
Speaker 1: I'm going to dig it out. And you know, obviously
Speaker 1: I can't talk about the details, but the fact was
Speaker 1: there was therapy that helped me stay together, and there
Speaker 1: was therapy that helped me fall apart and put the
Speaker 1: pieces back together. So wow, beautiful, Yeah, beautiful. I'm glad.
Speaker 1: I'm glad that you found you found help through those
Speaker 1: through that work. It's it's it's a miracle when you
Speaker 1: find the right you know, the right connection and when
Speaker 1: you see where it can go, it's an amazing thing.
Speaker 1: And you know, I think I felt the way A
Speaker 1: lot of people, maybe most people feel that you can changes,
Speaker 1: you can switch that, but basically nothing ever changes, and
Speaker 1: that for me anyway, has not been true. I mean,
Speaker 1: the change was was just transformative. It tooks a long
Speaker 1: time and a lot of work, but I don't have
Speaker 1: to go through the stuff that I did. You know
Speaker 1: back then, do you have or have you ever had
Speaker 1: a spiritual practice? You know, I've always either invented my
Speaker 1: own or dipped into different people's for a while. And
Speaker 1: the one that makes the most sense to me, but
Speaker 1: also takes a discipline that I little short of, is
Speaker 1: just Buddhist practice, you know, just trying to be mindful
Speaker 1: and aware. And I always I mean parents were became
Speaker 1: Quakers when I was eight, and so that brought in
Speaker 1: the whole nonviolence and in the active part of Quakerism,
Speaker 1: which is American Friends Service Committee, you get involved in
Speaker 1: people in the world who need more than we have,
Speaker 1: and so that was a way way back seeing wherever
Speaker 1: the spirit wove in and out of that. I mean,
Speaker 1: my father, his father's father was Catholic, and my father's
Speaker 1: father was a Methodist minister, which means he left Catholicism
Speaker 1: in Mexico, and that was not exactly the thing to
Speaker 1: do in those days. And my father preached in his church. Oh,
Speaker 1: my father was eighteen. They were Presbyterian in New York.
Speaker 1: My mother's father was an Episcopalian minister who preached at
Speaker 1: that beautiful church in the middle. I didn't know this.
Speaker 1: I was visiting Edinburgh and that gorgeous little church that
Speaker 1: writes back in the middle of town. You can't get
Speaker 1: pictures of it because it's too big. You can't back
Speaker 1: off far enough. That's where he preached. So there was
Speaker 1: always a whole line of preachers. Amazing, amazing. Do you
Speaker 1: feel like that that the preaching in your blood worked
Speaker 1: its way into the music, both since it worked my
Speaker 1: way into by talking too much and people in the
Speaker 1: hall saying, why don't you shut up and sing? I
Speaker 1: mean I heard that more than once, really, and I
Speaker 1: get it, you know that. I was so intent on
Speaker 1: saying what I felt no people should hear, or what
Speaker 1: it was on my mind or politically or spiritually, and
Speaker 1: so I would just, you know, damn the torpedoes and
Speaker 1: say what I needed to say. Tell me more about
Speaker 1: the Quaker faith. I know very little. The only you're
Speaker 1: the first person to ever tell me about about Quakerism.
Speaker 1: And is it called Quakerism, Yeah, that's Quakerism. Basically, the
Speaker 1: Quakers are just about the only religion, formal religion that
Speaker 1: really will not condone violence. I mean, not World War two,
Speaker 1: the favorite wars. You really have to find another way
Speaker 1: to live, and it's pretty much a constant challenge, especially
Speaker 1: you know, in days like this and a world like this,
Speaker 1: a country like this, and so it's an attempt to
Speaker 1: live with through and by non violence. Meaning the bottom
Speaker 1: line is that you are willing to accept suffering but
Speaker 1: not inflicted. So that really determines how you behave publicly
Speaker 1: and personally. And it's very challenging and there are times
Speaker 1: that I am just impossible that you lose track of that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: let's talk about the world that you came into as
Speaker 1: a musician. Tell me about what the world was like
Speaker 1: when you first started making music. We know I was
Speaker 1: already politicized. But what happened was I moved to came
Speaker 1: Bridge and I had heard Odetta and Pete Seeger and
Speaker 1: Harry Bellafonti, and those are my introduction, and I heard
Speaker 1: the Kingston Trio and I wouldn't admit that to anybody
Speaker 1: because they were supposed to be commercial, but I loved them.
Speaker 1: And then it moved to Cambridge and I the only
Speaker 1: school that accepted me because my grades were terrible and
Speaker 1: I had no interest in going to school, was Boston
Speaker 1: University Fine Arts. So I was kind of halfway there.
Speaker 1: And then I was fell in love with a guy
Speaker 1: from Harvard, and I wandered around Harvard Square and started
Speaker 1: playing in the coffee shops and so at that point
Speaker 1: the politics all kind of shriveled up for a while
Speaker 1: because I was just busy being in love. And that
Speaker 1: went on for two years, and that's where all those
Speaker 1: early Ballots came from. I mean, the political music didn't
Speaker 1: start showing up until it was think it was actually gone.
Speaker 1: On my side was probably the second or third album,
Speaker 1: but the first one was just strictly Ballots. So the
Speaker 1: scene around me was coffee shop, you know people. And
Speaker 1: I wasn't in New York. People think I was in
Speaker 1: New York. I was mostly in Cambridge at the club
Speaker 1: forty seven, and so I was in this I remember
Speaker 1: walking past one of these coffee shops. My father regretted
Speaker 1: it forever, but he had never seen coffee shop activity
Speaker 1: and students sitting around with somebody performing, So he took
Speaker 1: his three daughters and his wife to see this phenomenon.
Speaker 1: And I looked in one coffee shop, Tula's Coffee Shop,
Speaker 1: and I saw a guy sitting and was playing Plasier
Speaker 1: mur And that was it. I mean, that was just it.
Speaker 1: That's why I wanted to be and what I wanted
Speaker 1: to do. It was it mostly music or was there
Speaker 1: also poetry? And tell me about the coffee shop scene. Well,
Speaker 1: a coffee shop scene where I was in Cambridge was
Speaker 1: not so much poetry to my memory, it was music.
Speaker 1: The coffee shop Club forty seven, where I ended up
Speaker 1: singing a few days a week ten dollars a night
Speaker 1: to start with, it was a big money for me,
Speaker 1: had been a jazz club and the women who ran
Speaker 1: it were hip enough to see this folk boom coming
Speaker 1: into play, so they took two nights a week and
Speaker 1: made it a folk club, and eventually that's what it
Speaker 1: was completely And I was a steady I at the
Speaker 1: very beginning of that, I was I guess tuesdays. To
Speaker 1: begin with, I sang every Tuesday, and then pretty soon
Speaker 1: people songwriters came in, some known, some not known, Eric
Speaker 1: von Schmidt, very unknown types, a lot of them. That's
Speaker 1: where I got, you know, they were not famous people
Speaker 1: I learned the songs from. Was it hard finding songs
Speaker 1: back then? Well, because everywhere, because I'm a good robber,
Speaker 1: you know, And all I had to do is I
Speaker 1: mean for those ballots, because that's what I loved. They
Speaker 1: were everywhere and you could find Geane Ritchie give you
Speaker 1: a whole album's worth of gorgeous old ballots. After a
Speaker 1: quick break, we'll be right back with Joan Bayass. We're
Speaker 1: back with more from Joan Bayaz and Rick Ruby. So
Speaker 1: you're singing in the coffee shop world. And then when
Speaker 1: do protest songs make their appearance? Well, you know, before
Speaker 1: this little love affair I had with my Harvard boyfriend,
Speaker 1: I had already sung, say, I learned the first Emmett
Speaker 1: Till that came out, I mean I was already there
Speaker 1: in my head. And then there was a kind of
Speaker 1: a dip, and then I wanted desperately to have the
Speaker 1: songs that could express some of these feelings and the
Speaker 1: obviously when Dylan came along, it was pretty early in
Speaker 1: the game, but that feel that, you know, That's what
Speaker 1: was missing, was that kind of well. He generated so
Speaker 1: many of them, and they were so good and up
Speaker 1: till then I had sung that we shall overcomes, and
Speaker 1: I can't remember them right now, but I was certainly
Speaker 1: already known as a protest singer or protest type. What
Speaker 1: was the first song of his that you heard? Do
Speaker 1: you remember? I think it was hard Rain, he said
Speaker 1: of somebody's house, and I think that's what it was.
Speaker 1: And soon after that was Got on my Side. Got
Speaker 1: on my Side is the first one that I sang
Speaker 1: of his. And we were somewhere probably in the South.
Speaker 1: It was boiling hot, and I remember I don't sweat much,
Speaker 1: but the back of my legs it was dripping down
Speaker 1: from behind my knees, and I had the words out
Speaker 1: there because I've never sung it before. And I think
Speaker 1: Bob was off the side of the stage and wherever
Speaker 1: I sang God on my Side. And later at some
Speaker 1: point he and I were doing concerts together and we
Speaker 1: sang William z and Zinger killed Poor Hetty Carroll, The
Speaker 1: Lonesome Death of Hetty Carroll, And the story is about,
Speaker 1: you know, a rich guy basically kills his maid because
Speaker 1: he gets ticked off, it throws his cane across the room. Well,
Speaker 1: we sang it in the area where that guy lived,
Speaker 1: and we suddenly thought, you know, we better get out
Speaker 1: of here in a hurry. So that's apropos of not
Speaker 1: much except that those were extraordinary days musically. Have you
Speaker 1: ever had an issue with censorship? Like? Was where is
Speaker 1: your music ever banned? Or were you ever asked not
Speaker 1: to perform somewhere because of what you were saying? Now,
Speaker 1: the first incomes to mind was performing with Pizza or
Speaker 1: when I was really really young and we realized as
Speaker 1: we got into our cars to take off, we thought
Speaker 1: the police were escorting us, they were chasing us. I mean,
Speaker 1: they did not want us. I don't remember, somewhere in
Speaker 1: the East Coast because he was a pink o comy
Speaker 1: and I was his upstart, you know, so starting pretty young.
Speaker 1: The answer is yeah, and they're you know, they're countries
Speaker 1: where my songs have been banned and I've been banned,
Speaker 1: and it's sort of a badge of honor. Really. I
Speaker 1: mean I went to visit Latin America. It was Pinochet
Speaker 1: was still in control, but exiles my exile friends here said,
Speaker 1: you know, there's this chance that they're opening up down there.
Speaker 1: This is a good time to go and sing and
Speaker 1: do what it is you do. It was too early,
Speaker 1: and I was banned in Argentina, Chile and Brazil, and so,
Speaker 1: I mean to know, came to the hotel door and
Speaker 1: with a piece of paper saying listen, don't get any
Speaker 1: more than X number of feet from the microphone or
Speaker 1: you'll be arrested. So yeah, again, that's a badge of
Speaker 1: honor in one of those countries. Yeah, tell me about
Speaker 1: Pete Seeger. Pete Seeger first influence. So I don't remember this,
Speaker 1: but my aunt said that she took me to a
Speaker 1: Seeger concert and my parents were frantic because all I
Speaker 1: was listening to was rhythm and blues. I have a
Speaker 1: little plastic gray radio at night. I listened as late
Speaker 1: as I in the night, rhythm and blues, all the
Speaker 1: black groups. And they thought I'd never go beyond that.
Speaker 1: And so she took me to a Pete Seeger concert,
Speaker 1: and they said it took like a good vaccine. You
Speaker 1: know that I got it that he was my kind
Speaker 1: of guy, because I was already you know, socially conscious,
Speaker 1: and this guy was doing it both doing it all,
Speaker 1: you know. And I'm happy to say that when he
Speaker 1: was banned from radio and TV that I had a
Speaker 1: chance to do my bit for him when this Hoot
Speaker 1: and Nanny show invited me on and I said, I'll
Speaker 1: come on as soon as you have Pete back on,
Speaker 1: and they did. Said was there a particular song that
Speaker 1: he was banned for? I don't think so. I think
Speaker 1: it was the whole thing, you know. I'm not sure,
Speaker 1: but he was banned. He couldn't say anything anywhere. Do
Speaker 1: you think it was specifically for speaking out against war?
Speaker 1: He was at that time period when you were either
Speaker 1: a pink or you weren't, you know, were you a communist?
Speaker 1: And he wouldn't say one way or another. You don't so. No,
Speaker 1: it was during those years of McCarthy, just before, just
Speaker 1: after ording, and he wouldn't say the things you're supposed
Speaker 1: to say or name anybody else. Did you like being
Speaker 1: around him? Like spending time with him? He's a funny man.
Speaker 1: He was so shy. He was so shy when I
Speaker 1: sang for him at the Kennedy Center Awards and afterwards
Speaker 1: it was a big gathering and dinner and it's dancing
Speaker 1: and I went up to him. I said, hey, Pete, congratulations.
Speaker 1: He said, Joan, Joan, joan, and that's all I said, Pete, Pete,
Speaker 1: and I went off and danced with Walter Cronkite. Clearly
Speaker 1: Pete was not gonna dance. He was just shy. In
Speaker 1: his way of saying hello. Also was to put a
Speaker 1: banjo between you and him, and he say, I'm at
Speaker 1: a a meta guy in guatemal He started plunking on
Speaker 1: the on the banger. That way, he didn't have to
Speaker 1: deal with anybody. That's what I think beautiful. And it
Speaker 1: was a sweetheart. No, he was the big sweetheart. And
Speaker 1: he died in the wool to his dying day. Did
Speaker 1: not like having drums. Why do you have to have
Speaker 1: drums in your band? Why do you have to have percussion?
Speaker 1: And so he stayed. He hung in there as a
Speaker 1: you know, a diehard purist. Tell me about first you're
Speaker 1: The first record company round was Vanguard Records, which was
Speaker 1: known for folk music mainly would you say classical and
Speaker 1: then folk? Were you one of the early folk artists
Speaker 1: on the label. Pete Seeger was there and the Weavers
Speaker 1: were there, but I was the first major. Pete Seeger
Speaker 1: was a major artist, but this brought it on one
Speaker 1: level closer to culture as opposed to just counterculture. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean that's a fun story too. I just I
Speaker 1: was well Albert Grossman, who was the guy who managed
Speaker 1: everybody back then eventually was Dylan and Peter Paul and
Speaker 1: Mary and Janice Joplin and so on, and so Albert
Speaker 1: wanted me to sign with Columbia, which had all these
Speaker 1: artists and which was the biggest and the place to go,
Speaker 1: and that always frightened me. You know, I was looking
Speaker 1: for something where I felt more at home, and classical
Speaker 1: music is what was played in my house. And al
Speaker 1: took me to New York City and he wanted me
Speaker 1: to go to Columbia first. And when we were in Columbia,
Speaker 1: he tried literally try to get me to sign a
Speaker 1: contract there on the spot. And then I said, well,
Speaker 1: you know, now I want to go to Vanguard. He
Speaker 1: really didn't want me to go there, but I did.
Speaker 1: I liked the guy I could. You know. It wasn't
Speaker 1: the showbiz stuff. They didn't have gold albums on the wall,
Speaker 1: they didn't have any gold albums, you know. And I
Speaker 1: was comfortable there and it was clear that. I mean,
Speaker 1: I spent a week trying to trying to figure it
Speaker 1: out because everybody except my parents said, you know, honey,
Speaker 1: you should really go with Columbia and and I didn't.
Speaker 1: And you know, I probably would have sold more albums
Speaker 1: and so on, but I've never regretted, you know, the
Speaker 1: decision I made. Tell me about Albert Albert Albert Grossman. Yes, Oh,
Speaker 1: he was just you know, he was a big manager guy,
Speaker 1: and he would make fun of me for not, you know,
Speaker 1: for not having somebody cooler and more in the fast lane.
Speaker 1: And he says something like, who do you want? Who
Speaker 1: do you want? You want brando? I'll get your brando.
Speaker 1: I'd say, al You're not winning me over with this,
Speaker 1: you know. Then with his stuff. On the other hand,
Speaker 1: he was a generous man. He was generous with people
Speaker 1: with his money. But he was just in that fast
Speaker 1: lane where I was not going to be comfortable. Ever.
Speaker 1: Do you think that he really appreciated the music? Actually
Speaker 1: I do. Yeah. I think. So It's easy for that
Speaker 1: to get lost when you're starting to make the money
Speaker 1: at the same time, but I think he did. Yeah.
Speaker 1: When was the first time when you were performing and
Speaker 1: you thought, wow, this is really getting to be a
Speaker 1: big like this is a big deal. You know, when
Speaker 1: I was in high school and I was singing and
Speaker 1: I started singing of the you know, the talent shows
Speaker 1: and stuff, and my friends were saying, oh boy, you
Speaker 1: think you're going to be famous someday. I didn't know
Speaker 1: what they were talking about. My idea of the future
Speaker 1: was the following week. I mean, I didn't look ahead
Speaker 1: to that, and so it probably saved me a lot
Speaker 1: of trouble. And then I thought, when I was really
Speaker 1: seriously in the public eye, I wouldn't use the word famous.
Speaker 1: I'd say, well, I'm well known. I'm well known, but
Speaker 1: I mean by then, I mean the fuck I was
Speaker 1: internationally famous. But I just didn't want to get into
Speaker 1: that aura. But with their particular performances where you just
Speaker 1: felt like, I don't know, the first time you played
Speaker 1: Carnegie Hall or the first time you played any of
Speaker 1: those moments where it just felt like, wow, this is
Speaker 1: it's grown into something where you have to almost pinch
Speaker 1: yourself if this is happening. Did you have those moments
Speaker 1: along the way, you know, maybe early on Carnegie something
Speaker 1: like Carnegie Hall, I think it was probably too busy
Speaker 1: being nervous then thinking about how you know what level
Speaker 1: I've reached in the in the ladder of things. I
Speaker 1: remember certain certain concerts that will always stand out to me,
Speaker 1: like it's Stumble. It wasn't a stumble. It was south
Speaker 1: of a Stumble, but in an outdoor two thousand year
Speaker 1: old amphitheater, and it was just as far as the beauty.
Speaker 1: Around me was a whole city that had been underwater
Speaker 1: at one point, so it was all white stones, Ephesus,
Speaker 1: and I just was in heaven. They asked me back,
Speaker 1: and I said, I'll come back in a full moon
Speaker 1: if you'll get the city there to walk through there
Speaker 1: in the full moon, and they did. Yeah. It was
Speaker 1: a big wall that sounds in edible, so beautiful. When
Speaker 1: you would be on stage and when you'd be singing,
Speaker 1: are you thinking about the words? Are you thinking about
Speaker 1: the story of the song, are you thinking about what
Speaker 1: you're doing? Are you taking in what's around you? Are
Speaker 1: you hearing the audience? Do you disappear? What's the feeling
Speaker 1: that's going on inside during a concert? All of the above, Rick,
Speaker 1: All of the above. I mean sometimes I'm thinking about
Speaker 1: the words because I have to, because I don't know
Speaker 1: them that well, or they're in a foreign language. Sometimes
Speaker 1: I feel very much with the audience for doing a
Speaker 1: song together, and then I have to say that there
Speaker 1: were times when the audience is so lousy that I
Speaker 1: am planning what I'm going to wear to bed on
Speaker 1: the bus and I didn't want to tell people that,
Speaker 1: but I can now because it's all over. But there
Speaker 1: are those moments when you're doing your grocery list. But
Speaker 1: for the most part, like ninety eight percent of the time,
Speaker 1: you're there and watching and being with I had an
Speaker 1: un unfortunate characteristic of seeing everything, absolutely everything. If I
Speaker 1: see him, somebody tilt their wrist, I know they're looking
Speaker 1: at their watch, and I'm thinking, oaks. I wonder if
Speaker 1: I'm going on too long, you know, so I caught
Speaker 1: everything and somebody stifling a yawn, I would think the
Speaker 1: same thing, Oh dear, I've gone on long and so on.
Speaker 1: We'll be back with more from Joan Bayass. We're back
Speaker 1: with the rest of Rick Ruban's conversation with Joan Byass.
Speaker 1: How would you say activism has changed over the course
Speaker 1: of your life from how did you see it when
Speaker 1: you were fifteen and how do you see it now. Well,
Speaker 1: in some ways it's absolutely consistent. You know, when I
Speaker 1: was fifteen, was the first activism I did was on
Speaker 1: my own, and I stayed in school during an air raid.
Speaker 1: Drill was all, you know, sound goes off. Also was
Speaker 1: to run home or have your parents pick you up
Speaker 1: before the bomb gets here from Russia, you know. And
Speaker 1: I asked my father, who's a physicist, how long it
Speaker 1: would take a missile to get from Moscow to Palo
Speaker 1: alto high school. And it was clear to me that
Speaker 1: it was all just ridiculous. So as a you know, protest,
Speaker 1: I stayed in class. And it's pretty fascinating. I mean
Speaker 1: I went down to the office and pink slip or
Speaker 1: whatever and talked to the secretaries, the principle vice. Principally,
Speaker 1: I had no idea, you know, about what we were
Speaker 1: really doing on that day, So I started started early.
Speaker 1: And in some ways that the kind of protests you
Speaker 1: do on your own, and you know, and as some
Speaker 1: of the some of the things I admire so much,
Speaker 1: like you know, Gretta said Gretat Thumberg sitting in front
Speaker 1: of Parliament all by herself, Kaepernick taking a knee all
Speaker 1: by himself. You kind of cross your fingers and hope
Speaker 1: somebody will join you, but you do it anyway. So
Speaker 1: that part remains the same. And I think trying to
Speaker 1: find a way to explain how it is we want
Speaker 1: to explain it, how we want people to hear us
Speaker 1: is just it's different now. And it's different partly in
Speaker 1: my mind because there was a period. There was a
Speaker 1: time period when, as one young kid told me after
Speaker 1: that period said, you know, you guys had everything. You
Speaker 1: had the political reason to be on the streets, you
Speaker 1: had the music, you had the songwriters, you had the glue.
Speaker 1: And what we're missing is the glue. I think that
Speaker 1: the feeling that we're all together in this. And I
Speaker 1: can say that for young people who never experienced that.
Speaker 1: We all got to experience it when Obama was running
Speaker 1: for office and it was a high five strangers on
Speaker 1: the subway. That can't continue. I don't think when you're
Speaker 1: in office it didn't. But everybody that I know was
Speaker 1: aware enough to say, oh my god, this is what
Speaker 1: it could feel like. And we don't have that feeling now.
Speaker 1: We have lots of good things happening, we have people
Speaker 1: taking risks. We don't have that cohesive stuff that makes
Speaker 1: us feel like a movement and be a movement. Have
Speaker 1: you seen protests any particular protest songs change in meaning
Speaker 1: over the years, Like when you first heard them, they
Speaker 1: meant one thing, and then over time either the meaning
Speaker 1: is changed or the context is change in a way
Speaker 1: where either the song becomes obsolete or it takes on
Speaker 1: a whole new interpretation. I have to tell you this
Speaker 1: is a fun story too. I was in Brazil and
Speaker 1: I was not allowed to sing anywhere officially. So I
Speaker 1: got into a big audience. This was the plan, or
Speaker 1: to friends, who got me in the middle of an
Speaker 1: audience and at a certain point the singer I was
Speaker 1: supposed to sing, but they wouldn't let me. So the
Speaker 1: person performing that night would stop and it would have
Speaker 1: said something, and I would stand up by myself in
Speaker 1: the middle of this auditorium and sing. So I sang
Speaker 1: a couple of songs, wonderful response. And then I sang
Speaker 1: a song. This probably the most famous song I've ever sung,
Speaker 1: but it's in Europe. It's Here's to You. It's about
Speaker 1: Saco and Vinzetti, and I sang this it's a little
Speaker 1: kind of a little chant and it's so popular in
Speaker 1: Spain and Italy and France. It's what they wait for
Speaker 1: at the end of the concert. And it's a protest song.
Speaker 1: And I sang this, there was this dead silence. It
Speaker 1: had been taken to be used as a recruiting song
Speaker 1: for the army. So yeah, that's exactly what you're talking about.
Speaker 1: And that's amazing. It's amazing how these things can happen,
Speaker 1: either with us watching them or without us knowing. We're
Speaker 1: just like, oh, the whole context just changed. That's amazing.
Speaker 1: You got to test it out ahead of time, is
Speaker 1: what I learned from that. So you were allowed to
Speaker 1: physically be in Brazil, you just weren't allowed to sing
Speaker 1: in front of an audience, you know. I was allowed
Speaker 1: to have a press conference every morning, which I did,
Speaker 1: but it was the singing. They didn't want me singing.
Speaker 1: And I talked to the press about it. I said,
Speaker 1: why is this going on? And they said something about, well,
Speaker 1: Brazilians are very emotional and that if they would be
Speaker 1: moved not by the words but by the music, that
Speaker 1: was the only explanation everybody gave me. That this is
Speaker 1: a country where the music is what moves people to do.
Speaker 1: One thing and another and that that would be not
Speaker 1: desirable by the government. Tell me how you see protest
Speaker 1: songs functioning in society, that, what they do, what they
Speaker 1: don't do that, how does it work? Do you mean?
Speaker 1: Now ever? Ever? Oh, I suppose it is the emotional factor.
Speaker 1: And I mean you can listen to somebody talk forever,
Speaker 1: speeches forever, but the music literally literally crosses the barriers
Speaker 1: one country to another from one. I mean, I remember
Speaker 1: when I was second album came out, and there was
Speaker 1: a guy. They told me about it later in the
Speaker 1: record stores. My records were all piled up like that,
Speaker 1: and this guy wanted to buy one, but he didn't
Speaker 1: want to buy one, but he did, and apparently he
Speaker 1: paced back and forth and then he said that bitch
Speaker 1: Shirken sing he was a Republican, couldn't stand my politics,
Speaker 1: and he bought the album. No, he does had Tony.
Speaker 1: That's ridiculous. So it crossed whatever that barrier. Unbelievable for
Speaker 1: a protest song to work. Does the song have to
Speaker 1: be great regardless of the content. I don't think so.
Speaker 1: I first of all, I think it's about context. I
Speaker 1: mean I used to saying green grass of Home, which
Speaker 1: has nothing to do with politics, and I would dedicate
Speaker 1: it to my husband who was in jail for draft resistance,
Speaker 1: and so it had we just take a song that
Speaker 1: hasn't nothing to do with politics, and you put it
Speaker 1: in that and then you've made your point and everybody's
Speaker 1: enjoyed the song, and it's kind of a win win.
Speaker 1: What do you think is the greatest protest song I've
Speaker 1: ever written? Or what's or should I say, what's your
Speaker 1: favorite protest song? Made better question? Oh? I think, um, well,
Speaker 1: there's the Italian when I was talking about, but that's
Speaker 1: not known. I would think that probably blowing in the Wind,
Speaker 1: because I've heard it in every language. I've heard boy
Speaker 1: scouts in Germany on the beach singing blowing in the wind,
Speaker 1: blowing as the wind, you know. And it's just partly
Speaker 1: because it's known most songs. You learn the hook and
Speaker 1: learn a bit of the course. People all around the
Speaker 1: world know every word to blowing in the wind, So
Speaker 1: it's a joy to sing beautiful. Can you I feel
Speaker 1: uncomfortable asking this, but I want to know the song
Speaker 1: that you're talking about that's not known. Is there a
Speaker 1: way you could demonstrate it without feeling like I'm asking
Speaker 1: for anything that goes against what you're doing. It just
Speaker 1: says it was written by Morticone. It was a film
Speaker 1: about Saco and Vinzetti, and they came to me. I
Speaker 1: was in my hotel room in Rome, and said will
Speaker 1: you write the music for this movie? And I said
Speaker 1: I couldn't possibly, but he gave me these gave me
Speaker 1: the music and they wanted three ballads written, and I did,
Speaker 1: wrote one a day and then that was done, and
Speaker 1: then he said, oh, this one more thing. I want
Speaker 1: to put a tag at the end of the song.
Speaker 1: It was just catchy, little brief melody and what I
Speaker 1: write the words, and I just said, here's to you,
Speaker 1: Nicola and Bart, rest forever in our hearts. The last
Speaker 1: and final moment is yours. This agony is your triumph.
Speaker 1: And I have to say that it was a combination
Speaker 1: of the words and the little melody and whatever happened happened.
Speaker 1: And if you'll find it under Nicola and Bart amazing, amazing,
Speaker 1: And that's and that has lived. It has taken on
Speaker 1: a life of its own forever, and every summer it
Speaker 1: comes out again in Italy. It's a big hit. And
Speaker 1: if I had taken the royalties for that, I wouldn't
Speaker 1: have had to ever do anything else. But I wouldn't
Speaker 1: because I figured Saco and Vinzetti is sacred territory. I
Speaker 1: didn't have any right taking money for that. We're just
Speaker 1: kind of ridiculous because the record company did. But it
Speaker 1: was my stuffy way of I'm turning down more money.
Speaker 1: You've been good at that over your career, I've been
Speaker 1: really good at that. Yeah. Yeah. Have you ever had
Speaker 1: a relationship with gospel music? Yeah? I have. First of
Speaker 1: all in the South fifty nine sixty well sixty two
Speaker 1: or sixty three, and the black churches down there and
Speaker 1: working with King and his people and all of us.
Speaker 1: And I would end up in gospel and the churches.
Speaker 1: And I remember that one of the churches that people
Speaker 1: had already it was a hot day, I think it
Speaker 1: was in Mississippi, and people were they called it getting happy,
Speaker 1: you know, they're going stiff and being carried out by
Speaker 1: the women in the white dresses. And I heard the
Speaker 1: preachers saying, a good friend from the north is here
Speaker 1: today to sing for us. I thought, oh my god,
Speaker 1: that means me. And I went and sang break bread
Speaker 1: together and a couple of people went got happy. I thought,
Speaker 1: you know what, I just got my strives. Wow, and
Speaker 1: everybody sang with me. Yeah. So that would be a
Speaker 1: genuine relationship with with gospel incredible. And then later on
Speaker 1: I had a producer, Alan Abrahams, who produced three albums
Speaker 1: and mostly what he does is gospel beautiful. Let's talk
Speaker 1: about when folk music and rock music joined together. What
Speaker 1: is the feeling in the air when that was going on. Well,
Speaker 1: I was still a snotty purist. So the famous time
Speaker 1: of Dylan coming to Newport and going electric, I was
Speaker 1: just like Pete Seeger, how can he do this to us,
Speaker 1: you know, our golden boy? And so I was really behind,
Speaker 1: you know, I was on the slow freight, as my
Speaker 1: mother would say. And then you know, sort of watching
Speaker 1: what Dylan meant to the Beatles and vice versa when
Speaker 1: they came to the States. I think whatever it was
Speaker 1: in me that had a problem sort of wore off
Speaker 1: because the music was good. You know, did you get
Speaker 1: to spend time with the Beatles at all? And a
Speaker 1: funny evening with I have these stories, you know, I
Speaker 1: guess that's what life is about. You're my age. It
Speaker 1: is mostly stories. M Yeah. When the first time they
Speaker 1: came to the States, I had sung in the Red
Speaker 1: Rocks Amphitheater and they were the the next night, and
Speaker 1: I had the next night off, so I stayed and
Speaker 1: I was in there. They have a labyrinth for the
Speaker 1: press down under the stage, and I was down there
Speaker 1: with I swear two hundred press and somebody came and said,
Speaker 1: the Beatles would like to meet you. And I went
Speaker 1: to their dressing room and I said, Hi, I'm Joan,
Speaker 1: and one by what was it, Hello, I'm Ringo, Hello,
Speaker 1: I'm John. I said, listen, you guys are in the
Speaker 1: cover of every newspaper magazine in the world. I know
Speaker 1: who you are. Yeah. And then I traveled with them
Speaker 1: out to California and watched some more of their shows,
Speaker 1: and it was It's something I'd never experienced before. I mean,
Speaker 1: when they came out on stage at Red Rocks, it
Speaker 1: would be like standing in back of a jet and
Speaker 1: the sky lit up with the cameras. It was bright,
Speaker 1: and there was just screaming. Was you didn't hear them
Speaker 1: at all. You didn't hear them unless your head was
Speaker 1: in one of the speakers. And a few years later,
Speaker 1: there is that Epstein was he still with them, their manager,
Speaker 1: whoever it was. They were playing somewhere in San Francisco,
Speaker 1: and I was there, and there was this little second
Speaker 1: of time when the screaming stopped. He said, this is
Speaker 1: our last tour in the States. That was their last show,
Speaker 1: that San Francisco is their last show. This is it,
Speaker 1: We're not coming back. Did you have any you talked
Speaker 1: about paying attention to the audience, always being with them, seeing,
Speaker 1: noticing if things were going well or not. Yeah, did
Speaker 1: you have any tricks if you felt like things were
Speaker 1: starting to go south at a show that you could
Speaker 1: do to get the audience back. Mostly what I did
Speaker 1: when it really got rough was because I've had something
Speaker 1: of a band for many, many years. We'd look at
Speaker 1: each other, you know, and just a little wink or
Speaker 1: a little cross eye meant we had each other. So
Speaker 1: it didn't matter so much about trying to get somebody
Speaker 1: if they weren't really gettable. But I mean, I would
Speaker 1: say that was so rare that we really wanted to
Speaker 1: chuck it in. Yeah, I feel like people would come
Speaker 1: to see you because they loved you. That seems like
Speaker 1: we always thought so too. Once in a while, you know,
Speaker 1: like a like a resort town or something. They're coming
Speaker 1: because that's the only game in town, and they've been
Speaker 1: out on the beach getting too much sun and drinking.
Speaker 1: So you know, there's just so much you can do
Speaker 1: in that situation. Yeah, tell me how you started painting. Well,
Speaker 1: all my life, I've sketched, you know. When I was
Speaker 1: in second grade, I I sketched a Mickey Mouse and
Speaker 1: sold it for three cents. And Bambi and then I
Speaker 1: sketched because they had an eye for likenesses like a draw.
Speaker 1: And then in junior high school, I started drawing Jimmy
Speaker 1: Deane and then members of the class, and I sold
Speaker 1: some of them, as I remember, that's very funny. And
Speaker 1: then just undisciplined different kinds of painting. During my recovery work,
Speaker 1: I did dreams of recovery painting, you know. But this
Speaker 1: the portrait started, I mean, this journey into portraiture started
Speaker 1: about nine years ago and I just all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: it was an all of a sudden, passed the frame
Speaker 1: shop and looked in. I thought, hmmm, I think I'll
Speaker 1: get my hands into this one. And I started and
Speaker 1: it never stopped that, you know, the first for the
Speaker 1: first year and a half. I think I did mostly
Speaker 1: collages and then I thought, you know what, I really
Speaker 1: would like to do a portrait. I'll bet that's really difficult.
Speaker 1: And guess what it wasn't And I didn't have to
Speaker 1: go to school. I get tricks from different people. How
Speaker 1: do you paint eyeglasses? So you know, somebody tells me
Speaker 1: a little trick. That's all I needed. I'm sure there's
Speaker 1: a lot that I could be learning, and I just
Speaker 1: don't want to leave my own studio and go to school.
Speaker 1: You know, how much time do you spend painting? Typically, well,
Speaker 1: in a time like when getting ready for that last show,
Speaker 1: and when I'm in the cycle of doing paintings, it
Speaker 1: could be a few hours a day, a few three
Speaker 1: or four hours a day. And like now, since the
Speaker 1: last painting, which was Stacey Abrams, that's a few months ago,
Speaker 1: I haven't done anything. I just started. This is the
Speaker 1: first day I've been back in the studio and I
Speaker 1: started painting. There was a photograph of one of the
Speaker 1: policemen who was being beaten. It's an extraordinary It's a
Speaker 1: profile of him and this panicky look and you can't
Speaker 1: see any of the details, just this face and I thought, well,
Speaker 1: you know, there's probably an entire exhibit from the insurrection.
Speaker 1: I would love to see those. Any relationship between interpretive
Speaker 1: singing and interpreting in paint, Oh my, I guess I
Speaker 1: don't know if there's a relationship. There are similarities, you know,
Speaker 1: they just sort of refusal to get any formal education
Speaker 1: about it that it just has to come. I know
Speaker 1: that it's as you know, it's a mystery to me
Speaker 1: where the voice came from and how it worked. And
Speaker 1: it's equally it's a mystery to me how these paintings
Speaker 1: are showing up. And then we talked a little bit
Speaker 1: on the show the other night about upside down drawings.
Speaker 1: They're just fascinating to me. I literally draw the thing
Speaker 1: upside down, and sometimes I know what I'm going to draw.
Speaker 1: Sometimes I don't. I just start in and then I
Speaker 1: turn it background, and I see what it looks like,
Speaker 1: and I see what it's saying to me, and usually
Speaker 1: a pun or something silly. Turn it background and I
Speaker 1: write what I you know, what came to my mind
Speaker 1: and all of that's insane, and I know that the
Speaker 1: something happens in the brain that allows that to happen.
Speaker 1: I don't know what it is. I don't really care.
Speaker 1: It's beautiful. I imagine. It's not so different than the
Speaker 1: way many people I know write songs, which is almost
Speaker 1: like a form of automatic writing. You know. It's it's
Speaker 1: not sitting down to write a particular thing. It's more
Speaker 1: almost through improvisation, words appear and then looking at what
Speaker 1: those words are, trying to say that the song reveals itself.
Speaker 1: That sounds like a good possibility. I haven't written anything
Speaker 1: for thirty years except that snarky song about Trump that
Speaker 1: I just quit. So my granddaughter writes. And she was
Speaker 1: sitting at the piano and she was singing this song
Speaker 1: and then it got quiet. I looked at her, she
Speaker 1: staring up at the ceiling, and when she stopped, I said,
Speaker 1: were you just writing? And she said, yeah, the word
Speaker 1: I was singing the words. Thank you so much for
Speaker 1: talking and it's great seeing you again. And I'm glad
Speaker 1: you're so well. You look great. Thanks Rick, cheers. Thanks
Speaker 1: to Joan Baiez for sharing so many fascinating stories from
Speaker 1: her life. You can hear all of our favorite Joan
Speaker 1: Baias songs on my playlist at Broken record podcast dot
Speaker 1: com and be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel
Speaker 1: at YouTube dot com slash Broken Record Podcast, where you
Speaker 1: can find extended cuts of new and old episodes, and
Speaker 1: you can follow us on Twitter at broken Record. Broken
Speaker 1: Record is produced with helpful Leah Rose, Jason Gambrel, Martin Gonzalez,
Speaker 1: Eric Sandler, and Jennifer Sanchez, with engineering help from Nick Chafey.
Speaker 1: Our executive producer is Nei La Belle. Broken Record is
Speaker 1: a production of Pushkin Industries and it's like a show.
Speaker 1: Please remember to share, rate, review us on your podcast at.
Speaker 1: Our theme music by Kenny Beats. I'm justin Richmond, bas