Joan Baez (Broken Record Live)

26:49This December, start a new tradition by taking care of you. Our listeners get 10 % off at BetterHelp.com slash broken. That's BetterHelp.com slash broken. We're back with my conversation with Joan Baez. You mentioned Dr. King earlier. When did you first meet Dr. King? You know, I don't remember the first actual meeting. I remember when I saw him, which was a life-changing event. And I was at a gathering of high school students put on by the American Friends Service Committee. And they were from all over the country. And we would discuss politics and nonviolence. And each year they would do this and they'd have a speaker.

27:29in the year I went, so I was 16, it was Dr. King. And he was talking about, I can't even say it, I'm getting in tears, he was talking about the bus boycott. And I started to cry and I couldn't stop because he was doing what we've been talking about and studying. And there was this guy, what, he's 29 or something? 26, if I was 16, he was 26. And he was just doing and engaged and with people and taking the risks. The risk is always, to me, it's the point at which there will be no social change worth talking about until some people are willing to take a risk.

28:13That's easier said than done, you know, but that's when, I mean, they were taking the risk, every single one of those folk, you know, including Dr. King. As you move on into your career, I mean, obviously, I've always wondered, did your activism feel separate from your music or did your music compel your activism? Both. When I was 13, I had a ukulele and I started to play. And what I remember learning about that ukulele was a lot of different songs, a lot of rhythm and blues, because that's what I loved. And they had only four chords max. And then I learned Emmett Till. and I realized how connected I was to that.

28:54I mean, parents are Quakers, so that's pacifism, nonviolence, activism. And so to me, the dots began to connect. And then when I was 15, I stayed in school during, when you're supposed to duck and cover, and the Russians are going to send a missile over. Well, that's not so out of the question now. It was going to blow up my high school. I thought, this is so dumb. and the kids are doing it. They're going to go home and the siren goes off. They're going to run home or they're going to have bomb parties and there's swimming pools. And I thought, I'm going to stay in school to just resist it. And so I did.

29:32And that was purely political. I had no music involved with it at that moment. So that age, I was really waking up to activism. This is why Dr. King felt such a revelation. Sorry, now I'm going back, but your parents are Quakers. And then you're seeing Dr. King, who essentially was schooled in nonviolent activism from Bayard Rustin, who was a Quaker. So, of course, that must have really, really resonated. Yeah, it all resonated. Bayard was an extraordinary man, you know, behind the scenes because he was so sensitive. They didn't want his homosexuality to ruin anything in the public perception of the movement.

30:16and the guy was a massive force behind Dr. King and behind all of us. Really, I don't think any of that would have happened without Bayard. His philosophies underpinned almost all of that work Dr. King, Ralph Abernathy, all of them were doing. How was it toggling between the glamour, you could say, of music and, you know, you're in two worlds you're dealing with luminaries in music you're dealing with luminaries in sort of public life and how would you toggle between those two things you know I kind of didn't my battle was with not wanting to be commercial you know and I thought that was well we're going back to I'd go to hell you know if I sang at a place that had booze in it that going you know becoming commercial was a really really bad thing for me and And I don't know where I drew that line, but I mean, for instance, the stage had to be black with nothing on it.

31:18No flowers, no flags, no. And I thought, well, this is really simple for people. They said I was impossible because they set up these great sets on TV and I say, strike everything. You know, I'll hear, you know, I'm Miss Perfectly Folk, whatever, and really afraid to veer from that, that I was doing something really bad. Almost like the way the gospel artist might have thought, or like a Ray Charles might have thought about secular music versus gospel. No, it's very similar to that. That level of dedication to like a higher cause. And that level of silliness. I mean, you know, I didn't know that at the time, but I overdid it at every turn, you know.

31:59I remember one time I decided no more limousines for me. This is not right. This is not what everybody does. they have normal cars. So I stuck to that for about two weeks. And then somebody picked me up in this battered old Volkswagen bus and it was so uncomfortable. I thought, oh, screw it. You know, bring on the limousines and the red carpet. Don't blame you. Don't blame you. Yesterday, I landed, found out Tina Turner passed away. And I was just curious if, like, when or how or if you guys had crossed paths? I have my great Tina stories. When my career was tanking, she was just coming back up for her second round, you know, as a lioness.

32:48And she, yeah. And so I met her in Germany and they were celebrating her and her success. And somebody asked her how she felt about all this. She said, I'm just so happy to be rid of Ike. I don't care about the rest. And then, you know, she was really sweet with me. She realized that I was in a pickle, you know, and she came over and I said, what should I do? She said, girlfriend, get a wig. First of all, you need, y 'all need a wig. I said, oh, good. Is that all I need? You know? And then we were on the same TV show together and I saw her perform and she performed Steel Claw. You ever hear that song?

33:27It is as ferocious and evil and she's perfect for it. And she came off the stage and I said, Tina, your mother mated with a scorpion. And I meant it as a compliment and she took it as a compliment. That is the most accurate description of a Tina Turner performance I have ever heard. Was that TV show? I didn't realize that there was a sequel to the Tammy show in 66, the big TNT show. And you performed on that with Ike and Tina, with Tina. Was it that show? No, no, no, no. This is years later. She and I were on tour in different parts of Germany. And I had one night at the Olympia and she had two weeks booked there to rehearse.

34:14I said, oh boy, I got a long way to go. I see why you went to refer advice. Makes a lot of sense. Also, yesterday, Bill Lee passed, who understandably Tina Turner is incredible and just deserves everything. but Bill Lee, really integral, it seemed, to the early folk scene that you guys were part of. This was Spike Lee's father. He was the bass player. The first time, first or second time, I don't remember, I went to Newport, Odetta and her husband, Danny, was that his name? They drove me and he was, Billy was her bass player. And so I was in good hands, yeah. Yeah, he was such a great bass player.

34:59Yeah. toggle between jazz and folk kind of seamlessly. Beautiful. Back to my original point, you're hanging with Tina Turner. You're hanging with Baird Rustin and Dr. King. I shouldn't say hanging. I should say that you're working with these people. And I imagine to some degree, your career might've probably suffered to some degree or not suffered, but I imagine you probably could have, if you had taken the advice of Albert Grossman and signed to Columbia and maybe just - Yeah, they were so sure. I mean, the Grossmans and the people at Columbia were so sure that I would go with Columbia because that had Dylan and Peter Paul and Mary, Janis Joplin, and we were just collecting them like that.

35:43So that was the place to go. And because of all these things about going to hell and going commercial, I chose Vanguard Record Company, which is basically a classical music record company. And I was with them for a long time. I had a real sense about the folk music, did a lot of choosing songs with me, and really got into it in a way that I know Columbia would not have done, or I think they would not have done. We should pull up image one, if you can pull that up. You wrote this beautiful Day O Day, Harry Belafonte. Daylight coming, we want to go home. Harry, similarly. I sent that to his wife.

36:26Did you? Yeah. He was so happy. Yeah. Did you get a response? He saw it? Oh, yeah. Well, no, he didn't. It was just after he died. Just after he passed. We saw him a couple of times in his mid-90s. And he was just... My son was with me and another friend. And when we left talking with Harry, my son burst into tears. He said, I feel like I've been in the presence of a fucking prophet. And I said, well, that's because you have been. But this is slightly divorced from that. But OK. so when I'm drawing that, there's this girl, and I see she's got a flower pot, I thought it was a flower pot, or a little basket, you know, where the flower's coming out, and so I turn it around, and I see there are palm trees sticking out, and so, okay, I'll turn it back, now I know there are palm trees, I'll stick something in, there's this little elf, kind of dancing, turn it back over, and he's kicking her in the side, and so he's saying, Deo Deo, and that's from the palm trees, right and then that's just my sidekick and that's what came out it's so whimsical i love it was harry's uh calypso music was that at all in your oh my god it was part of your sphere of influences absolutely i had not even heard odette i hadn't heard anybody really it was rhythm and blues and my mom brought home this album of harry bella funny we just stared at it nobody should look like that he was so handsome I don't even know if we played it for the first two weeks we just stared at it I remember my father being a little unnerved by that and then I played it the first I don't know if it got printed or not but this first album I did one half of the songs were Elefanti songs that I had taken I took them right directly off that album.

38:23Wow. How was he thought of in the, in the folk scene? Was he thought of in that? I mean, because he was taking old songs and, you know, in the early snooty folk days, he was off limits because he was, you know, banging on drums and having a good time, you know, and then, you know, and I didn't know, of course, none of us knew at that point that he was going to end up being political activists and working with Dr. King. But what a lovely way to arrive, you know? Yeah. After this last ad break, we'll be back with the rest of my conversation with the great Joan Baez, live from Chicago. I firmly believe when it comes to the holidays, you fall into one of two camps, someone who loves holiday music or someone who won't admit they love holiday music.

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41:17Every December, we start singing at church, around the fire, in our cars, with the radio turned up. But have we ever stopped to ask, where did our favorite Christmas carols come from? And what makes them so magical? I think it's probably one of the most perfect tunes to play and to sing. The voices are converging. They're adding this more complex and chromatic harmony. And it gives us that climactic arrival point. Hark is a podcast about the meaning and the making of Christmas carols. Get into the spirit of the season and listen to Hark, the stories behind our favorite Christmas carols. Available now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and at americamagazine.org.

42:08And now the rest of my conversation with Joan Baez. Speaking of the early snooty folk days, as a person who was barely, you know, gleaning in my parents' eyes when you started your career, I came to folk music relatively late, and I came through the Kingston Trio, who I love, and I was dismayed to find out. I love them too. That was not cool. You did. I had to hide them at the back of the record collection. Really? Yeah, because you're not something. They were way too commercial. You had Kingston Trio records. I loved them. Yeah. But I couldn't let anybody know. I mean, my snooty folks sing, no, ma 'am, no.

42:48I feel vindicated. I love them. I feel vindicated. Great. I couldn't hide them on my iPod in the day, so I just took them off because I didn't want to be. Guilty pleasure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Replace it with the Latter-day Dylan record or something to atone for my sins. Can we go to the next image? I think it's image. Make sure I got my images right. There we go. Yeah, this one. That's very Sophie's Choice looking to me. They made me choose. So I'm assuming, I'm thinking between her two kids or three kids. They made her choose which one she was going to be able to keep. That's my guess. And you?

43:28My guess was much lamer than that. She kind of looked like Joni Mitchell to me. I tried to warn you. I didn't want to tell you. She's checking which label, which record label to go on. They may be true. Well, you know, I didn't know. I mean. She's saying Columbia or Vanguard? No, no, it's not quite what I would, you know, no. So I'm not, I thought, okay, well, it looks like Joni Mitchell. Maybe was she, did she feel like she was being, did she ever feel like she was being pitted against other women in the industry? That is so wild. I mean, to have an idea what people go through looking at this stuff, you know?

44:07Sorry. In a billion years, I wouldn't have thought that that was Joni Mitchell searching for record company. Someone else want to give an interpretation?

44:21If we go back to the genesis of this, where would you have started? That oval means it's ahead. So you'd start with the oval. I think so. Usually, yeah. And then an ear or two. So by the time you do an oval, though, you know, oh, okay, it's probably a face. Yep. So then you go to ears. I go to ears. I go to some weird hair thing. The eyes, a lot of the eyes are very similar, except they're looking in different places. You know, a lot of what's written on there will be determined by what their eyes are doing. Really? Yeah. Yeah. When did you add the tears? Add what? The tears? Yeah. Probably early on to give it some character, whatever it was going to be.

45:05It would make it, you know, have some definition to it. And when did you decide? That it wasn't Joni Mitchell? Yeah. At what point did you decide? It was Odetta? No, it was not Odetta. That was my other guess. Maybe it was Odetta. Yeah.

45:25Why the color? Why the color on the scarf? Oh, I don't know. I just, but each of them has a little bit of color. I just got carried away and started adding a little bit of color to each of these things. If I did too much red, then I'd skip over to, that looks like orange and purple. But you know what I'm thinking is one of my mother's stepmothers was really horrible and her favorite colors were orange and purple. So who knows? That's interesting. Why was she so, what was? She's a schizophrenic lunatic. and she was very abusive to my mother and my mother's sister. My mother's sister, the one who did the standing waves.

46:06So she pulled through, okay. Good, good. Would your mother talk to you about those sorts of things? She did. We'd push her a little bit. I guess she watched a lot of the abuse and so it's maybe even harder, they say, if you're just seeing this stuff that you don't have something to grab onto to try and change or heal. Yeah. My mother discovered antidepressants when she was in her 70s and when she realized she'd been depressed her whole life. She said, oh. Oh, she's saying things like, I didn't realize there were peppers growing on that pepper tree. Oh, there's a... Really, yeah. I had a similar experience.

46:48Similar experience with antidepressants. Similar experience also when I finally got eyeglasses too. I was like, wow. I remember seeing things, you know. Wow, I remember being happy. Wow, this is great. Thank God for... Antidepressants. Antidepressants and eyeglasses. Two things that have saved my life. You had enough of Joni Mitchell? I've had enough of Joni. You know, I really... Well, never mind. You're scoring 100, so go ahead. Okay. Did you... Well, because I thought that perhaps this could have been a choice. Did you ever feel in the industry in those days, a lot of women in the industry that I've spoken to still, I know they feel like they're pitted against one another.

47:34Almost like for a while there could be one black comedian. Now it's just like there can be one woman rapper. Did it feel like there could be, did that pressure to compete against women exist then? You mean for me? For you. I didn't think I had anything to compete against. There was no competition in my weird little brain because I was so insecure in so many ways, but not about this voice, which also is a gift, and I can claim it as a gift. Thank you.

48:16Can we hear some of that voice? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Ain't gonna let nobody turn me around. Turn me around. Turn me around. Ain't gonna let nobody turn me around. Keep on walking. Keep on talking. Marching up to Freedom Land.

48:56Amazing. Can't follow that. We should follow that with Q &A so you guys can try to follow that. Maybe we should, should we turn it over to the audience for some questions? We got some people out there with the microphones. If you want to ask a question, and again, a question, not a comment, I will remind you. story. Somebody gave me his t-shirt and said, please don't tell me your story. And I loved it. And then he commenced to tell me the whole story of how he bought it and where he found it. Our first question will be up here. Hi, Joan. Thank you so much for joining us. This is so cool. My question is, what do you do when you don't know what to do next?

49:44well one of the things i do is i talk to this tree there's a mighty oak tree in a field across from the house and i don't see therapists anymore but i will go and talk to this tree and i will get an answer and i either go to the tree and say listen can you help me understand this problem so i'll feel better and sometimes i just say i want to feel better i don't care what the problem is I just want to feel better. And if it's, what do I do next? That's where I would go, would be that tree. But generally, I don't have to ask the question. It's a great question. Nice and succinct, too. Yeah, well, we have someone up here.

50:26Hello. I've listened to Diamonds and Rust many times, and every time I listen to it, I say, if that's not Dylan you're talking about, but then in your book, you say, no. When Dylan called you, if I remember the book correctly, you denied it, and were you kidding him? I mean, how could that not be Dylan? I don't understand how I denied it. In your book, when you wrote about Diamonds and Rust in your book, you said that, at least if my memory serves, and at my age it may not, you said that when he called you to thank you about writing about him in Diamonds and Rust, you told him, now that wasn't about you okay I got it now first of all he would never call and say anything about the song so I was joking with him because at the beginning of Rolling Thunder and he hadn't paid any attention had no hello no whatever came directly over and said hey you gonna do that one about the guy with the blue eyes I said oh you mean my husband and he was not a happy camper.

51:38That's the story, though.

51:44I have two questions. My first question is, do you have any communications whatsoever with Joni Mitchell? Don't bring up Joni Mitchell. Yeah, I know. And my second one is, what type of activism are you involved in today? okay first of all i never had a closeness with joanie i've worked with her a couple of times and i admire her enormously and i was really happy to see her where was it newport when she came yeah i thought that was brilliant what was the next question what do you do for activism currently oh what am i doing how do you yeah how do you activate your activism well first of all i wrote the book.

52:27I mean, I'm thinking about that's probably more political than a number of things that I could have done. And if something comes along that I really think is appropriate for me to be out there with, then I'm sure I'll be out there. And I can, you know, I would suggest to other people that they go make good trouble because it makes their lives, you know, really worth something, I believe. What you got on? That's my t-shirt. Yay. Okay. Any other questions? Yeah, I got a question. Up here. Up here? Yeah. So that was an interesting story about the box with the tapes in it and so forth that the filmmakers got.

53:04And I think that many people have boxes like that in their attics and so forth with old things and so forth. So I guess I'm curious, how did you decide, like you decided to give it to them to deal with, And then you also said, if I understood right, that you're not going to look at that stuff ever again. Can you talk about how you made those decisions? That's quite profound. I can't wait to see the documentary. Thank you. Thank you. I just meant that after this film is done and I've seen it all, and stuff that I'd never seen before, I didn't know anybody had kept. I have no desire to revisit that and try to drag much more stuff out of those boxes.

53:47I think that's enough. will you destroy them you know I don't know what I'm going to do with them it probably is the time to have a glorious bonfire with a bunch of prayers stuck you know here and there and it's all right guys and it's sacred to do otherwise this stuff it's just a museum they don't want to hear that shit I promise you

54:17I would like to ask you a question. I'm right here. I'm your sound engineer.

54:26I'm originally from Argentina and I would like to ask you about if you see any differences or similarities in the activism in South America and America. I don't know how to answer that question except that I think that some places you pay a heavier toll? You know, it's okay for me to sit here and talk about taking a risk. And in a country like Afghanistan or the Ukraine, taking a risk is a very different thing. And so in Latin America, it's somewhere in between. No. But the bravery it takes anywhere to make that final, you know, I'm just going to do this. I just have to do this. I mean, here it might be, okay, I'm going to go library and I pick out a banned book and I'm going to read it out on the street corner.

55:18I'm going to set up a microphone and a thing and I'm going to read the book. Something like that. And where gays are not supposed to get married, you organize a huge wedding of as many people as you can get. And those are forms of non-violent civil disobedience which are invaluable and scary and we've got to do them anyhow.

55:44Maybe a couple more. Okay, I have a question. My question was, is our country doomed? Yes. And someone who has lived through the civil rights movement, what words of encouragement do you have for somebody like me who's really disheartened with the state of affairs in our country today? Well, your question is an oxymoron. Do I have any hope? Not particularly. But the other day, somebody said, hope is a discipline. You know, I think that's, because I don't consider myself a very hopeful person. I've managed to shift over from being a total pessimist to somebody considering hope. But it would be a practice.

56:34I mean, you have to practice it, because this is not a hopeful world. This is not a hopeful country. This is heading towards, and parts of it already are, a fascist country. So what do we do? Actually, I made a list. I was sharing it with Justin. These people say, what do I do? And I've always given this dumb stare. But now I've made a list of which I will post on my Instagram and or Facebook page with suggestions. I mean, from gun violence to the Ukraine to women's rights to there are all these things somebody could get on different levels. You can donate, you can support, or you can at some point take a risk.

57:17No, all are valuable.

57:22All right, last question. My question is about women in Iran and nonviolence. resistance. You know that they came non-violent on the street and they faced with a bullet in the ice. Execution. And it's going on. For the past two weeks, 50 people have been executed only for being on the street. How do we have this answer? How we can deal with this violence, brutal violence, that people around the world, it's not just Iran, but Iran, I think, is one of the top countries. Yeah, it's up on the top, yeah. All we know is that trying to deal with it with violence is even worse, that you can't crush the state.

58:15I'm not telling anybody what they're supposed to do. I'm just looking at, historically, what has been done and why we've arrived at this state where we looked at violence as the only answer. I wish I had an answer for you. I painted Masha among my mischief makers and it's too overwhelming the sorrow to spend a lot of time thinking about these different places certainly including Iran way high on the list as you said one last one, happy one I hope what advice would you give to new singer-songwriters? you a singer-songwriter? yeah, okay, no I wish I had something brilliant to say except bravo and go make good trouble.

59:04Thank you so much.

59:12I want to thank Joan Baez for the live conversation we had from the Chicago Humanities Festival. Be sure to check out her new book, Am I Pretty When I Fly? Available mostly wherever books are sold. You can hear all of our favorite songs from the great Joan Baez on a playlist at brokenrecordpodcast.com. You can subscribe to our YouTube channel at youtube.com slash brokenrecordpodcast where you can find all of our new episodes. Broken Record is produced with help from Leah Rose, Jason Gambrell, Ben Taladay, Nisha Vencut, Jordan McMillan, and Eric Sandler. Our editor is Sophie Cran. Broken Record is a production of Pushkin Industries.

59:53If you love this show and others from Pushkin, consider subscribing to Pushkin Plus. Pushkin Plus is a podcast subscription service that offers bonus content and uninterrupted ad-free listening for only$4.99 a month. Look for Pushkin Plus on Apple Podcast subscriptions. And if you like the show, remember to share, rate, and review us on your podcast app. Our theme music's by Kenny Beats. I'm Justin Richard. This is an ad by BetterHelp. We've all had that epic rideshare experience. Halfway through, your best friends, and they know your aspirations to go find yourself in Portugal. It's human. We're all looking for someone to listen.

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