Can such a thing be possible, darlings?????? On January 9 of this year, Joan Baez, "The Barefoot Madonna," who came out of the sky, descending on Club 47 in Boston, around 1958, to become one of the social icons of the Sixties, and then the last century, reached her jubilee year. Joan Baez is 75!!!!!!!!!!!
How can this be possible? She was supposed to remain young forever. Just like my generation, which is not.
Of course, I went through a Joan phase. I bought a guitar, tried some chords, but my voice made it, not my playing. I can still sing all the Joan classics, and, sometimes, I do.
To think, I have never seen her live yet!
Here is one of my favorites of Joan's; one I first learned to sing, "Geordie." Listen!
Her birthday prompted me to check youTube to see if anyone had posted my favorite obscure Joan Baez song- yep, here it is, still makes me cry:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZ0JGjKYVdU
"Rejoice In The Sun", played over the end credits of the classic 1972 sci-fi/environmentalist film "Silent Running". That song played over that final scene made me an emotional wreck as a child: I was inconsolable for days. Boy, did my parents regret taking me to that movie. You'd think they would have learned after I freaked out at the ending of "Escape From The Planet Of The Apes" the year before (I had a terror of being abandoned, and both films ended with a "child" figure adrift and alone in a void).
Joan contributed two or three songs, and inspired Peter Schickele's instrumental score, which has a cult following among Baez fans and anyone who saw the movie when it was in theaters. For thirty years after, the rare soundtrack LP was a hot item, fetching up to $200 at Greenwich Village record stores until the rise of eBay killed the value of most collectibles (I snagged my LP for $30 a few years ago).
I completely forgot the "Silent Running" song. I was aware of it,
ReplyDeletebut that was not the kind of movie I would see--no gowns or night
clubs, darling!
But to think she is 75! How old that makes me feel!