Baez

The rare appearance by the folk icon was at peak moment at New York's annual Tibet House benefit Joan Baez has kept a relatively low public profile since wrapping up her Fare Thee Well tour in 2019, performing only on special occasions. One of those took place Monday night at the annual Tibet House benefit at New York’s Carnegie Hall, where she topped a bill that included Maggie Rogers, Laurie Anderson, Maya Hawke, the Philip Glass Ensemble, Tenzin Choegyal, and the Scorchio Quartet.…

At the start of the new documentary, “Joan Baez I Am A Noise,” there’s a quote from the writer Gabriel García Márquez that fills the screen for a moment: “Everyone has three lives: the public, the private, and the secret.” It’s a signal that this film has stories to share about the 82-year-old folk singer and political activist that have never before been told. That wasn’t the original intent, Baez says with a wry smile on a recent video call. “It was going to be about the last tour,” Baez says of a run of 2018 farewell…

Joan Baez doesn’t like being called a legend.“I realized that I hated it because I was not also current,” Baez said Sunday at the L.A. Times Festival of Books to a packed room of people for whom Baez is a soundtrack of their lives.But just earlier this month a video of Baez with expelled Tennessee state Rep. Justin Jones went viral. The two bumped into each other at Newark airport and sang an impromptu rendition of “We Shall Overcome,” an anthem of the civil rights movement that Baez notably sang during the March on…

Good morning, and welcome to a special edition of the L.A. Times Book Club newsletter. It is Day 2 of the Los Angeles Times’ annual Festival of Books. I am Boris Kachka, the L.A. Times books editor. Following an exciting day of actors and novelists opening up on their work and their lives, the closing day of the fest digs into ... more of that, of course, including appearances by mystery king Walter Mosley and two stateswomen of pop music. But there’s also a focus on political leaders, as well as the big-picture issues…

She may have retired from active performing, but Joan Baez has hardly been out of the spotlight. Since she stopped touring and recording in 2019, bringing the curtain down on a 60-year singing career, the 82-year-old folk music icon and social justice activist has fashioned a second career as a visual artist. She’s had two exhibits of “Mischief Makers,” acrylic portraits of inspirational figures like Martin Luther King Jr., Greta Thunberg and Nelson Mandela. And last week marked the publication of a new book of her…

Joan Baez Documentary Plumbs Dark Corners Of Her Life (Photo Credit – Facebook) In “Joan Baez: I Am a Noise”, which premiered on Friday at the Berlin Film Festival, the folk icon with a supple soprano voice and a long history of activism, takes a disarmingly candid look on her life as she faces the end of her 60-year musical career, writes ‘Variety’. The immersive documentary is co-directed by Karen O’Connor, Miri Navasky, and Maeve O’Boyle. They weave Baez’s 2018 ‘Fare Thee Well’ final concert tour with her early…