Singer, musician, social activist, and goodwill ambassador Joan Baez has had a profound and durable influence on American and international music for 50 years.
CAPA presents An Evening with Joan Baez at the Southern Theatre March 9 at 8 p.m.
Baez earned a 2008 Grammy nomination for Best Contemporary Folk/Americana Album for her 24th studio album, Day After Tomorrow.
But her career is far more extensive. In 1958, a 17-year-old Joan Chandos Baez entered Boston University School of Drama. At 18, she was introduced onstage at the first Newport Folk Festival.
Baez recorded her first solo LP for Vanguard Records in 1960. In 1963, Baez began touring with Bob Dylan and recording his songs, a bond that came to symbolize the folk music movement for the next two years.
Baez sang about freedom and Civil Rights from the backs of flatbed trucks in Mississippi to the steps of the Lincoln Memorial at Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King’s March on Washington in 1963. In 1964, she withheld 60 percent of her income tax from the IRS to protest military spending and participated in the birth of the Free Speech movement at UC Berkeley.
Baez recorded LPs for Vanguard Records, including her biggest career single, a cover of the Band’s The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down in 1971, and her first two releases on A&M.
In 1975, Joan’s self-penned Diamonds & Rust became the title song of an LP with songs by Jackson Browne, Janis Ian, John Prine, Stevie Wonder & Syreeta, Dickey Betts of the Allman Brothers Band and Bob Dylan.
In 1983, Baez performed on the Grammy awards telecast for the first time. In the summer of 1985, she later appeared at the revived Newport Folk Festival, the first gathering there since 1969.
After attending an early Indigo Girls concert in 1990, Joan teamed with the duo and Mary Chapin Carpenter (as Four Voices) for a series of benefit performances. When her album, Play Me Backwards, was released in 1992, it featured songs by Carpenter, John Hiatt, John Stewart, and others.
In 1993, Baez became the first major artist to perform in Sarajevo since the outbreak of the civil war. In 1995, Baez received her third BAMMY as Outstanding Female Vocalist.
In 2003, Baez released Dark Chords on a Big Guitar supported with a 22-city US tour.
In 2007, the 49th annual Grammy Awards presented Baez with the Lifetime Achievement Award.
In advance of Day After Tomorrow’s 2008 release, Baez launched the 2008-09 lecture season at New York City's 92nd Street Y (where she made her official NY concert debut in 1960). She also received the 2008 Spirit of Americana Free Speech Award at the Americana Music Association's 7th annual awards show in Nashville.
For more information about the artist's extensive career, visit www.joanbaez.com.
Tickets are $52.50, $47.50, and $42.50 at the Ohio Theatre Ticket Office, 39 E. State St., all Ticketmaster outlets, and www.ticketmaster.com. To purchase tickets by phone, call 614-469-0939.