And A Voice to Sing With »

Fifty years after her stunning debut at the Newport Folk Festival, Joan Baez remains a musical force of nature whose influence is incalculable. Her voice is part of the soundtrack of a generation, and her commitment to social justice helped form its conscience. She marched on the front line of the civil rights movement with Martin Luther King, Jr., inspired Václav Havel in his fight for a Czech Republic, sang on the first Amnesty International tour, and stood alongside Nelson Mandela on his ninetieth birthday in London's Hyde Park. She brought the '60s Free Speech Movement into the spotlight, organized resistance to the war in Southeast Asia, and forty years later saluted the Dixie Chicks for their courage to protest war. Her earliest recordings fed a host of traditional ballads into the rock vernacular, and she unself-consciously introduced Bob Dylan to the world in 1963 in an effort to bring attention to songwriters that continues to this day.

Hers is a journey of the spirit, told with intimacy and passion as Baez shares her introduction to folk music and her baptism as its first female star in the coffee houses of Cambridge, Massachusetts. She recounts her musical and personal entwinement with Bob Dylan; her marriage to David Harris, and their painful breakup; and the joy she found upon the birth of her son, Gabriel.

With a new introduction by acclaimed music critic Anthony DeCurtis, And a Voice to Sing With is the story of an American cultural icon. Marked by the openness and vulnerability that have touched us in her music, and the passion and integrity that have informed her politics, this is a disarmingly frank and stirring memoir of the life and work of oneof the most extraordinary performers of our time.

Introduction Anthony DeCurits xi

Preface xxv

Part 1 "The Kingdom of Childhood"

1 "My Memory's Eye" 17

Part 2 "Rider, Please Pass By" 17

1 "Fill Three Up My Loving Cup" 49

2 "Blue Jeans and Necklaces" 69

3 "Winds of the Old Days" 83

Part 3 "Show Me The Horizon"

1 "The Black Angel of Memphis" 101

2 "Jonny Finally Got His Gun" 115

3 "Hiroshima Oysters" 133

4 "For a While on Dreams" 146

5 "To Love and Music" 163

6 "I Will Sing to You So Sweet" 166

Part 4 "How Stark is The Here And Now"

1 "Lying in a Bed of Roses" 173

2 "Silence is Shame" 179

3 "Dancing on Our Broken Chains" 184

4 "Where Are You Now, My Son?" 193

5 "Warriors of the Sun" 226

Part 5 "Free At Last" 237

1 Renaldo and Who? 237

2 "Love Song to a Stranger" 251

3 "No Nos Moveran" 254

4 "For Sasha" 264

5 "The Weary Mothers of the Earth" 268

Part 6 "The Music Stopped In My Hand"

1 "Blessed Are the Persecuted" 273

2 "The Brave Will Go" 282

3 "Motherhood, Music, and Moog Synthesizers" 1974-1979 291

Part 7 "Ripping Along Toward Middle Age"

1 "A Test of Time" 299

2 "Recently I Was in France" 304

3 "How Brightly Glows the Past" 314

4 "Thalia's Ghost" 323

5 "Honest Lullaby" 325

6 "A Heartfeld Line of Two" 330

7 "Happy Birthday, Leonid Brezhnev" 340

8 "We Are the World" 353

9 "Gulf Winds" 370

Epilogue 373