Baez, Joan (bīpstr;ĕz, bä`–), 1941–, American folk singer and political activist, b. New York City. Baez began singing traditional folk ballads, blues, and spirituals in Cambridge, Mass., coffeehouses in a clear soprano voice with a three-octave range. She made folk music, which had been largely ignored, popular. Baez's records were the first folk albums to become best-sellers. Her later albums include several of her own compositions, e.g., "Song for David" and "Blessed Are." Among the first performers to urge social protest, she sang and marched for civil and student rights and peace. Since the late 1960s she has devoted time to her school for nonviolence in California and has performed at concerts supporting a variety of humanitarian causes.

Bibliography

See her autobiography, Daybreak (1968), and her memoir, And a Voice to Sing With (1987).

Baez, Joan (Chandos)

(born Jan. 9, 1941, Staten Island, New York, N.Y., U.S.) U.S. folksinger and activist. She moved often as a child, receiving little musical training, but she became influential in the 1960s folk-song revival. Singing in a soprano voice, usually accompanied by her own guitar arrangements, she popularized traditional songs through her performances and best-selling record albums. An active participant in the protest movements of the 1960s and '70s, Baez made free concert appearances at civil-rights and anti-Vietnam War rallies. Her recordings include Diamonds and Rust (1975) and Gone from Danger (1997).

Baez, Joan (Chandos) (1941– ) folk singer, songwriter; born in Staten Island, N.Y. She quit Boston University to sing in local coffee houses and gave highly successful performances at the Newport Folk Festival in 1959 and 1960. She added protest songs to her repertory of traditional ballads and became a leading voice of the 1960s with songwriter and associate Bob Dylan. She performed at many benefit concerts for world peace.