Joan Baez

Speaker 30:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive. For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.

Speaker 30:08

The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen ninety three and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:29

My Castaway this week is a singer. For more than thirty years she's raised her voice in protest against injustice. Born into a Quaker family in New York, she made her mark at the age of eighteen singing at the Newport Folk Festival.

Presenter0:42

During the sixties she achieved worldwide fame and for a while teamed up with another young folk singer called Bob Dylan.

Presenter0:49

At the same time, she marched alongside Martin Luther King, withheld her taxes and protested against the war in Vietnam. Today she feels as strongly as ever about freedom and peace, only this spring she sang in Sarajevo to show support for the suffering people of Bosnia. She is Joan Bais. And I confess it's with great difficulty, Joan, that I say buys and not buyers, because I must be one of millions who spent your whole career mispronouncing

Joan Baez1:15

Not on the priorities of things that concern me, since it's pronounced differently whichever country I'm in. Which other countries pronounce it how? Oh, in Germany it's Choen Betz, and in France it's Joan Bez, and uh and in Spain it was originally Baes.

Presenter1:30

Hmm.

Joan Baez1:31

Which is why it's confusing to people.

Presenter1:33

But it's a single syllable buys. We remember you too with long black hair and a very earnest, rather solemn face, and today you've got short, stylish hair, and you're all smiles. Are you a completely different person? I'm very different.

Joan Baez1:47

And um

Joan Baez1:49

Feeling

Joan Baez1:51

I think many people are stuck in some way in the 60s, and when they see me or hear me, they identify immediately with their time in the 60s. I don't think I had that good a time in the 60s. I mean, I was very, very serious about my work, and I was popping in and out of jail and doing demonstrations, and I was stimulated by it all, and I'm glad I did all of it. But I didn't have a great deal of fun. I didn't know what that meant yet. And that has come a little bit as the years have gone along.

Presenter2:25

So do you think of the person who did all that as as quite another person from you?

Joan Baez2:29

I have tremendous admiration for the person who did all that. I do think of it as another person, yeah.

Presenter2:35

And you admire, obviously, what she achieved. Are y do you feel uh you sound as if you

Joan Baez2:40

Kind of wonder how she did it. I do.

Joan Baez2:42

I do it seemed like an enormous load that she was carrying around with some s sort of feeling that it was destiny.

Presenter2:51

But you got a lot out of it. It sounds as if you you you

Joan Baez2:53

Yeah.

Presenter2:54

You had a lot of joy, maybe, at your achievement at the time, but not a lot of fun in the sense that the rest of us were having fun in the sixties.

Joan Baez3:01

Yes, and I even thought that fun was somehow a bad word, that joy was okay because it was profound, but that fun was definitely a no-no. Um and a lot of this is coming down from, I mean, Catholic

Joan Baez3:12

Um, background on my father's side into Quakerism and then down to me, and my mother's side, Episcopalian minister, and then to Quakerism and down to me, and there was a lot of rigid

Joan Baez3:22

Behavioral

Joan Baez3:24

Stuff in the house when we were little. And so, you know, I didn't know about lightening up. I really didn't.

Presenter3:29

I really did.

Presenter3:30

So how would this Joan buys today's Joan like the idea of being cast away on a desert island, alone?

Joan Baez3:36

Oh, I wouldn't be nuts about it. I've spent a lot of time in my life alone. I'm good at it. I'm good at it, but I was rather looking forward to spending less time alone, so maybe it's not the right time in my life to be cast away. And what is

Presenter3:49

What's the first record you'll play when you get there?

Joan Baez3:52

It seems though the first record that comes to my mind whenever the desert island discs are ever discussed is UC Bureling. Salu de mour chaste et pure. I was brought up hearing his voice in our house. My mother used to stop her cleaning or vacuuming or whatever she was doing, and she wasn't aware of this, and she would stand and she'd look up and she'd go, At a certain point she'd go,

Joan Baez4:17

Oh, that's so beautiful. So I can't hear this song without hearing my mother's voice.

Speaker 44:32

But he's an earlier slice.

Speaker 44:43

O cursed presence in song.

Speaker 45:01

But any shall set before the retain.

Speaker 45:08

For surrender.

Speaker 45:19

The rations all set the

Presenter5:23

You see Bjorling singing the aria Salue de Mer Chasse d'Epour from Act Three of Gunno's Faust, with the Stockholm Royal Orchestra, conducted by Niels Grevilius.

Presenter5:33

Your mother was Scottish, I think, Joan. She born headenbaro. Hm. And you got, though, your dark eyes and your dark hair from your father. My mother's dark as well. Hm. But he was Mexican? He's uh Mexican Spanish.

Joan Baez5:47

Yes.

Presenter5:48

Uh

Joan Baez5:48

And what did your father do?

Joan Baez5:50

My father uh taught physics in different universities and then s we spent a year in the Middle East when he went with UNESCO to build a physics laboratory and teach physics.

Presenter6:00

And you had two sisters, you were the middle one. Mm-hmm. Was there ever any jealousy between you?

Joan Baez6:05

Um, yes, yeah, and very, very different. The older one especially is diff very different from me. I'm only becoming friends with her now.

Joan Baez6:14

Um which is a wonderful thing to have happened.

Presenter6:17

Did

Joan Baez6:17

Uh

Presenter6:17

Did you f Uh

Joan Baez6:17

All a

Presenter6:18

Uh

Joan Baez6:18

with her because of your fame and situation. No, we just always hated each other. I mean, you know, I don't think that we were taught to love each other very well. And I think that the sibling rivalry just kind of took over.

Presenter6:31

But there was no jealousy of you.

Joan Baez6:33

You're fine.

Presenter6:33

Oh, I think so.

Joan Baez6:34

I think so. I oh, of my fame? Probably. I think everybody in my family, including my parents, had different reactions to my fame. I think my father was jealous at the beginning, probably more than anybody else.

Presenter6:41

Game F

Joan Baez6:45

And yet he helped promote you in the first place, didn't he?

Presenter6:47

Yeah.

Joan Baez6:48

Not really. In the first place he just took us into Harvard Square unwittingly, saying, Oh, come on, girls and he wanted to show us all these little coffee shops, and so the girls piled in the car that's when we still said girls his wife and three daughters, and we went off to see um

Joan Baez7:04

Tulla's Coffee Grinder Coffee Shop in Harvard Square, and I found my heart.

Joan Baez7:11

In the folk music, in the Harvard students with their lovely curly locks and their guitars and their

Joan Baez7:19

The the music, the ballads, their beauty of the words.

Presenter7:22

And did you feel in that moment then when you when you came into that crowd, did you feel you'd arrived, you were home, it was for you?

Joan Baez7:29

In some way I was, although I always felt a bit odd, you know, wherever I was.

Presenter7:35

Had you say you felt odd. Had you felt odd at school or different?

Joan Baez7:37

Well, you just said felt odd as far back as I can remember.

Presenter7:40

In what way, at school?

Joan Baez7:42

Well, you know, I as it turns out, I think I was probably quite dyslexic. You know, people didn't know how to diagnose that in those days, or didn't even come up for discussion. We just kind of scrambled to find out how to navigate our way through the things we couldn't understand, or couldn't read, or couldn't absorb. And so I drew.

Joan Baez7:59

Ah, and I would draw and I would draw beautifully. I I drew the history of the American Negro in those days when you said Negro, the history of the hair root. I mean, I drew whatever would get me by in these classes.

Presenter8:11

Yeah.

Joan Baez8:12

Even at school.

Presenter8:12

Uh

Joan Baez8:13

Protester, did you know your own mind? I was had much more clarity about my feelings about non-violence and social political change than I did about music and about most other things in my life. And by the time I was 15, I had stopped saluting the flag, any flag, which of course nobody understood because they figured as soon as I didn't salute the American flag, I must be Pinko Comie.

Joan Baez8:38

Um and then we had an air raid drill in our high school, uh so I guess I was in eleventh grade.

Joan Baez8:45

And I went home to my father's physics books and found out how long it took for a missile to get from Moscow to Palo Alto High School and realize it was a hoax. I mean, I suspected it was a hoax, but then I had proof in hand. So when the bell rang and everybody went dashing home to have their what they were calling their bomb parties and their swimming pools, I stayed in school to protest. And that was really the beginning of a

Presenter9:04

That was

Joan Baez9:06

of a very visible career.

Joan Baez9:08

of um nonviolent action.

Presenter9:10

Your first act of civil disobedience.

Joan Baez9:12

Yes, it was, yeah.

Presenter9:13

Let's have record number two.

Joan Baez9:15

Okay, The Goldberg Variations by Glenn Gould. I was introduced to that when I must have been sixteen or seventeen again by my mother. Any classical music was really my mother's doing. And um I just entered some kind of trance when he played and I was fascinated by his humming, humming all through it, that somebody who was

Joan Baez9:35

That he must have been in in another state to not even care or notice that he was humming along with this magnificent plane.

Presenter10:43

Glenn Gould playing one of Bach's Goldberg variations.

Presenter10:47

Um I read that you helped to overcome shyness in adolescents really by by singing, by playing. It was a way you could communicate with boys when you couldn't actually speak to them.

Joan Baez10:57

It was a way I could communicate with everybody. W when you say that, I I know I was a a terrific little flirt, but at the same time what came to my mind was that girls' click in junior high school that I wanted so badly to be a part of. And so it was pretty much to those girls that I started with my little ukulele.

Joan Baez11:15

at noon time uh entertaining them. And I would do im imitations of Elvis Presley and whoever else was, you know, currently being heard on the radio. And I was accepted in a certain way, which was better than not being accepted at all. It was kind of a little bit of a court jester, but it was better than nothing.

Presenter11:29

Hmm.

Presenter11:33

And you taught yourself how to with your voice.

Joan Baez11:35

Yeah.

Joan Baez11:36

I had admired the human voice and the violin more than anything else since uh I think I started listening when I was six or seven, and by eight years old those were the two things

Joan Baez11:46

That I loved the most in the music. And so I wanted a vibrato in my little voice, which was straight as a pin. It was true, it had very good pitch and some nice kind of tone to it. But the only way I could get it to bump up and down and make a vibrato was if I manipulated my Adam's apple with my finger from the outside, standing in front of the mirror. And then I liked that sound, so I would get in the shower and I would do that, and then I would try without manipulating it. And little by little, in fact, it was quite quick that the vibrato started to develop on its own.

Presenter12:20

Did you know about it?

Presenter12:21

Without you having to touch your atoms applications.

Joan Baez12:22

Touch your Adam's apple. Exactly. And then pretty soon after that I couldn't sing without the bravado. And y your parents encouraged you in all of this?

Joan Baez12:30

My mother absolutely did, and my mother

Joan Baez12:33

has been one of those people who has appreciated my gift in the way that makes me the happiest. She feels it's a gift from God, and she's grateful for the way I've used it. Do you think of your voice as a gift?

Joan Baez12:46

Absolutely. I don't think he has the slightest thing to do with me. All I try to do is maintenance and offer it in in the most useful and soulful ways that I can.

Presenter12:51

Can I

Presenter12:58

Hm. It certainly is that. I mean, the the phrase that one reads that crops up again and again about your voice is that it's achingly pure. Is is that a phrase you like?

Joan Baez13:05

Oh, it is.

Presenter13:07

Oh, yeah, that's very nice. Let's talk about your first public appearance, that professional debut at the Newport Folk Festival, Rhode Island, in front of some 13,000 people. You must have been.

Joan Baez13:17

It must be the biggest crowd I'd ever seen.

Presenter13:19

Terrifying.

Joan Baez13:20

I was absolutely terrified. I can just say that I can feel the leather thongs on my Jesus sandals and my knees shaking just above that. And you know, I I would think when I'd get like that, because I had terrible stage fright for years, and I'd think if I were walking to the guillotine, it this it wouldn't feel any different. I already know what it feels like to walk to the guillotine.

Presenter13:41

Hm. How long did that go on into your career?

Joan Baez13:44

Um, it it went fairly strongly for a number of years and then little by little I mean I just tackled it every way that I could. And I would say in the last two years that it's gone. I mean it's just the last two years.

Presenter13:57

Just the last two years. No wonder during all those early years you say you didn't have much fun. I didn't have much fun, I was too tired.

Joan Baez14:04

I was too tired doing all those neurotic reactions and then singing these beautiful shows.

Joan Baez14:10

Let's have record number three. What do we have here? I put my glasses on. Kathleen Ferrier again, my mother. Um I would sit with my head in the loudspeakers starting from, I don't know, whenever probably whenever

Presenter14:22

Don't know.

Joan Baez14:24

Her material started to be around.

Joan Baez14:27

Then I would sing along with it. I mean, I can hum along or sing along with anything she's ever sung, and I have no idea what she's singing about, or half the time what the languages are.

Speaker 414:39

Remember.

Speaker 414:52

Ohio

Presenter15:34

Kathleen Ferrier singing O Thou that tellest good tidings to Zion from Handel's Messiah, with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Sir Adrian Bolt.

Presenter15:43

So the sixties dawned, Joan Byers. You recorded your first albums, you toured the Southern campuses singing We Shall Overcome and No Freedom and you found yourself on the front of Time magazine, and you were a star. Why do you think it happened for you? What do you think was right about you and the time that brought it all together?

Joan Baez16:02

The first thing that comes to my mind is that I underestimated the gift for many years. The gift is really enormous. There's nothing egotistical about saying that because it is a gift. So that that is part of it.

Presenter16:15

But you are also, if you like, with your voice, the right person in the right decade. Absolutely.

Joan Baez16:20

Yes, absolutely. And the proof of that, I believe, is that directly at the end of the war in Vietnam, my record sales took a huge plunge because I had been.

Joan Baez16:30

I had never known anything else because the civil rights had immediately after the the ballads I had started singing ballads and was known for that and within two or three years it was Bob Dylan contemporary music and then traveling around in the South and singing with Doctor King and so for me the hats the the hats of social political work and music had always been very simple at the same time.

Presenter16:58

You obviously had great power, therefore, in political circles. I mean, I know the FBI regarded you as a dangerous subversor. Very flattering.

Joan Baez17:04

Survival

Presenter17:06

But it was a huge story when in'sixty four' you refused to pay your taxes because you said part of them were going towards armaments. Do you feel that that the same thing would have happened for you without that kind of focus, without the the Vietnam focus?

Joan Baez17:23

No, I think you see I think that.

Joan Baez17:26

We reflect the times, the music reflects the times, the times reflect the music. I mean, it all bounces back and forth and these radical changes happen in when places are politically charged. The United States was as politically charged as I have ever known it in the early sixties with civil rights movement and then the war in Vietnam. But did you feel a responsibility for the power that you had?

Joan Baez17:53

Uh

Presenter17:53

I do. How well did you know Martin Luther King?

Joan Baez17:57

Oh, I knew him some. I mean, I was in on some of the fun times and some of the fun meetings and the behind the scenes.

Joan Baez18:04

um get-togethers that I hoped to be in on. You know, he was terribly funny.

Joan Baez18:10

And then they laughed and joked, but but like other people with that kind of in that kind of position, he was, I think, afraid to do that in public, so you don't see pictures of him or see footage of him.

Joan Baez18:21

Just smiling. You do have Gandhi. I don't think Gandhi was afraid of anything.

Presenter18:26

But of course you were not just another protester, or just not not somebody who was simply standing up with a very strong message. You were more than that, you were a very famous one, and you were a very rich one, which made you unusual, because you were often fighting on the side of people who suffered poverty and deprivation. Were you compromised by the fact that you had so much money by then?

Presenter18:48

I didn't have so much money, I just kept giving

Joan Baez18:50

Bring it all away?

Joan Baez18:52

And that was you know, I I didn't think I was supposed to have money. And so, I mean, I can remember sitting in a house when I was about twenty five years old, just writing out checks. I mean, anybody who wrote and asked for money, I'd send them something. Anywhere from a five dollar check to two thousand.

Joan Baez19:09

So how many people have you

Presenter19:10

You bought cars for, for

Joan Baez19:12

Oh, lots. That was what that was a phase I went through and I just bought cars for people. I mean, it just made me deliriously happy to come toodling up in a new whatever it was and turn the keys over to somebody.

Presenter19:12

Oh.

Joan Baez19:22

Again, an enormous power over people in a sense. Well, that's true too. And I didn't you know, I didn't think of the downside of that, that and what that does to a relationship and to friends, and how did I view friends, and did I have friends, and so on. So a few have survived.

Joan Baez19:36

A few very, very, very good friends have survived all that bizarreness because they had a clear enough picture of what a friendship was supposed to be.

Presenter19:47

Uh

Joan Baez19:47

Record number four. Where are we? Scottish Fantasy by Yasha Heifitz. Again, my mom. I mean it's something that it it really is because of Heifitz it's and because I heard this I heard this particular piece over and over again, but Heifitz to me is the ultimate violinist.

Presenter21:03

Part of the Allegro from Bruch Scottish Fantasy, played by Jascha Heifitz, with the New Symphony Orchestra of London conducted by Sir Malcolm Sargent.

Presenter21:11

You met uh Bob Dylan in nineteen sixty one. You were both twenty, but you were a much bigger star than him at the time. What were your first impressions of him? Yeah.

Presenter21:21

Um

Joan Baez21:22

People had told me about this incredible guy writing these incredible songs and uh

Joan Baez21:28

He was just scruffier than I had pictured. He was very scruffy, but what they said about the songwriting to me was was true. Um I guess I saw him for the first time in Gertie's Folk City, which is where one went in New York to hear local folk music. And he was he sang Blowing in the Wind that night. You know, so history makes itself.

Presenter21:50

Were you aware, then, that he wa he had a an extraordinary talent?

Presenter21:55

Yes, I was.

Presenter21:56

But you really started his career for him, didn't you? You launched him.

Presenter22:01

Yeah

Joan Baez22:01

You know, I mean, I take that with a grain of salt. I I adored his music and I adored him and this was jolly fun racing around the country'cause which is what I was doing driving to my own shows and I would present him during my

Joan Baez22:15

Concert

Joan Baez22:16

And so, you know, a certain credit is offered to me for that, but it would have been just a question of time.

Presenter22:23

But he's yes, but he said since then I think in his autobiography he said she brought me up.

Joan Baez22:28

Hmm

Presenter22:28

It sounds as if he regarded you as a bit of a mother.

Joan Baez22:28

Sounds you

Joan Baez22:32

Yeah.

Presenter22:33

And and together, you know, the times there are changing was almost your signature tune, really. And I w were you in love?

Joan Baez22:38

Really enough.

Presenter22:40

Would you say? I don't

Joan Baez22:42

I don't know that I was capable of that, but it was certainly a a happy match for a while. He was he was very creative during the short time that we were

Presenter22:48

Yeah.

Joan Baez22:52

Together.

Joan Baez22:54

And I was going around stealing his songs. I mean, literally, a four-letter word he wrote dropped behind a piano somewhere and forgot about. And I retrieved it in my own house and learned it.

Joan Baez23:05

And I guess a year later was singing it, and he said, Yeah, it's a great song. Where's that from? And I said, You wrote it, you dope, you know?

Presenter23:11

Yeah.

Presenter23:13

So how would you characterize those years with him? I mean, great fun. I mean, to be two people who enjoyed each other's company, were kind of addicted to each other in some kind of way, presumably.

Joan Baez23:13

So how

Joan Baez23:24

Oh, sure. I mean, yeah, I wouldn't deny any of that. And more so than anybody else I was that I was ever sort of coupled up with in one way or another, in any way. And and that was a magical time.

Presenter23:27

Whether it had more

Presenter23:36

Were there any professional jealousies between you in the end, did you?

Joan Baez23:39

I'm sure it was all you know, it all went completely to hell, and we didn't have to go into all that, but I just remember as you asked that there's this poster the first time we gave a concert together, and hours were spent on how to devise this poster so that one name was not higher than another and didn't come first, and so one picture of us is higher than the other, and then that person's name is lower than the other, and so on and so on. I mean, it just was this network of nonsense of how we were going to present ourselves equally.

Presenter24:09

Next piece of music.

Presenter24:11

This is you, Seen.

Joan Baez24:12

This is me, yeah. I originally had written down my first album, but that was a totally different voice to me. That was a child's voice. So I ended up choosing Diamonds and Rust as a classic, and I think I would want to hear my own voice if I was stuck on the island for twenty five years and lost my voice. I'd want to hear what it was like once.

Speaker 424:31

Where are you calling from?

Speaker 424:35

A booth in the Midwest

Speaker 424:40

Ten years ago I bought you some couple We both know what memories can bring They bring diamonds and rugs

Presenter25:01

Diamonds and Rust, sung by my castaway, Joan Byze. Was that written about Bob Dylan, that song?

Joan Baez25:08

For years I s I wouldn't say who was written about, and then there was this funny moment when I went on the Rolling Thunder tour with Bob and this and Diamonds and Rust had come out fairly recently.

Joan Baez25:19

And he said, um

Joan Baez25:21

Oh, we're all such egomaniacs, he said. You can do that new one, you can do that new one, that diamonds, that diamonds thing, that um

Joan Baez25:28

I said, Oh, you mean the one I wrote about my husband?

Joan Baez25:31

And it just stopped him just dead in his tracks, and I burst out laughing. I said, Only teasing, Bob. I couldn't resist.

Presenter25:37

Yeah.

Joan Baez25:38

Two.

Presenter25:38

It was all about him. But what what you did when uh when you were at the height of your fame was that you were not only singing the songs and writing the protests, you were actually out there protesting as well, which is something that Dylan didn't do, isn't it?

Joan Baez25:53

Something that

Joan Baez25:55

something that most singers really didn't do that much of. I mean, Gandhi said there will always be conflict in the world. The question is whether we're going to confront it. If it isn't in front of your face, go find it because it's there and then deal with it when you get there. And for some reason that was natural to me to do.

Presenter26:15

So when you go to Sarajevo as you did this spring,

Presenter26:18

What are you doing for them? I mean, in the past you were enormously famous, you would have brought enormous publicity and the spotlight on where you went. You don't necessarily make that happen today. So are you just going to sing to people who are having a rough time? Or what

Joan Baez26:34

What do you do?

Joan Baez26:37

The fact that sometimes I do those things and nobody specially hears about them. I mean, that's the way it is. And I was prepared for that. I went to Sarajevo because somebody said.

Joan Baez26:48

The people in Sarajevo have asked you to come and try and lift their spirits after a year of siege. And so there wasn't any question to me at that point that it was the appropriate kind of thing that I do and do well. And so, of course, I went and they lifted my spirits. I mean, it's just a joke. It's their courage. It's their astounding behavior in this disgusting situation that fed my spiritual and moral everything, all of my needs.

Presenter27:20

Next piece of music.

Joan Baez27:22

What do we have here? Van Morrison, Astral Weeks. I listened to Astral Weeks every single night for I don't know how many months just before I had my son.

Joan Baez27:31

And uh Madame George was the one I think I was addicted to.

Joan Baez27:35

And it just occurs to me that this is a song that my son knows by heart somewhere in his system, whether he's ever listened to it in his conscious life or not.

Speaker 427:46

Yeah, that's it, they're making all the stops.

Speaker 427:53

A kid stand in the street collecting bubble tops.

Speaker 428:00

Go on for cigarettes and matches in the shops

Speaker 428:08

Happy Tech and Madam Joy Uh

Presenter28:13

Van Morrison and Madame George, that's from your darker side, you say.

Joan Baez28:16

Oh, I think so,'cause his song is absolutely bizarre. And he's such a far cry from Bureling it's not even a joke.

Presenter28:24

You're fifty two now, Joan. Um what about on a personal front? You seemed to say earlier on that you didn't think you were capable of love.

Joan Baez28:25

Yeah.

Joan Baez28:32

Yeah, I did say that. And I think that that I mean, I would say that after this

Joan Baez28:38

pretty extensive amount of work I've done in the last few years to unearth some of the things that were making my phobias work, and in keeping the anxiety attacks at a high level and so on.

Joan Baez28:51

Um

Joan Baez28:52

That I think that it would be nice to be able to share my life. That's something I really never thought I'd hear myself say.

Presenter28:59

What about the voice? How do you look after it? You've said on a couple of occasions that vocal cords can't last forever. How long do they last?

Joan Baez29:05

Oh, I would think I have uh an somewhere between six and twelve years.

Joan Baez29:10

Of the voice being as good as it is now, and it's good now. So, what do you do to look after it? I just have to be very, very careful. All those things that I never knew about or cared about or thought had anything to do with me, I do them all now, because I'm fifty two. When I was twenty five I didn't have to.

Presenter29:25

When I was

Presenter29:27

and no drugs.

Joan Baez29:28

Note dogs.

Presenter29:29

You've banned those for a long time.

Joan Baez29:31

Well, I never did drugs in the way that everybody assumes that I did. It didn't work for me. I was too scared. None of it. No no cocaine, n no amphetamines. I never never did an acid trip.

Joan Baez29:43

And that's news to some people. I remember some guy coming up to my house when I lived in Carmel and he had the Farewell Angelina record, which has this sort of daffy picture of me on the cover. It's an Abaddon.

Joan Baez29:55

And I used to go into sort of trances when I would do those photo sessions and and I'll look stoned and he said, Wow, man, this is really cool. He must have really been out there I didn't even know what he was talking about. You know, for years people left little pills on the on the stool up where I was singing on the stage and I chucked the things out. I didn't relate to it.

Speaker 430:06

A free

Joan Baez30:13

Record number seven. Um, I figured I wouldn't be able to survive on a desert island without some dance music.

Joan Baez30:20

And the dance music I

Joan Baez30:22

really respond to and should we say resonate with the most is Latin, and the Gypsy Kings are my favorite.

Speaker 430:30

There

Speaker 430:38

But I'm not sure.

Speaker 430:49

But I may be not seeing

Speaker 430:54

Como popia do the

Presenter30:56

On top of the angle we see

Presenter30:59

The Gypsy Kings and Sineya. So prepare to be cast away now. How do you visualize yourself on this desert island? How will you spend your time?

Presenter31:08

Yeah.

Joan Baez31:08

Oh, it depends if I get a horse or not, I guess. I would see myself.

Joan Baez31:12

That's uh having a horse to ride. How do I spend my time?

Presenter31:17

There's no no animate.

Joan Baez31:17

Don't let me know.

Joan Baez31:19

Well, I think probably my Quaker heritage would come in very, very handy, meaning looking for

Joan Baez31:26

Whatever is within ourselves to depend upon, since obviously it's going to be a bit tacky, what do we have outside?

Joan Baez31:36

So I would probably have to get a little more serious about meditation.

Presenter31:39

But would you miss making music? Would you miss the adoration of the audience? And

Joan Baez31:45

Oh, I suppose in a way if I were put on an island I wouldn't have to worry about it. I may not have had enough.

Joan Baez31:53

Had a lot. Although we say that, you know, and I say, Well, when I quit singing and I'll probably do five years of farewell concerts the way everybody else does. You say, This is it and then you do it again and

Presenter32:02

Well,'cause people keep asking you.

Joan Baez32:04

Sure.

Presenter32:04

Difficult

Joan Baez32:04

Difficult to say no. Sure. When out on a desert island, I wouldn't have to say no. Well without it. That's probably.

Joan Baez32:12

Probably. I mean, it's been thirty close to thirty five years I will have been singing for people.

Joan Baez32:20

Mast record.

Joan Baez32:22

Jackson Brown, Late for the Sky, to me a very beautiful album and one that's that's pretty well lodged in my heart.

Speaker 432:31

Tracing our steps from the beginning Until they vanished into the air

Speaker 432:42

Trying to understand how our lives had let us there

Speaker 432:54

Looking hard into your eyes I must know

Presenter33:00

Uh

Presenter33:00

Jackson Brown and Late for the Sky. So if you could only take one of those records, Joan, which one would it be?

Joan Baez33:06

Yeah.

Presenter33:07

Yeah.

Presenter33:09

What about your book? You've got the Bible waiting for you on the beach, and you've got the complete works of Shakespeare. That should keep you going for a while. But what single book of your own would you like on top of that pile?

Joan Baez33:20

Well, I mentioned earlier that

Joan Baez33:22

You found out rather later on, l late in life that um

Joan Baez33:26

I had a sort of dyslexic interference with reading, but I could read things that had a storyline.

Joan Baez33:33

And I somehow could read anything that really moved my heart. Or as soon as that happened, bang, I was in the book and I was fine.

Joan Baez33:40

Um Diary of An Frank?

Presenter33:44

Then what about your luxury? It can't be a horse, it can't be anything animal.

Joan Baez33:48

Well, you know, who said luxury? And I hadn't, and I sort of thought about it wrong. I thought of, you know, what would I take? It's just my.

Joan Baez33:55

A little reminder. So there were just little things. There's a little amethyst stone from Mexico that reminds me about one part of my life. There was a Apache Tear stone that my son gave me, and I carry them in this little pouch.

Joan Baez34:09

And uh in fact I would just take this pouch as it is.

Presenter34:12

Uh

Joan Baez34:12

Mm-hmm. And this has it says that this wasn't on the list I gave you, but it has a silver lion in it. And the lion will protect me on the beach.

Presenter34:12

Wear it around your neck.

Joan Baez34:23

of the island.

Presenter34:25

So your very own personal pouch of luxuries.

Joan Baez34:28

I think that's

Presenter34:30

Jerem, guys, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your desert island disc.

Joan Baez34:33

Thank you for having me.

Speaker 334:42

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Islandists archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk/slash radio four.