Still singing after all these years
[Please scroll down for ADDENDUM at end of post.]
Who? Joan Baez and Judy Collins. And they look and sound pretty good, considering. Pretty darn good.
They’re not what they were at their peak, of course. But who is, at 75 (Baez) and 77 (Collins)? The high notes are the first to go.
Yes, yes, I know; politics. But I separate art from politics.
The song’s original line was “ten years ago I bought you some cufflinks…”. Here Baez changes it to “fifty years ago.” The “you” who got the cufflinks (“they made cufflinks back then” quips Joan) was that Nobel Prize-winning author, Bob Dylan, with whom Baez had a brief but intense affair in the 60s.
And who has declined to attend the White House ceremony honoring the Nobel prizewinners.
[NOTE: And here’s my question: why would you give Bob Dylan cufflinks, even fifty years ago? Did he ever wear them, except perhaps at his Bar Mitzvah?]
[ADDENDUM: Commenter “Ann” offered a comment in which she links to a photo of Dylan wearing a shirt that looks as though it might have cufflinks.
That got me to thinking that I really hadn’t researched the cufflink angle at all. And lo and behold, when I did, I struck pay dirt.
Never noticed it before, but Dylan was a regular cufflink aficionado. Here’s an extremely well-known Dylan album cover (known by me, too; “Bringing It All Back Home”). Now that I’m looking for them, the cufflinks fairly leap off the page:
What’s more, if this article is accurate, they are the cufflinks.
Joan Baez’s cufflinks, that is:
For the cover, the photographer Daniel Kramer came up with the idea of photographing Dylan in a room full of objects that would signify his influences — something that had been done in Renaissance portraiture – but with less cool stuff.
There’s a movie magazine, records by the blues singer Robert Johnson, the “beatnik” comedian Lord Buckley, the German singer Lotte Lenya (later a James Bond Villain), a R+B group called The Impressions and even Dylan’s last album “Another Side of Bob Dylan”.
The woman relining on the sofa is Sally Grossman, the wife of Dylan’s manager, Albert Grossman. On the mantle there is a poetry book by Borges (pronounced: Bor-hes) and above it a portrait of a clown that Dylan made by gluing colored glass on regular glass.
There’s a fallout shelter sign on the floor and a copy of Time Magazine featuring Lyndon Johnson as “Man of the Year” next to Sally’s side.
Dylan’s cuff links were a gift from Joan Baez and she sang about them in the song about Dylan and her, “Diamonds and Rust.”
Here’s another photo, one of the cover outtakes, that shows the cufflinks much more clearly:
Not only that, but they were far from the only cufflinks Dylan wore (or at least that was far from the only time he wore them; this photo isn’t clear enough for me to say whether they are the exact same cufflinks or different ones):
And last but far from least, you too can have your own Bob Dylan cufflinks, although they’re not from Joan Baez (people used to tell me I looked somewhat like her, though, back in the day):
And since this post is also about the passage of time, it wouldn’t be complete without an update on the woman in the photo. It’s Sally Grossman, taken “years later” (I don’t know how many, but it’s not current, because she’s in her late 70s now):
Research isn’t always this rewarding, or this much fun.]
Diamonds & Rust is a beautiful song. Baez still sounds mostly as she did 50 years ago. I will admit I never listened to Collins much at all. For me her voice lacks depth. As far as Dylan’s cufflinks are concerned, you will have to ask him, but he is unlikely to answer.
Wow.
About those cufflinks — here’s a photo of Dylan in 1965, wearing a shirt that looks like one made for cufflinks.
And according to this 2009 article, Baez didn’t just have an affair with Dylan, she “helped kickstart” his career and then he “dumped her”:
Ann:
See the ADDENDUM I just added. You won’t be disappointed.
Unfortunately, the left is not broadminded about those who disagree with them. Closed, Locked, and Bricked-over minds, and all that.
Another Dylan Cufflinkage – the version of “Tangled Up In Blue” on the Bootleg Series, Vol. 3, you can hear his cufflinks bouncing against his acoustic guitar, making a clicking noise throughout the track.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wh-ogAlihqE
I think we all knew, back then, that we were a brand new thing, and we didn’t know where we were gonna take it, and mostly, we didn’t care. Subsequent generations, eat your heart out.
My aunt used to sing gospel professionally. One Christmas when she was 85, in remission from cancer, and her mind slipping she sang a hymn acapella at a family get together in an auditorium. I was stunned, her voice and delivery were amazing. And then everyone told me that the *really* talented one had been aunt Emmajane. So perhaps it is not too surprising that other singers can last into their later years.
I did hear Joan Baez live at Club 47 in, IIRC, 1963, but don’t remember much except that it was packed.
chuck:
It does happen sometimes that the voice lasts pretty well. But a lot of singers find that their voice degrades a lot, particularly in the high registers.
Dylan looks in that parlor photo as if he’s trying to put on a Beethoven-style look.
Etta James had a voice that changed, but in a good way, with age. Same goes, IMO, for Joni Mitchell although that may be attributed to her life long addiction to tobacco.
I still have Bringing It All Back Home on vinyl.
I never could stand to listen to Joan Baez. Her voice seems flat and harsh and unmusical to me, and she sings the words as if she doesn’t really understand what they mean, or isn’t really feeling the meaning, or something. There’s not enough music in her music for me. She had a sister, though, Mimi Farina – maybe she’s still around? Now SHE could sing.
Mrs Whatsit:
I actually think that Baez’s voice has gotten warmer over the years. I like it better now. In the documentary she also said she used to have dreadful stage fright, but doesn’t have it anymore and feels very relaxed on stage.
Unfortunately, her beautiful sister Mimi, to whom she was very close, died of cancer in July of 2001.
Care to guess who the person on the fireplace mantle in the large frame is?
In case you haven’t noticed the title, that gray book in the outtake photo is the I Ching. Interesting that they changed their minds about including it. Perhaps a little too California hip for Dylan?
I agree that Mimi had a better voice. Or at any rate I liked it better. Joan’s always seemed thin and…I don’t know, stiff or something. But I do like some of her stuff. The two Richard and Mimi albums were favorites of mine.
I still have my vinyl Bringing It All Back Home, too, and all the other Dylan albums of the sixties.
I do separate art from politics. It’s what conservatives (in the true sense) need to do. Art, as it’s called, is always moving forward, chasing the new and the “better”….Which is Progressivism. That most artists are shlock, artists of dreck,whether visual or aural, does not diminish my view.
The progressive American artists of the thirties were more talented than today’s, and many were communist. Pete Seeger wrote great songs that were pure Leftist propaganda: “I dreamed I saw Joe Hill last night, alive as you and me.” Really catchy, good music. But Joe Hill was a union thug, an “organizer’, who was convicted and executed for murder in the line of work, and became a hero and symbol in Seeger’s song.
I never cared much for Judy Collins’ singing. Except her rendition of Amazing Grace, which I used to play many times on the juke box in a beer joint in Los Angeles.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5e6IN_YbwM
I think my favorite Baez album is her 1974 Spanish one, Gracias a la Vida. I don’t think it’s all that well known; a sample is here. My second favorite is the one of Dylan songs, Any Day Now; a sample here.
Oh, that beautiful hair! Baez seemed to prefer hers short in later years. Nice to see Collins with the flowing white curls.
Judy, of course, is the subject of Steven Stills’ song Suite: Judy Blue Eyes. It was a break-up song, apparently. So four famous musicians in their own right with two failed love affairs among them, resulting in two wonderful songs!
Would that all relationships ended so productively.
Blind Willie McTell
Huddie Ledbetter (lead belly)
Robert Winslow Gordon
see broadside ballads
“Lord Barnard and Little Musgrave”…
in the early days of recordings, how hard is it to rework classic tunes and others for an audience compared to writing original stuff?
baez, animals, bob dylan, and a bunch of others made their music by reworking others… and most gave them credit for the things…
i prefer originals… or if your going to make a few millio dollars and be so famous, at least give the originals some $$$ and credit.. which they eventualy did (credit, not money)…
in some ways, being at a certain point of history makes one famous easier than later on…
and today its a lot easier given its about surface things and image, and not substance… even more so since the majority of people no longer learn to play an instrument, and no longer go to the music shop to buy a new song or such to play for friends or themselves.
I dont think i will work the grammys again..
It was fun the first time, but not now, when its all wackjobs in nutty costumes with minor talent but lots of narcisism.
the voices of todays music bands like the group R Angels i worked with, Pharrel and the nerd project and all that… is nothing like it was…
besides.. Baez is a communist and feminist
same thing even if the followers and most of the public are ignorant of the great works that lay it out and what they were going to do, that they did post publication.
the communists started overtaking that to control thewomen and the politics and business a la marx comment that all momvements start with women (even the ugly ones)..
i even sent neo one of the books that no one reads any more among many:
The red war on th famliy – 1922 – Samual Saloman
a lot of books have been written after it by that title and various other titles that bury the old ones.. (they do this a lot to remove things from the public… ie. an old thing is not good for them, so create a new thing of the same name so that the searches go that way and its VERY hard to find anything about the inconvenient something!!!!!!!!!!!!)
if you try to find it, its been covered by a bunch of others, and a few feminist versions to hide the original changes to the movement when it was co-opted (co-opting the democrat party didnt finish till the 1930s when browder said the CPUSA would no longer run candidates for president since their platform and the democrat platforms were the SAME)
so the new versions make the old versions to be part of the irrational fear of the people that were birthed in WW!, started WWII, Did Vietnam, Invasion of south Korea, exterminated over 200 million between russia and china (their own people), and more
Erica Ryan: Red War on the Family
“Red War on the Family is a compelling book. It argues that an ‘Americanism’ movement of the post—World War I era fused anti-Bolshevik rhetoric with anxieties about gender and sexuality to call for a return to a traditional notion of a patriarchal family that could regulate sexuality–especially female sexuality–and restore social order.
so the tearing apart of the family as a goal of the soviets to make the US dysfunctional (and we aer almost there given obama hillary bernie)…
when the original was the 180 degree opposite
so i sit and watch how they play with the heads of my contemporaries in discussion, and that these contemporaries prefer the piss water swill of lies and bs, over the actual history, facts, methods, mores, and techiques develolped over 100 years of trying.
you guys realize that next year is the 100th anniversary of communisms birth as a real natoin? and given their penchant for word games, date games, color games etc… its not a good thing…
Al Capp came up with a character for his cartoon strip called Joanie Phonie and Baez threatened to sue him. Capp said that if Baez looked anything like his cartoon character, he feels sorry for her.
Saw Aretha Franklin at a smallish venue last year. Even though I am a huge fan, I wasn’t expecting much because of her age and health. The high notes took a little time and work getting there but everything else was amazing – I would say 95% of peak Aretha. That woman is a force of nature!
Molly Brown:
Take a look at this.
That last picture, Bobby Vee must be rolling in his grave, lol
Her politics can be ignored when you experience her incredible talent. I’ve been in love with Joan Baez for 50 years. And Yes, she still sounds great. We are the same age. It makes me sad.