Joan Baez Looks Back

Joan Baez’s voice—commanding, clear, and accessible—was a soundtrack to my childhood and, by extension, that of so many other people in my generation (the children of the baby boomers). When my aunt handed me Any Day Now, Baez’s album of Bob Dylan covers from 1968 (recorded while the two weren’t on speaking terms), I could feel in its notes the heartache of their fractured relationship, not to mention a fractured decade, a fractured country. Baez’s voice draws cries for justice from Dylan’s opaque lyrics in songs like “Tears of Rage” and “I Shall Be Released.” In a way, the album is the setting of a debate, arguing her side of their big split on whether an artist should be committed to the realm of politics or the realm of pure art. Her vote: Do both.