Five questions to: Joan Baez

For most of the fifty years since she debuted at the Newport Folk Festival, Joan Baez has dedicated her life and music to fighting for equality and social justice, and for bringing about positive change in the world. A beautiful singer, a strong person:

Question 1 - Your celebrity helped bring attention to the antiwar movement, and your arrests and activities were often nightly news. What gave you the strength to get through it all?

Joan Baez - There was this Swedish ambassador who did some extraordinary things during the coup in Chile. He walked in front of a bunch of tanks with his flag in order to bring people--I think it was a Mexican embassy--across the plaza to safety. It was a very, very dangerous thing to do, and when I met him, I asked him what helped him do that. He said, "I can't tolerate injustice." And I thought, "Oh, there's the phrase I've been looking for." Whatever that (feeling) is, it's just there, and I can't stand it. It's not like I don't like it, it's that when I see it, I'm just driven to doing something about it, and I'm fortunate enough that because of the fame, doors open to me, a lot of them. So I use that, and as I said in the documentary, these are not sacrifices for me. The sacrifice would be if I couldn't do that.

Question 2 - You've performed all over the world and have continued fighting for social justice and equality in places like Chile, Thailand, Bosnia...can you link some of the positive changes to your appearances there?

Joan Baez - Well sometimes, there are some blatant ones that are so pleasing, like the Velvet Revolution. (Vaclav) Havel said the last drop before it spilled over was my singing that song to him in Boinaslava. When he wrote that, I was knocked out. You know, you're only a part of something that never feels as though it's part of that larger part of something that made such a big change. But if that led into the Velvet Revolution and the guy says so, then that's something to really be proud of.

Question 3 -R: And all your activism in the South had to have helped make a difference.

Joan Baez - When I talked with Bishop Ernest Palmer in Tuscaloosa about the changes that we made in the college that day, then yeah, I know that there were some irreversible changes that took place on that evening during that concert. So, I know there are some things that have happened as a result of what I was up to, always with other people. I had the tools and I used them.

Question 4 - Did you love it when Havel joined you on stage with your guitar case during one of your concerts?

Joan Baez - (laughs) That was so sweet! Yeah, it's a joke now, he's always said he's my roadie. I'm going back at the end of this tour for a celebration for him. The Prague Symphony Orchestra has arranged "Swing Low..." and "Imagine" for me to sing with him.

Question 5 - Still, you continue the fight.

Joan Baez - You know, I've never been an optimist. People say, "Oh, how do you stay such an optimist?" But I never was, I've always been a realist and it doesn't look so terrific right now. I don't see anything terribly helpful as far as climate change goes. We're in too much denial about it. It's like to survive, we stay in denial. But in the meantime, living as decently as possible seems to be incredibly important, you know, not just throwing in the towel and becoming a pig.

(From http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mike-ragogna/how-sweet-the-sound-an-in_b_320193.html )