Viva Brighton Issue #72 February 2019

MUSIC
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Joan Baez
‘time to quit bouncing around on buses’
Photo: Dana Tynan
What made you decide to
do a farewell tour? I asked
my first and best vocal
coach when I would know
if I’m to quit and he said,
oh you’ll know, your voice
will tell you. I was 30 when
he said that, and I feel as
if I know now what he was
talking about. I’d also like
to pay a little respect to
my body so it seemed like
the time to quit bouncing
around on buses. It’s not a
bad time... for a woman of my age in this job.
Ha, it’s been a long time out here.
Has it affected your choice of songs? Oh
yeah, completely. There are some things I long
to do, but I’d rather do the ones that I do well,
and there are enough of them that we have a
beautiful show. Cleverly I have this wonderful
29-year-old singer with me, Grace Stumberg.
People say you can’t do Forever Young, why
don’t you just let her do the high notes? So I
do, and it works out beautifully.
What kind of material have you been
performing on tour? Obviously it’s got to
have everything, but there are certain songs you
know will go down well. I mean, anything by
Dylan will get a huge response. It’s also nice to
have a new album that has been well received
because it gives me the leeway to sing new
songs that people at least partially recognise.
That gives the whole evening a chance to be
more fresh.
Were you compelled to address politics
on the new album? No, but my choices are
wrapped in that anyway. There wasn’t an
official theme, what
rings bells for me is
usually more than
just words and music.
These things fall into a
different kind of depth,
and you can call it
‘political’ or you call it
‘aware’, you can call it
whatever you want.
There’s a song about
Obama singing in
church after the
Charleston shooting...
I was listening to the radio and that song came
on. It’s called The President Sang Amazing
Grace, and it was by Zoe Mulford. I was driving
and I just had to pull over. I mean, I fell apart
because it was such a beautiful song. I knew
immediately I wanted to sing it. When I was
putting it together, it took me literally two
weeks before I could get through the song
without crying.
Is there room for hope in melancholy
music? I don’t have much faith in hope. Haha,
you know, when it doesn’t have legs. I think
you can only hope for something if you’re
doing something about it. So maybe that’s
where these songs belong. If nothing else, it
gives people something real, you know? My
bleakness comes out of the fact that I think
because of global warming all of our discussions
are going to mean nothing very soon, and that
puts it all in perspective. We are going to last
just so long, so what can we do during this
time to try and make the world a slightly better
place? Interview by Ben Bailey
Brighton Dome, Fri 22 Feb, 7.30pm
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