Joan Baez Information

Joan dedicated her first album sung entirely in Spanish to Chileanos suffering under the rule of Augusto Pinochet. The LP inspired Linda Ronstadt, later in the '80s, to begin recording the Spanish songs of her heritage. One of Joan's songs, "No Nos Moveran (We Shall Not Be Moved)" had been banned from public singing in Spain for more than forty years under Generalissimo Franco's rule. Joan became the first major artist to perform the song in public on a controversial Madrid television appearance in 1977, three years after the dictator's death. In 1975, Joan's self-penned "Diamonds & Rust" became the title tune single of an LP with songs by Jackson Browne, Janis Ian, John Prine, Stevie Wonder & Syreeta, Dickey Betts of the Allman Brothers Band - and Bob Dylan. His Rolling Thunder Revues of late 1975 and '76 (and resulting movie Renaldo & Clara, released in 1978) co-starred Joan Baez. In 1978, she traveled to Northern Ireland and marched with the Irish Peace People, calling for an end to violence. She appeared at rallies on behalf of the nuclear freeze movement, and performed at benefit concerts to defeat California's Proposition 6 (Briggs Initiative), legislation that would have banned openly gay people from teaching in public schools. She received the American Civil Liberties Union's Earl Warren Award for her commitment to human and civil rights issues; and founded Humanitas International Human Rights Committee, which she headed for 13 years. Highlights of the 1980s include: Amnesty International's Conspiracy of Hope tour in 1986, with U2, Peter Gabriel, Sting, and others; the 1986 People's Summit concert in Iceland at the time of the historic meeting between Reagan and Gorbachev; and a 1989 concert in Czechoslovakia, cited by President Vaclav Havel as a great influence in the Velvet Revolution. Highlights of the 1990s include: the Four Voices benefit concerts that reinforced Joan's belief in the new generation of songwriters' ability to speak to her; traveling to war-torn Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1993, at the ...