Joan Baez: The Last Leaf

by Elizabeth Thomson

Since she appeared unannounced at the 1959 Newport Folk Festival, Joan Baez has occupied a singular place in popular music. Within three years, she had recorded three best-selling albums and her voice had been described 'as lustrous and rich as old gold.' She has mentored generations of singer-songwriters, including Dar Williams, Josh Ritter, Grace Stumberg and, most famously, Bob Dylan.But Joan Baez has always been much more than simply a singer. Even before she joined Dr Martin Luther King, Jr. on the podium at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in August 1963, she had used her gift to bring solace and hope to people who had little of either. In words and deeds, Baez has consistently championed social justice, nonviolence the guiding principle of her life, and the causes for which she has campaigned are legion. Whether playing to integrated audiences in the American south during the years of segregation, in Latin America during the years of brutal dictatorships, or Sarajevo under siege, Baez offered 'an act of love, sharing, witness and music.'Approaching 80, she has stepped down from the stage following a worldwide farewell tour and a final, Grammy-nominated album. She is now embarked on a new chapter of life painting.Drawing on interviews with long-time friends and musical associates, and on conversations across four decades with Baez herself, Joan The Last Leaf is a celebration of a timeless figure whose music and influence will endure long after her voice is silenced. The Discography is by Grammy-nominated music historian Arthur Levy.*Award Winner* 2021 Association for Recorded Sound Collections Awards for Excellence in the category of Best Historical Research in Recorded Blues, Folk, or World Joan The Last Baez is the recipient of the 2020 Woody Guthrie Prize.

Genres: Biography, Music

Kindle Edition

Published October 1, 2020

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.

Elizabeth (Liz) Thomson, a widely published journalist and frequent broadcaster, studied music at the University of Liverpool. For many years she pursued a dual career, reporting on the international publishing trade by day and the arts by night. She has lectured on both publishing and music, and has conducted platform interviews at literary festivals around the world. A contributor to The New Grove Dictionary of Music & Musicians, she is the editor (with David Gutman) of critical anthologies on John Lennon, Bob Dylan and David Bowie, and the author of a 40-year celebration of Chickenshed, the ground-breaking London-based theater company. She is the revising editor of New York Times critic Robert Shelton’s biography of Bob Dylan.

Thomson has been a Visiting Fellow of the Open University Sixties Research Group and is the co-founder of a folk music charity, Square Roots Productions. She is also the founder and executive producer of The Village Trip, an annual arts and music festival celebrating the history and heritage of Greenwich Village.

Thomson’s attendance at Joan Baez concerts spans fifty years, and includes reporting on the live recordings for Ring Them Bells in New York.

Reviews

[Linden · Rating 4 out of 5]

Joan Baez started her career at the 1959 Newport Folk Festival. She has become an icon, almost as well known for her pacifist philosophies as her music. This biography is well written and thorough, showing the roots of her political activism, and revealing how she interacted with other musicians and contemporaries. If you love her music or enjoy music biographies, you will definitely want to read this one. Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC.

[The Resistance Bookclub · Rating 5 out of 5]

Joan Baez is perhaps one of my favourite artists, who's music and activism touches me a lot. I was very lucky to have seen her live in London during her farewell tour with my mother, who introduced me to her music.
Internationally known for her angelic voice and decades of activism for peace and equality, I hope that books like this will give her even more recognition. She deserves all of it.

[Phyllis · Rating 2 out of 5]

What a disappointment. I felt this was a "bait and switch" or a marketing tactic. This was not a biography, but merely an amplified discography and listing of all the concerts she performed and the people she knew - politicians, musicians, activists, and family.

I was expecting to learn about Joan Baez, her relationships with David Harris, her son Gabriel, Bob Dylan, etc. There was nothing personal in this book. In addition to the important people in her life, the book describes her politics but without any of Joan's passion and commitment. At the conclusion of the book, the author writes "It's hard to imagine what it must have felt like for Joan Baez, as she, her band, and crew left Madrid early the following morning [after the final performance in her farewell tour]." I wanted to shout to the author - Why do you need to imagine? The liner notes say you based this biography on interviews with long-time friends and musical associates, and on conversations across four decades with Baez herself. Yet you don't include even one personal quote from Joan, even at the conclusion of her performing career, let alone any time during the important times in her life?

This book is full of details and statistics on her concerts, albums, recording sessions, travels, and her political activism. There are also photos and concert posters. It would be helpful for those who want to know how Baez used her music to support political causes. If you're looking for her personal life, you'll have to read another book.

[imanamuska · Rating 5 out of 5]

Like most women who watched A Complete Unknown, I was enthralled to learn about Joan Baez, the mysterious woman in Bob Dylan’s life who was a folk powerhouse before anybody knew who Dylan was.

After leaving the cinema, I googled to see if there were any books about Baez, and came across this biography. I am very happy I did.

I wanted to read this to understand and find out more about who Baez is as a person, and who she is as an activist. While I was disappointed it didn’t cover her personal relationships in depth, it informed me thoroughly on her years as an activist. What I found particularly absorbing were the sections dedicated to her role in the March on Washington, and her trip to Vietnam in December 1972 during Operation Linebacker II - these sections resonated with me the most because they illuminated just how dedicated Baez was to her activism. While reading this book, I quickly came to realise that Baez’s activism has been thoroughly interwoven with her personal life; she lived on a commune, she founded the human rights organisation Humanitas and co-founded the Institute for the Study of Nonviolence when she was just 24. Activism was and continues to be her life.

This biography is incredibly dense - it tracks Baez’s musical career almost year by year. It was often hard to read through due to this density, but all in all I appreciate this bank of knowledge on her musical career - the posters at the start of every chapter are a great addition (I wish I didn’t read this on the kindle and could see the colours of these posters).

The reason I have given this book a 5-star rating - and the reason why this book is a great read as well as a well-researched biography - is the author’s connection to Baez. This biography is a lovely tribute to Baez and her career written by a long-time fan, someone who has interviewed Baez many times. What I found particularly lovely was the end, which featured those close to Baez stating what legacy they think she will leave behind, and it was clear how much they will value that legacy, and how much they have valued her in their lives.

While most of folk music is still too much for me (it makes me cry, regardless of the subject matter), I am happy I read this book, learned so much about Baez and have a lengthy discography at the end of this book to go to when I am ready to listen (I am particularly keen to listen to her Christmas album in December, surely that won’t make me cry, right?!)

[Kathleen Hulser · Rating 4 out of 5]

The rich lovely voice of Joan Baez often makes us forget how politically engaged the singer her entire life. She was friends with Martin Luther King and sang at the March on Washington, as did Lena Horn, Mahalia Jackson, Odetta, Bob Dylan and Peter, Paul & Mary. She marched in Selma, turned out for Berkeley's Free Speech movement, and founded an Institute for the Study of Nonviolence. She was an early opponent of mass incarceration, and particularly sympathetic to prisoners, since her husband David Harris served nearly two years prison time as a conscientious objector. She spent her honeymoon on a tour to support draft resisters. Their baby was born while his father was behind bars. Baez herself was arrested and imprisoned for her outspoken antiwar stance, and long played cat and mouse with the IRS who kept trying to collect the "war taxes" she withheld. The daughter of a Mexican American physics professor, she sang protest songs around Latin America in an era of brutal junta rule, and raised money for the restoration of human rights in Chile after the Pinochet coup.

Thomson, a music journalist and a longtime fan, includes some rare photographs of her own, including a rejected poster for the 1965 Joan Baez/Bob Dylan tour. Thomson has a great ear, and her vivid appraisals of Baez's voice as it changed over the years are a model of sensitive appreciation. She makes you hear the folksy soprano of Baez's early days, her dynamic range, and the thoughtful inflection of ballads, as well as the light and dark notes underpinning her interpretive phrasing that developed more fully as she matured artistically. Another outstanding feature of this knowledgeable biography is the analysis of each individual album, its release history and commentary on the choice of songs. Thomson situates covers, joint concerts, stylistic changes and Baez's mining of traditional materials in the historical context of 1960s social justice movements. The discography, filmography and bibliography at the back is terrific, running 43 pages. Even the end papers feature a collage of Baez ticket stubs, testifying to the extraordinary breath of her career. The back cover of this essential volume includes a handsome self-portrait, a reminder that the "singer artist," is also an artist artist.

[J Earl · Rating 5 out of 5]

Joan Baez: The Last Leaf by Elizabeth Thomson should quickly become the definitive biography of Joan Baez. Neither the music, the activism, nor the personal life is given less than their due. This is a complete, as in well-rounded, biography.

I admit to being a big fan, of her music and her activism. I fully expected to like this biography but I expected, which is what usually happens, to hope for the next biography to focus on what this one didn't. Well, Thomson manages to focus on all aspects of her life and career while still making it all flow. I have rarely been this impressed with a work about a complex celebrity.

Whether you're a fan of hers, or simply a fan of music history, this will offer wonderful insights into the folk world and the pop world from 1959 to now. If you're interested in social and cultural history, especially social justice and human rights, this will show not only what Baez did but also what a sincere impassioned activist in general can, and should, do. It is admittedly difficult for anyone to always stand up for what they believe is right, yet Baez succeeded far better than the vast majority of us, famous or not.

I think what makes this book really stand out is that it does not become just a recitation of what happened when, then what happened next, etc. There is depth and analysis here. Yet Thomson also doesn't get bogged down in analysis just for the sake of analysis. The flow of the book, from events to the hows and whys, is seamless and the reader gets swept along. I felt like I was reliving some of those times but with new perspective and insight.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.

[Rebecca Wilkins · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well Joan Baez and I go back to at least 1970. I had an album with the Dylan song "With God on Our Side" that I could identify with as I was born in the Midwest and taught to believe all of that. Even though Dylan wrote the songs, Joan's voice performed the songs better than Dylan ever could. The album also showed photos of Joan and David Harris when they were first married in 1969. I moved to the Bay Area in 1970 and so did Joan. We are both still here. I saw her in concert at the Oakland Coliseum in 1972 a week before seeing Elvis at the same venue--eclectic tastes in music! She was on stage for an hour and a half and he for at most 45 minutes! The next time I saw her live was at Stern Grove in about 2006 with her son Gabriel in her band. She was always a little too adamant in her political beliefs even though I mostly agreed with her. My husband did make a career in the military though as part of a rescue unit and so I sort of parted company with Joanie for several years.

This book is a very good biography of Joan Baez's life. There are photos and there is an exhaustive history of her music by someone who knows music. Joan Baez is someone with integrity and courage enough to stand up for her beliefs plus she has/had a lovely singing voice. I have on my shelf GOLIATH by David Harris from 1970, Bob Dylan Chronicles from 2008 and Positively Fourth Street from 2001. This book is a nice addition to that collection.

[Barbara P · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having followed the career of Joan Baez for many years this book brought home so many memories.
A concert in Tucson, AZ protesting the Viet Nam War was a powerful moment. Her voice in protest was calming, delivered the message with deep feeling and compassion. I was glad to read more about her times of protest, arrested, jail time, movements in other countries, etc. All while raising a son and closeness to her family. What a life she has lived. Now at 80y/o she is painting and most likely enjoying some personal meditation/quiet times or with friends/family. I send blessings and thanks for her music contributions to surface the urgent needs of the times.

[David · Rating 2 out of 5]

If you want to read a recap of all of Joan Baez's activities over the years, much like a Wikipedia summary, then this book is for you. If you want to learn anything about Joan Baez, the person, then I would skip this one. To this author, Joan has a perpetual halo around her head and and is the second Joan to have acquired sainthood. This book reads more like a public relations handout with a few slaps at Bob Dylan for good measure. I could barely stay awake reading it. For an authentic look at a comparable singer of the era, I suggest you read Judy Collins' fascinating memoir "Judy Blue Eyes".

[MaryJo Hansen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Definitive up-to-date biography of Joan Baez. Includes discography and detailed information on all her recordings and appearances over her many, many years of entertaining and activism. We treasure her as a pure soprano voice,an excellent guitar player, a songwriter,and more important an activist that stood up for the voiceless and the minority all during her life and is still doing so now even tho she has stopped touring. The biography is probably too much for the average fan but not for the avid fan.

[David Allen · Rating 3 out of 5]

A noble attempt to give Joan Baez her due, via a biography and discography; as Thomson notes, Baez's career and life are far less documented than Bob Dylan's. Sexism no doubt plays a part. I came away impressed by the extent of Baez's activism, even up to Bernie Sanders and George Floyd. The text is sympathetic, but sometimes enthusiastic, and possibly protective; there's almost nothing about Baez's personal life of the past 50 years.

[Ginny · Rating 4 out of 5]

A scholarly, thoroughly researched and well- documented account of the musical and political activism career of Joan Baez. I found it a bit dull and am hoping something that does a better job of capturing the spark of Joan's wit and sense of humor will come along soon, maybe even a continuation of And a Voice To Sing With by Joan herself. In the meantime, this is a very good account of her life with little emphasis on the personal.

[Adam Carrico · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is ultimately a surface level view of Baez’s extraordinary life and career. It doesn’t get into many details or feel personal at all. It’s well researched and has some interesting facts, but it felt like the text in a coffee table book. The complete discography at the end is great, though.

[Judith Squires · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brief, but very rewarding account of Joan Baez' wonderful career and activism. Very readable, and though condensed in size, a terrific appreciation of her accomplishments. Always consistent in her principles and truly an amazing musical talent.

[Laura Lipton · Rating 5 out of 5]

My mother was a fan of Joan Baez and her socially conscious songs, and I grew up with Joan’s music playing as part of the sound track. Her beautiful voice and songs are memorable, as is this book about her storied career. Well done!