Joan Baez Singer-Songwriter and Activist
Kennedy Center Honoree
“It has been my life’s joy to make art. It’s also been my life’s joy to make, as the late Congressman John Lewis called it, ‘good trouble.’ What luck to have been born with the ability to do both; each one giving strength and credibility to the other. I am indebted to many for a privileged life here. I’ve tried to share my good fortune with others anywhere and everywhere in the world. Sometimes there have been risks, but they are only a part of the meaning of it all. I extend my deepest thanks to the Kennedy Center for recognizing me, my art, and the good trouble I’ve made.”
— Joan Baez
Shortly after her Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction in April 2017, Joan Baez announced that in 2018 she would begin her last formal tour. As the tour began, Baez released her first new studio album in a decade, Whistle Down The Wind. Produced by Joe Henry, the Grammy®–nominated album gathered songs by some of Baez’s favorite writers, from Tom Waits to Mary Chapin Carpenter.
The 2000s honored Baez with many career milestones including the PBS American Masters series premiere of her life story, Joan Baez: How Sweet The Sound (2009). Her self-titled 1960 debut album was honored by the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences in 2011, which inducted it into the Grammy® Hall Of Fame; and by the Library of Congress in 2015, which selected it to be preserved in the National Recording Registry. That same year, Amnesty International bestowed its highest honor on Baez, the Ambassador of Conscience Award, in recognition of her exceptional leadership in the fight for human rights.
Record-breaking years of touring included her first tours in three decades in both Australia (2013) and South America (2014).
Baez has long been a musical force of nature of incalculable influence. Starting in the turbulent 1960s, she marched on the front line of the civil rights movement with Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., shined a spotlight on the Free Speech Movement, took to the fields with Cesar Chavez, and organized resistance to the Vietnam War. Over the decades, she inspired Vaclav Havel in his fight for a Czech Republic, saluted the Dixie Chicks for their courage to protest the Iraq war, and stood with old friend Nelson Mandela in London’s Hyde Park as the world celebrated his 90th birthday. Baez’s earliest albums fed a host of traditional ballads into the rock vernacular before she unselfconsciously introduced Bob Dylan to the world in 1963. Thus began a tradition of mutual mentoring of songwriters that continued throughout the career of Joan Baez, whose lifetime of recordings and memorable concert performances will reverberate long into the future.
Recent Kennedy Center history: Joan Baez was among the guest cast paying tribute to Kennedy Center Honoree Pete Seeger in 1994. Additionally, the full-length film Banjoman, which she was featured in, premiered at the Center in 1975.