In The Other Side of the Mirror, Murray Lerner's brilliant record of Bob Dylan's three consecutive appearances at the Newport Folk Festival, Joan Baez is interviewed following an encounter with some young autograph hounds.
“I like kids, you know? It's just idolatry's a little weird, that's all, because it doesn't mean anything. I don't think it hurts anybody... I don't think it hurts those kids, what they're doing and the fact that they ask for 'We Shall Overcome' and they know what it's about, most of them. The ones who ask know what it's about. I think that's wonderful, you know, and I don't mind if they act like a bunch of monkeys like that. They're sweet!”
That was 1964 and if blind devotion made the gawky songbird a little uncomfortable then, she seems less concerned by it tonight. At one point, a man in the front row approaches to hand her a T-shirt. It features a picture of him standing alongside his hero and is emblazoned with the slogan “Lovin' Baez since '62 and always will,” words which prompt a thunderous round of applause when read aloud on stage. Many of the greyhairs gathered in the auditorium have clearly been lovin' Baez for over four decades and have all but abandoned their critical faculties at this point in the game. They've no intention of changing their minds and she can get away with anything, as is proven by a saccharine rendition of John Lennon's 'Imagine'. “Boy, you're making it easy!” she remarks, flattered.
Fortunately, the 71 year old still possesses talent in abundance. She remains capable of summoning the striking soprano heard on her early work and performs the protest numbers for which she is best known with rare conviction. Highlights 'Farewell Angelina' and 'Love Is Just a Four Letter Word' are played to perfection, their strident verses counterpointed by unexpected, fragile key-changes. Donovan's 'Catch the Wind' and 'Be Not Too Hard' sound impossibly wistful and elegiac, as they should, while her excursions into the songbooks of Elvis Costello and her erstwhile producer Steve Earle indicate a healthy willingness to expand her repertoire. The latter's 'God Is God', a slice of repentant junkie schmaltz in its writer's hands, attains profound global significance when Baez plays it, proving her still capable of bettering those whose work she interprets.
Like any elder statesman-or-woman, Baez's standards of quality control aren't as stringent as one would hope and she fires a few blanks throughout her set, 'Imagine' and 'I Need You Just the Way You Are' being the worst offenders. The main problem with the concert as a whole, however, is the extent to which she is preaching to the converted. The kids that followed her during the sixties, one suspects, have long forgotten the context in which they originally fell for her. In these less idealistic times, it's doubtful that anyone sat in the Concert Hall still believes in her music's ability to inspire change in the world. They're just happy for the opportunity to watch an icon from their youth run through a generous number of songs, most of which have some kind of nostalgic resonance for them, at £40 a ticket. This makes for a pleasant, even moving, atmosphere, but it's hard not to notice the cloud of complacency and resignation that looms over the evening.
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