Q: Part of the equation. The next song that we're going to listen to was written by Ryan Adams, called In My Time of Need. And -- forever, you've been singing songs that necessarily aren't autobiographical. And this is a song about someone -- well, there's a part with a farmer...

A: It sounds like Farm Aid a little bit, you know. It sounds as though it was written by somebody much older. And I always picture, I think, exactly what it is. Just the -- what's become of the farms now. But it's timeless. It could have been many many years ago. He's got to take a wagon into town. I have never talked to anybody about these songs. So I don't know what they had in their minds. And I did talk to an interviewer -- we were talking about one of the songs and she -- I realized she saw it completely different from the way I saw it. And she didn't question it at all. She thought her perspective must be mine and everybody else's. So, who the hell knows? I don't know.

SONG: IN MY TIME OF NEED

KGSR's Susan Castle and Jody Denberg with Joan Baez - 3/30/94

Q: We are literally at home with Joan Baez here in Northern California, listening to some of the songs on her studio album in about six years, "Dark Chords on a Big Guitar"

A: (Talks like an old lady...) Just a minute, I'll get out of bed. You guys want some coffee or something?

Q: Glad to see you're doing all the work still! I listen to these songwriters: Ryan Adams and Caitlin Cary and Natalie Merchant and Gillian Welch and David Rawlings. And I can't help but think they've been influenced by your work of the past. Do you have an inkling of that?

A: They almost inevitably says something about that. Well, now, it's, you know, (laughs) "yours is the first record I heard. It was in my grandmother's files." I say, "I'm not really interested in hearing that!" But yeah, they - they're a staple for songwriters.

Q: I don't think that just makes you a link in a chain, which is --

A: I love it. I love that position.

Q: In earlier days, folks like Fairport Convention or Led Zeppelin or Joni Mitchell would mention you as an influence. What inspired you to begin playing guitar and then taking your music to the coffeehouses in Boston? Your family had moved from -- moved east from California in the late '50s, I think, right?

A: Uh-huh, that's correct. I think, originally, I started playing the ukulele when I was 13. And I just loved it. The hours I could spend by myself, singing anything that used only four chords (laughs). And then I graduated to the guitar when I was about 15. Different motives. One just a love of music. As I started learning guitar, which was mostly in Boston, and I had a smaller guitar, I would fall asleep with it on my chest. I would play until I literally dropped off to sleep. And I think the ballads, the long sad ballads, spoke to my condition. I didn't realize that's why I kept choosing them. But the influences were Pete Seeger. Originally, Harry Belafonte. I don't know whether it was the cover of his album or whether it was the music in his album, but Mother and I were intrigued with his album. And I listened a lot to that. And I played and I played. And I went in when I was 16 with a couple of rascals who said, "Let's make an album." And they're the ones who came out with the Fantasy Record years and years later. But a lot of it was from Harry Belafonte's work and from Odetta. And then I had a couple of rhythm and blues songs. I love rhythm and blues. And you know, I guess the guitar was easy and portable.

Q: You recorded and released your first album in 1960. And around that time, that first album and the two after it went gold and stayed on the charts for a couple of years, that must have been quite a personal adjustment for your at that time. What do you recall about that?

A: Oh, I didn't adjust. I moved down to Big Sur. If my manager wanted to reach me, he had to telephone the lodge, which was shouting distance away. "Hey, Joan." "What?" "Your manager's on the line." "Tell him I'm busy." I was scared. I didn't know that. I thought I was just very... I wanted -- I wanted my privacy. One year I didn't sing any concerts for a whole year. And as I look back, I was afraid of commercialization. I'm glad that I went fanatically in that direction instead of the other. I was just as difficult to deal with. I read an article by somebody who had to deal with me at a television show. I wanted a black background, I wanted no fuss. I wanted one light. I wanted -- I mean, it was just ridiculous. But as I look back, I sort of appreciate myself for that, because it was simplicity that I wanted. And the first album, it took days to get me to put Freddie Hellerman on... a brilliant guitar player from a group I admired, the Weavers. But still, to me, it was commercializing my music. I was just going to be me and the guitar (laughs).

Q: But yet you were making hit records and playing at folk festivals before you kind of stopped. And you introduced the world to Bob Dylan at your concerts. You were on the cover of Time Magazine. And you still found time to march for civil rights with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in Washington D.C. Was the civil rights movement when you first became active in political causes?

A: I would say, yes. I heard Dr. King speak when I was 15 and I believe he was about 25. And it was a big gathering of high school kids. I had already been introduced to non-violence, which seemed to be the core of my thinking and interests. And here was this man talking about what I had been reading about and thinking about and he was doing it. And I was absolutely spellbound. They picked the right guy. His speaking was just outrageous. And then -- I mean, it's been -- it's been -- luck has been a gift. And I couldn't even talk about my voice if I thought I had much to do with it. I do maintenance and delivery but the original voice that was given to me.

Q: On "Dark Chords on a Big Guitar", there's a song called Motherland. You sing out against the lust and avarice that's raping our land. There's another song on the album that literally describes a rape. There's a couple of murders.

A: (Joan laughs!)

Joan on her voice... (1:02, mp3)

Q: Have we gone too far to the dark side?

A: No. I mean, the first 400 ballads I sang, if somebody didn't die in them, I didn't sing them. You know, it was practically -- it was practically a rule, you know. So that isn't any foreigner to me. And it's a sort of a giddy delight singing the murder ballad that we're - where the woman slits the guy's throat because he's trying to rape her. "Oh, goody, that will be a fun song." So it kind of ?? I, obviously, have lightened up in some areas. I do, I love that song.

Q: There's one song I can't make heads or tails of, which is fine with me.

A: King's Highway?

Q: No, I kind of beat on that one. It's Wings.

A: Not a clue. I don't have a clue what that's about. But I like I listening to it. I love the images. I think it has something to do with deporting people or exiling people. Those are the pictures that I get. And in the end, moving towards the border. And that they have wings under their jackets. So, I didn't even ask him. You know I met him (songwriter Josh Ritter) and I guess I don't care if I really like a song…or it will be something so different. I was singing a Dar Williams' song and introducing it to the public, a long fancy introduction. And she heard it and said it had nothing to do with the song. So then I just told people exactly what I just told you. They had a good laugh and then I'd sing this beautiful song. And so I don't know what she's talking about.

We should have a contest of people writing what they think [Wings] is about.

SONG: WINGS

Q: I think we would get a wide variety of answers.

A: I think we would too.

Q: We're making ourselves at home with Joan Baez. And we're shooting the breeze, as it were and we've had a little bit of a breeze.

During the period of your career when you composed the most, was it a time when songs came easier to you or did you find it difficult?

A: They came more easily. I don't know what happened. They just stopped. Just stopped. I wrote a song -- I called Janis Ian and I said, "I have a writer's block. Give me some hints." And so she said, "Okay. You do three verses and three choruses. The choruses are higher in pitch than" -- like that. And very, very strict. She said, "Don't try to do anything profound. You'll just frustrate yourself." And so I wrote a song called Coconuts. The chorus says - what is the chorus? (Sings to herself) well, anyway, "I'm in love again with my island man. (Sings) "Coconuts sitting in my hand, reminding me of my island man. My island man sitting in his hut, dreaming about my coconuts." And so Mark wouldn't hear of it. And I think it was because he was afraid it had commercial value and I would come back -- make a come-back known as the coconut woman! (Laughs). I sang it a Gay Pride big parade. And I realized it had even more meanings.

Q: The six albums that you did for A&M between '72 and '76 contained a great deal of your compositions. And they're now being issued as a four-CD box set.

A: I know.

Q: Which is --

A: Very flattering, yeah.

Q: It's wonderful. One of your signature songs is Diamonds and Rust. It comes from that period. It deals with your personal relationship with Bob Dylan. So you have to revisit that part of your life whenever you perform it. At this point, is it like someone else's life when you're singing that song?

A: No, but I've made different endings for it. One of the endings was "if you're offering me diamonds and rust, I'll take the diamonds." And then just recently, it came to me a second (snaps fingers) before I said it: "If you're offering me diamonds and rust, I'll take the Grammy." (Laughs).

Q: When you were spending time with him, was that a help or a hindrance to your own development as a songwriter?

A: Oh, it was a help. It was a help. I mean, he did think my writing was lousy (laughs), but it bothered me.

Q: As you say in the song...

A: As I say in the song...

Q: Do you ever bump into Mr. Dylan these days?

A: Not for a number of years. The last time was very pleasant. It was a festival in -- I think it was Ireland or somewhere in the south of England. And it was perfectly nice.