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Definition: Baez, Joan from The Columbia Encyclopedia

(bīpstr;ĕz, bä'–), 1941–, American folk singer and political activist, b. New York City. Baez began singing traditional folk ballads, blues, and spirituals in Cambridge, Mass., coffeehouses in a clear soprano voice with a three-octave range. She made folk music, which had been largely ignored, popular. Baez's records were the first folk albums to become best-sellers. Her later albums include several of her own compositions, e.g., “Song for David” and “Blessed Are.” Among the first performers to urge social protest, she sang and marched for civil and student rights and peace. Since the late 1960s she has devoted time to her school for nonviolence in California and has performed at concerts supporting a variety of humanitarian causes.

  • See her autobiography, Daybreak (1968), and her memoir, And a Voice to Sing With (1987).

Baez, Joan (1941–)

From Encyclopedia of Activism and Social Justice
Folk singer and activist Joan Baez was born January 9, 1941, on Staten Island, New York, to Dr. Albert Baez, a Mexican-born physicist, and Joan Bridge Baez, of Scottish and English descent. She was the second of three daughters. Joan Baez’s older sister was Pauline Baez. Her younger sister, born Margarita Mimi Baez, was a singer, guitarist, and activist in her own right as Mimi Fariña (Fariña died of neuroendocrine cancer in 2001). Dr. Baez and his wife were practicing Quakers, and Dr. Baez had turned down lucrative defense industry jobs during the Cold War. The family moved frequently due to Dr. Baez’s work, living in towns across the United States as well as in France, Switzerland, Italy, and Iraq. Baez was only 10 when her family moved to Baghdad, but the poverty and inhumane treatment of the people there deeply affected her. The family ultimately settled in the Boston area in the late 1950s after Dr. Baez took a position at MIT. As a teenager, Baez learned to play the ukulele…
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Full text Article Joan Baez (1941–)

From The 100 Greatest Americans of the 20th Century: A Social Justice Hall of Fame
Joan Baez (1941–)
C redit : Associated Press I n 1956, as a high school student, Joan Baez attended a conference on world issues sponsored by the Quakers. There she heard twenty-seven-year-old Rev. Martin Luther King Jr . speak about the Montgomery bus boycott and the strategy of nonviolence, a talk that brought…
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Full text Article Baez, Joan

From A to Z of Women: American Women in the Performing Arts
Folk singer Joan Baez achieved fame in the 1960s...
(b. 1941–) folk singer, activist, peace advocate The queen of 1960s folk music, Joan Baez is as well known for her political activism as for her pure soprano. She was born on January 9, 1941, in Staten Island, New York but her family moved frequently in her youth. Her father, a physicist of Mexican…
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Full text Article Baez, Joan

From American Biographies: American Social Leaders and Activists
Folksinger and activist Joan Baez advocated peace...
Also known as: “The Queen of Folk Music” (b. 1941–) folksinger, songwriter, social activist A folk musician, Joan Baez committed herself to participating in protests and movements that would fight injustice through nonviolent means. She was born on January 9, 1941, on Staten Island, New York, to…
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Full text Article Baez, Joan (Chandos)

From Britannica Concise Encyclopedia
(born Jan. 9, 1941, Staten Island, New York, N.Y., U.S.) U.S. folksinger and activist. She moved often as a child, receiving little musical training, but she became influential in the 1960s folk-song revival. Singing in a soprano voice, usually accompanied by her own guitar arrangements, she…
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Full text Article Baez, Joan

From A to Z of Women: American Women Leaders and Activists
Folk singer Joan Baez achieved fame in the 1960s...
(b. 1941–) folk singer, activist, peace advocate Joan Baez became the one of the first famous female folksingers and used her name recognition for peace advocacy. Joan Chandos Baez was born on January 9, 1941, in Staten Island, New York, the second of three daughters. Her mother, Joan Bridge, was an…
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Full text Article Baez, Joan

From Encyclopedia of Women and American Politics
(b. 1941–) folk singer, activist, peace advocate Joan Baez was born on January 9, 1941, in Staten Island, New York, to a father of Mexican descent and a mother of Scottish and Irish descent. Her father, Albert Vinivio Baez, was a noted physicist who set the tone for peace activism in the family by…
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Full text Article Baez, Joan

From The Palgrave Macmillan Dictionary of Women's Biography
American folk and protest singer. Born in Staten Island, New York, into a cultured middle-class family, Joan began singing in local choirs, and after graduating from high school in Los Angeles attended Boston University, abandoning her studies to sing in coffee houses, and in Club 47, Cambridge, …
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Full text Article Baez, Joan (Chandos)

From The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia with Atlas and Weather Guide
US folk singer and social and political activist. Her pure soprano in the early 1960s made traditional English and US folk songs such as ‘Silver Dagger’ and ‘We Shall Overcome’ (an anthem of the civil-rights movement) popular. She helped Bob Dylan at the start of his career and has recorded many of…
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Full text Article Baez, Joan

From Chambers Biographical Dictionary
1941- ♦ US folk-singer and civil rights campaigner She was born in Staten Island, New York. Her strong, pure soprano was one of the major voices of the folk revival of the 1960s. She broadened her traditional and ballad repertoire to include songs by contemporary writers like Bob Dylan (with whom…
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Full text Article Baez, Joan (1941–)

From Culture Wars in America: An Encyclopedia of Issues, Viewpoints, and Voices
Folk singer and political activist Joan Baez has been a prominent and outspoken warrior in the culture wars since the early 1960s, always on the liberal side. Born Joan Chandos Baez on January 9, 1941, in Staten Island, New York, she grew up in a family of Scottish and Mexican heritage. She was…
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