a Grammy nomination. Steve Earle,
who produced the album, remembers
herrejectinghissuggestionthatshe
tackleasongaboutMuhammadAli.
“She didn’t want to sing a song about a
boxer,” Earle recalls. “She has a real-life
commitment to nonviolence. What’s
importanttoheristhatsheisn’taccused
ofbeinginconsistent.Shewasatrip.”
Today, Baez’s younger fans include
Rhiannon Giddens, Sturgill Simpson
andMarcusMumford.WhenBaeztook
her granddaughter Jasmine to see Taylor
Swiftin2015,shefoundherselfwithJulia
Roberts in the VIP section, where Swift
toldBaezhowmuchsheadmiredher,then
invitedthemonstageduring“Style”.Baez
hasnoillusionsaboutwhetherthescreech-
ingfansinthatarenaknewwhoshewas.
“Maybe a small percentage went home and
Googledme,”shesays.“ButitwasTaylor’s
show.Itwasgutsyofher.”Forherpart,
Baez shimmied down the runway for the
crowd: “Probably embarrassing my family.
ButwhenIhearmusic,Ican’tnotdance.”E
very 30 minutes or so,
a cougar sound blares from
Baez’s cellphone, a remind-
er to drink water – essential
to help preserve her voice.
Whenever Baez wondered
whenitwouldbetimetostopsinging,she’d
always recall the advice of her first vocal
coach: “Your voice will tell you.” It may betellinghernow.Adecadeorsoback,asshe
reached her midsixties, the high notes be-
came harder to hit. She learned how to
reach those notes fast, then sing lower. “It’s
all smoke and mirrors,” she says, “getting
backupthereanddownbeforeImakean
ass of myself.”
Shehasbeenplayingsome60concerts
ayear,butnotforfinancialreasons.She’s
invested wisely, although she adds, “Noth-
ingtodowithweaponsordestroyingthe
planet.” Even that part of her life is wrap-
ping up. She’s planning one last worldwide
tour,nextyear,rightaftershefinishesher
in-progressalbum,forwhichshe’salready
cut covers of songs by Tom Waits, Rich-
ard Thompson, Josh Ritter and Anohni.
“There’safeelingthatthingsarewinding
down, and I wanted to do one more studio
effort,” she says. She’s even recording with
thesameacousticguitarsheusedonher
firstalbum(ithasbeenrefurbishedsev-
eraltimes).“She’satpeacewithit,”saysJoe
Henry.“Shehasotherthingsshe’dliketofocus on, like her painting. I didn’t feel like
it was with any regret.”
With the help of a vocal therapist, Baez
is learning how to loosen up her throat.
“All those years you think, ‘I want it to
sound like it did 10 years ago’,” she says. “It
ain’t gonna happen. The upper voice gets
less and less power to it. If the public has
a problem with it, it’s their problem. I said,
‘This is it, this is me.’ ”
She’s learning to isolate the high notes,
and at her kitchen table, she demonstrates
the bursts of power she can still deliver. “Go
ahead and plug your ears,” she advises. “I
mean – seriously. There’s a noise I do.” The
loud, penetrating burst of sound erupts
from Baez’s throat for a few seconds – an
almost operatic blast of lung power.
When she fi nishes, she smiles mischie-
vously. “I probably broke your tape record-
er,” she says.baez’s house has few obvious me-
mentos of her career: no wall of gold rec-
ords, no photos with famous friends.
Instead there are paintings, by Baez, of
musicians and activists. Some are in her
living room – Emmylou Harris; Baez’s
late sister Mimi – and more are in a
converted pool house that’s now her
painting studio. There, you’ll fi nd por-
traits of David Crosby and congress-
man and civil-rights icon John Lewis.
The most prominent painting in
the canvas-crammed room is one of
a grim-faced Dylan, based on a vin-
tage Eighties photo. “I call it his happy
face,” Baez cracks. Their on-again, off -
again romance in the Sixties lasted
lessthantwoyears,butforfansit
had serious symbolic weight. Dubbed
thekingandqueenoffolk(oftento
Dylan’s displeasure), they made for a
commanding presence, sharing mi-
crophones at rallies and exuding a New
Frontiervigour.“Hervoicewaslikethatof
a siren from off some Greek island,” Dylan
said recently. “Just the sound of it could put
youintoaspell.Shewasanenchantress.”
By 1965, though, Dylan’s desire to move
toward rock and his waning interest in pro-
test songs helped drive them apart. Baez
thinks her distaste for drugs distanced her
fromDylanintheSixtiesandlater,dur-
ing their reunion on the 1975-76 Rolling
Thunder Revue. “I was the only one who
didn’t do drugs,” she says of those shows.
“ItwasthesameasthattriptoEngland,”
she adds, referring to the 1965 Dylan tour
documented inDon’t Look Back.“Icouldn’t
connect with what their brains were doing.”
ThespectreofDylanhoversaround
Baez.Hisandheralbumsareintertwined
in her LP collection. She says “Diamonds
and Rust”, a 1975 song about the happiest
time in their relationship, is her finest cre-
ation. “The really, really good stuff comes
from down deep,” she says,Not Slowing Down
(1) “The king and queen of folk”, 1963.
(2) Onstage with Julia Roberts and
TaylorSwiftin2015.(3)At this year’s
Rock Hall of F1 23[Cont. on 88]Ju ne, 2017 RollingStoneAus.com | Rolling Stone | 65CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: ROWLAND SCHERMAN/GETTY IMAGES; JOHN MEDINA/LP5/GETTY IMAGES; MIKE COPPOLA/GETTY IMAGES