Hard Travelin' Woman: A Joan Baez Timeline Issue #37

By John S.W. MacDonald
Published: September 1st, 2008 | 4:26pm

1959 Newport Folk Festival: An 18-year-old Joan Baez makes an unscheduled appearance at the first of the iconic festivals. Her sensational performance launches her career.

1960 Joan Baez: Baez’s gold-selling debut establishes the template for her early style – acoustic folk accompanied by a vaulting, pristine vibrato.

1963 March on Washington: In the company of Martin Luther King Jr., Baez performs “We Shall Overcome” to a quarter-million people.

1971 Blessed Are...: Baez’s double album yields a top 10 U.S. hit with her cover of the Band’s “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down.”

1975 Diamonds & Rust: In addition to her own material, Baez’s landmark album, Diamonds, includes Dylan’s “Simple Twist of Fate,” on which Baez does a dead-on impression of her former lover.

1989: Baez performs to thousands at a concert in Czechoslovakia on the eve of the Velvet Revolution. President Vaclav Havel later sites her as a major influence on his country’s nonviolent political transformation.

1992 Play Me Backwards: Her 15th release later earns Baez a Grammy for Best Contemporary Folk Recording amid a revival of interest in her music from a new generation of female songwriters.