Joan Baez on her Boston roots, a new exhibit about her life, and ‘A Complete Unknown'

Boston Globe

05-03-2025

Artwork aside, the exhibit showcases photos and ephemera: Martin guitar. young Baez and Bob Dylan photos, the March on Washington, anti-war protests. Dress and jewelry worn on the album cover of 'Diamonds and Dust.'
Advertisement
For Baez fans, this looks to be a walk through her life.
For Baez herself, 84, the items and the location of the exhibit itself are a trip back in time.
Get Starting Point
A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday.
Enter Email
Sign Up
'Mostly all of this just brings me back to Cambridge, my Boston days, because they were such an important part of my life. It was the beginning of the folk boom, and I was the right person at the right place at the right time,' says the former Belmont resident, Cambridge Folk scenester, singer and ('for about six hours') a Boston University College of Fine Arts student.
I called Baez to comb through her memories of the exhibited items. We also talked 'A Complete Unknown,' painting with lipstick in France, and 84 years of attempting to save the world.
Q.
I love that you agreed to do this exhibit. People must ask you to do things like this all the time like this.
A.
Well, yes.
Q.
[laughs]
A.
One of my [assistant] Nancy's jobs is to figure out amusing, polite, interesting ways of saying 'no.' It's almost always 'No.'
Artwork by Joan Baez.
Courtesy
Q.
So most of these items are from your home?
A.
Most of them came from my home. Like the Einstein thing I gave my mom — I don't know where Nancy found it.
Q.
The Einstein drawing is from 1957. So Nancy really looked through your archives.
Advertisement
A.
And my mom kept everything.
Q.
What are a few items that stand out from this exhibit? Do any bring back particular memories?
A.
Anything written in my original handwriting — those remind me of different eras of my life and what I went through. I think probably the most interesting is the photo of me in a bathing suit on the beach.
I remember the photo; I don't remember the day. We were gonna start a revolution and have world peace. How'd that work out?
Q.
The March on Washington photos must strike a chord.
A.
Sure. I mean, that's one of those universal things that will always be top of the list. I'm looking at the list now to see. Oh, you know what? 'Military Man with Angel Child' I painted with food on the wall of a French cafe. All the dark stuff was chocolate. I squished up vegetables to try to make green. I used my makeup for skin tones. Lipstick for the reds.
Q.
Also on this list: 'the Rolling Thunder Revue bath towel.' I didn't even know there were concert towels.
A.
You know, I don't remember that, but apparently there were. At least it means some of us took baths.
The Rolling Thunder Revue towel.
Matthew Pacific
Q.
What did you think of 'A Complete Unknown'?
A.
I thought it was a good movie. It was a fun movie. I couldn't get involved with people who are fact-checking and all that stuff, because it's a movie. The music was fantastic. I've become friends with Monica [Barbaro, who played Baez]; she's a sweetheart. I think people did a fairly good job in it. [Ed Norton as] Seeger was fantastic.
Advertisement
Q.
Did Monica ask to study with you?
A.
I offered. I wanted to make myself available. I got to know her a little bit. She was a little shy. She came to
Q.
You must be getting peppered with questions about the movie and accuracy.
A.
Well, yeah. Yourself, for instance.
Q.
[laughs]
Exactly.
A.
It's front and center. If there's any criticism, it's that the Civil Rights Movement was going on at the same time— there was no real mention of it. On the other hand, Dylan was a bubble. You were either in it, or you weren't. And when you're in it, nobody's paying attention to anything else. I managed to keep feet in both camps for a long time.
Q.
True. I interviewed Elijah Wald, who wrote 'Dylan Goes Electric!,' which the biopic is based on.
A.
Awww. Yeah, I didn't move to New York. That's a whole fantasy. I was a Boston/ Cambridge girl until I moved west with my boyfriend. We bought a Corvair and drove cross-country, to the dismay of my father.
Q.
Since the last time we talked, you were
A.
It's always lovely to go back to that area, my stomping ground. I have different little stomping grounds, but the Cambridge/Boston area is really a big home-base.
Advertisement
I mean, the first night I sang at Club 47, my family was there — that was it. My boyfriend was outside, walking back and forth in the snow. He didn't want to come in. He didn't want me to do all that
commercial
stuff — like singing for my family. [laughs] Then by the next week, there were plenty of people there. That was my beginning.
Q.
Any cause that you're feeling right now?
A.
It's a
world.
Almost everything else is irrelevant at the moment. I'm making a [protest] t-shirt and sign. I'm just gonna f—g walk around with it. What have I got to lose? We're losing everything. Might as well go down with some grace.
Interview has been edited and condensed. Exhibit information at
(Children $17 - Adults $25)
Lauren Daley can be reached at [e-mail]. She tweets