The video above brings you way back (we think) to 1958, when Joan Baez was only 17, to a concert she played at the legendary Club 47 in Cambridge, Mass. While the teenage ingénue broke onto the folk scene, Bob Dylan was still a student back in Hibbing, Minnesota. Five years later, Baez introduced Dylan to the music world; the two dated for a while; and then, even while going their separate ways, they put their stamp on the 60s folk scene – a story that gets well documented in the book, Positively 4th Street: The Lives and Times of Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Mimi Baez Farina and Richard Farina. If you click here, you can watch Baez, now in her prime, perform a complete concert in 1965. The show runs 65 minutes and features 18 songs.
If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newsletter, please find it here. Or follow our posts on Threads, Facebook, BlueSky or Mastodon.
If you would like to support the mission of Open Culture, consider making a donation to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your contributions will help us continue providing the best free cultural and educational materials to learners everywhere. You can contribute through PayPal, Patreon, and Venmo (@openculture). Thanks!
Related Content:
Woody Guthrie’s Fan Letter To John Cage and Alan Hovhaness (1947)
Two Legends Together: A Young Bob Dylan Talks and Plays on The Studs Terkel Program, 1963
The Alan Lomax Sound Archive Now Online: Features 17,000 Recordings
Lovely! Thanks, what a great voice.
My perfect woman. I can’t imagine anyone more beautiful or with a nicer personality. I’ve been in love with her since I was about 17 myself (now 63).
Happy birthday Joan and many of them. Thanks for everything you’ve given the world.
Beautiful clip. Happy birthday Joan.
I don’t think that she introduced Dylan to the music world, though. He was already part of the Greenwich Village Folk scene when they met. Read a textured and detailed description of those days in Alix Dobkin’s memoir, My Red Blood. http://www.alyson.com/9781593501075.html
I have always loved Joan’s music. I was looking forward to seeing a video clip of her singing or talking at age 70yrs.
When I was in my teens and twenty’s I used to walk around the house singing her songs and people thought I sounded like her! I doubted it and put it down to our similar physical features because they also said I looked like her. Then, I met her cousin in Boston (whose name now slips my mind). I met him via his then girlfriend, a classical musician acquaintance whom I had previously met in Tokyo where I was living. He told me, “gee… you really look like my cousin, Joan”. I smiled and realized for the first time that perhaps others telling me I look(ed) like her must be true after all. Strangely, we do have the same hair style both then and now.
May you live until 120yrs Joan – and anyway you will live on beyond that in the hearts and minds of many…
Suzette
Happy Birthday and truly, thank you, for your beautiful songs and their meaningfull words.
great video clip. ty.
Happy Birthday Joan!!!!!! I met you twice–once in Orlando and once in Tampa Florida. I have spoken to your son Gabe a few times about music. Thank you for making the world a more beautiful and humane place. God Bless You on your special day!!!
Sorry, but she turned 70 in January!
Well, I was there in 1958. Yes, true. It was magic; her voice just blew you away. Before the 47 debut she also was at the Cafe Yana one night and sang along with Fred Bazler and I and then with some others, came back to our pad on Montfort St (not there anymore) and sang a few songs and just hung out. Nice memory.
Nice to see this again. I had forgotten that I responded earlier. Joan could sing anything at first glance and make you believe in the song. And, after all these year, looking back and realizing that a higher cause has always driven her. She is probably the bravest woman I have ever met.
That’s a very early performance, but it’s not Club 47.