American folksinger and peace and civil rights activist Joan Baez ended her "Fare Thee Well" tour in Madrid recently, where with the natural grace and clarity of mind for which has been known from the beginning of her music career she told the audience that packed the Royal Opera House that "this is my last concert of my last tour." Joan Baez then slipped out of her shoes and proceeded to delight us with a wonderful and memorable concert in which she was accompanied on stage by vocalist Grace Stumberg, multi-stringed-instrumentalist Dirk Powell, and her own son, drummer and percussionist Gabriel Harris, though when she introduced him Baez made no mention of the family connection. Fifty-nine years after the release of her self-titled debut album and exactly 50 years after her appearance at the Woodstock Music Festival, we dedicate today's program to one of the foremost voices of our times singing from freedom and justice and against tyranny.
American folksinger and peace and civil rights activist Joan Baez ended her "Fare Thee Well" tour in Madrid recently, where with the natural grace and clarity of mind for which has been known from the beginning of her music career she told the audience that packed the Spanish capital's Royal Opera House that "this is my last concert of my last tour." In the photo, the young Joan Baez sings at the Civil Rights March in Washington, D.C., in August, 1963, the same demonstration at which Martin Luther King gave his famous "I have a dream" speech.
