Joan Baez - Do I just not get it?

Joan Baez, Yoko Ono, Mrs. Miller [remember her?], and Tiny Tim and all sound about the same to my ears!

>>Bob Dylan's next<<

Yes Dylan's voice is quite rugged now. It was, however, much better in the 60's and 70's. That being said he is unquestionably the single most important pop songwriter of the last 50 years.

First of all, if you're 50, J.B. is not of your generation, she's of the one before (same as Dylan who just turned 64.)

Second, there was no such thing as "PC" in the 60's. Gosh, we even shamed our returning vets. How PC was that!! Thank God, now that we're in Vietnam II and realize we've "been fooled again," at least we're not taking it out on our troops.

Back to Joanie. Most of you probably don't remember when she won a libel suit against the cartoonist Al Capp (creator of Li'l Abner) for placing a raven-haired folk singer in his comic strip named "Little Joanie Phony." As for her voice, I can attest to what Eldartford and Eddaytona said. Steve Kuyamjian, a fellow MIT architecture student, was teaching her to play guitar, and we'd often go to hear her sing at Club 47 Mount Auburn, in Cambridge. Her voice was truly a natural wonder, the material was innocent and ageless. Find some of those early Vanguard LPs, it will be very worth your while. They leave "Diamonds and Rust" in the dust!

When did relative age have anything to do with anything. My 12 year-old loves Frank Zappa, so that means what? He isn't supposed to have an opinion because he's a couple of generations removed? Huh?
I was exposed to Joan Baez well before I was 10 by some unthoughtful siblings, and that means what?
PC start was in the 60's for gosh sakes. It's when everyone got touchy feely about everything and became so concerned with offending anyone in any fashion yada, yada, yada.
You can find instances where the great unwashed acted in an unseemly fashion - the 60's weren't unique.

Snofun, what it means is that your 12 year old son has great taste in music. What it dosen't mean is that he would be able to relate to the mind boggling cultural sea change one experienced growing up in the 60's. Especially after graduating high school in say 1959! For him, or anyone born after 1945, it's really all hearsay isn't it? -- reports of reports of reports, mostly (now) by people who were not there either.

The 60's youth were nothing if not "in your face", and as far as we were concerned, the only "correct" thing was to change all politics. And being peace-loving (touchy-feelie as you put it) never kept us from speaking our minds. Unfortunately the media has now put most of the kids to sleep. Only 30% of current college graduates show proficient reading skills. Yada, yada.

Nope, I don't think you'll find much evidence of the 60s vision in our current culture. We've gone (or been led) down a different road -- it's called consumerism. And it won't end now until the oil runs out. . . . . . and at the rate things are going, if I take real good care of myself, I just might live to see it -- wouldn't THAT be a trip?!

As for Joanie, she had an undeniably great voice; and that's what sold records, not her politics or her songwriting. If she was just starting out today, she'd be the darling of some niche market label, just like Jacintha, but not the star she was then.