Singer Joan Baez, 85, Says She Went ‘Overboard’ with ‘Stringent Rules’ Because She Didn’t Want to Be ‘Commercial’ 

Baez said that it ultimately 'stunted' her growth

NEED TO KNOW

• Joan Baez opened up about why she was afraid of being seen as ‘commercial’ after she became a ‘phenomenon’ in 1959
• Baez also reflected on her insecurities at the time
• Baez, 85, said that despite her worries, she always had faith in her singing voice and her political activism

Joan Baez felt a little lost when she found major fame after she sang at the Newport Folk Festival in 1959.

Baez, 85, appeared on the Wednesday, May 27 episode of Wiser Than Me, hosted by Julia Louis-Dreyfus and produced by Lemonada Media. In the episode, Baez said she was “very critical” of herself when she was first starting out, though she admits the “self-doubt” was never about her singing.

“The voice was true, and I knew I could count on that,” she said. “Even when I was nervous, got terrible stage fright. I'd ask somebody just sort of pick me up and shove me on the stage and get to the microphone, And then it would happen, and then I'd sing.”

Louis-Dreyfus, 65, noted that the 1959 festival made Baez a major success at just 18 years old. “You didn't have an album out or anything. It feels almost like a cartoon or something, it's so lickety-split. Explain how that happens,” she said.

“Well, see, I don't know how that happens,” Baez said. Louis-Dreyfus said, “Obviously, you nailed it,” and asked if she was hounded by producers.

Baez said the press attention happened first. She became “a phenomenon,” which happens “periodically,” she said. “Everybody jumps on them.”

“Then the trick is, ‘How do you maintain your sanity?' And I went overboard in the direction of not wanting to be commercial.”

She continued, “It's kind of stunted me in a way because I was afraid that I would go ‘commercial,' and not be pure to myself and to the music. So those are the stringent rules I had set up for myself.”

Louis-Dreyfus remembered listening to a clip of Baez deciding if she was going to be on the cover of Time Magazine. She ultimately said yes, and a painting by Russell Hoban was commissioned of her for the cover. That painting now hangs in the National Portrait Gallery.

Baez didn't like the painting at the time. “As a piece of art, I do [like it],” she said. “But at that age, I was way too vain to have somebody make me look like, depressed, old, whatever. I wanted to look pretty. That did not look pretty. So who wants that?”

The “Diamonds & Rust” singer admitted that she was insecure about her looks at the time. Louis-Dreyfus joked, “What woman does?” and Baez agreed. 

“It's exactly that,” she said. She did not feel “sufficient” in “most ways.” 

“In fact as we're talking, I would say really the only thing I really was sure of was that voice coming out,” the nine-time Grammy nominee said. Later, when she became more politically active, she also felt “steady” there, but in all other areas of her life, she was “questioning.” 

“Questioning them all the time, how I looked and how I presented myself to people and what they thought of me and so on,” she said. “But in politics, f— ‘em. You know? I knew what I was doing and the same thing with the voice.”

Baez was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2017. She has also received numerous awards for her political work, including, in 2003, the John Steinbeck Award. 

In 2023, Baez was the subject of the documentary Joan Baez: I Am a Noise. She was also portrayed by Monica Barbaro in 2023's A Complete Unknown, about Bob Dylan's rise to fame, with Baez's help. 

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