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Joan Baez at Belvedere Castle, 2026. Photos by Carol Tannenhauser<\/p>\n Joan Baez at Belvedere Castle, 2026. Photos by Carol Tannenhauser<\/p>\n
By Carol Tannenhauser<\/p>\n
Joan Baez met Bob Dylan for the first time in 1961. She was 20 years old, staying with her boyfriend, Michael, in a friend\u2019s parents\u2019 apartment on Riverside Drive, on the Upper West Side. She had come to New York from her hometown of Cambridge, MA, where she had been making a name for herself as a folk singer.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverybody was coming to New York,\u201d she said. \u201cPeople would say, have you been to the Village? Have you met so-and-so? Have you played here, played there? I was all starry-eyed about the Village.\u201d<\/p>\n
Joan and Michael went to the Village, \u201cand this ragamuffin showed up,\u201d she recalled, referring to Dylan. \u201cI could feel my boyfriend bristle \u2013 and he had a right to bristle! There was chemistry, yeah,\u201d she added, softly.<\/p>\n
Joan and I were sitting on a window seat in my apartment on a Sunday afternoon, our backs to Central Park, when she told me this and other stories. Through \u201ca simple twist of fate,\u201d she had been staying with me for the past four days.<\/p>\n
She had flown in from her home in Northern California to attend the May 16th Bruce Springsteen concert at Madison Square Garden. \u201cBruce and I had reconnected\u00a0 at the massive \u2018No Kings\u2019 rally in Minnesota in March, where we performed, along with other artists, united in protest against Trump\u2019s immigration policies,\u201d Joan recalled. \u201cBruce uses his concerts to speak clearly and directly to his fans about what\u2019s happening to our country, and, of course, I can relate to that. I wanted to be there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mutual close friends, Karen and Irwin Redlener, suggested that Joan stay with me, because the Beacon Hotel, where she usually stays, was under construction. My place was perfect \u2014 after I spent a week cleaning and decluttering it and filling it with groceries and flowers. I wasn\u2019t actively anxious about her coming, simply because it didn\u2019t seem real. How could this iconic figure\u00a0 \u2014 singer, activist whom I had admired all my adult life \u2014 be coming to stay with me? <\/p>\n
Then, from the time she appeared in my doorway, having Joan Baez as a houseguest felt as natural as Joan herself.<\/p>\n
We moved around the apartment effortlessly, like familiar roommates, laughing and talking. We ate yogurt together and went to the building\u2019s gym, walking on treadmills. One night, I had a horrific nightmare (If you must know, I was lost in Bloomingdale\u2019s), and woke up trembling. Joan comforted me and offered tea. Her kindness and our connection were remarkable. To my delight, she later wrote in a text to me, \u201cI\u2019ve made a new friend in Carol Tannenhauser.\u201d<\/p>\n
How can I explain what it\u2019s like to wake up to Joan Baez softly singing in the next room? Or to watch her stretch in the morning, using the living room furniture as a gym?<\/p>\n
Having Joan Baez in my home felt like being in a state of grace. Not only does she have the purest of voices, but the purest of hearts. She is a civil-rights and anti-war activist and has been since she was a young girl singing ballads about Emmett Till. A few years ago, she went to war-torn Ukraine to visit and sing to the children.<\/p>\n
We took a walk in Central Park with Karen up to Belvedere Castle and through the Shakespeare Garden.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/IMG_0908-scaled.jpeg\")
Joan loved the dinosaurs at the Museum of Natural History.<\/p>\n
We got a personal guided tour of the dinosaurs, one of Joan\u2019s passions, at the UWS\u2019s American Museum of Natural History.<\/p>\n
We threw a small party for her on the eve of her departure and she sang, a haunting version of the freedom song, \u201cAin\u2019t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around<\/a>.\u201d Everyone in the room was spellbound. Then, she chatted with each and every guest, young and old, all strangers to her, warmly.<\/p>\n At 85 years old, she is an American treasure.\u00a0<\/p>\n Here are some excerpts from WSR\u2019s conversations with Joan Baez:<\/p>\n WSR: So, how was the concert?<\/p>\n Joan Baez: The concert was a musical blockbuster. 20,000 fans singing every note of his hits. Most impressive to me were the mini sermons [Springsteen] gave between songs. While perched at the edge of the stage, he let loose an unfiltered tirade against the administration, the billionaires, global warming, eventually switching to lauding community, resistance, hope, and music. This phrase was vital for all of us to hear: \u201cAnd it\u2019s happening now, and it\u2019s happening now.\u201d<\/p>\n WSR: How are you dealing with today\u2019s world?<\/p>\n Joan Baez: I have different responses, but probably the most helpful is, people should spend 80% of their day in denial and enjoy doing all the things they do. And the 20%, or even 10%, is, quit thinking about yourself. Look at the mess, pick out one thing you could do. Forget about trying to do it all. That\u2019s my little whatever you wanna call it. We may not be able to turn the tide, but we can save a few fish. That\u2019s when you get involved with a group. It could be anything, what you\u2019ve been putting off for the last five years, whether it\u2019s the homeless guy on the corner or cats and dogs. Just do it.<\/p>\n WSR: So, what are you doing these days?<\/p>\n Joan Baez: I\u2019m doing different things. For instance, I\u2019m painting portraits of people who\u2019ve made nonviolent change on a big scale, you know, from Gandhi to [Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelensky. Zelensky\u2019s a big one. Fauci. And Dylan. In spite of his being a weirdo, he gave us so much. And others. We sell the signed prints for $500 and give the money to different organizations.<\/p>\n WSR: Did you study art in college?<\/p>\n Joan Baez: No, no, I, you know, I had terrible grades, and the push was on because everybody went to college. I didn\u2019t want to go. So I was still with my family and the guitar came along and the voice came along and I never looked back. I mean, this voice wasn\u2019t like anything I\u2019d heard before.<\/p>\n WSR: Do you consider it a gift?<\/p>\n Joan Baez: Oh, absolutely, totally. I almost feel as though I can say I think it\u2019s a great voice because it isn\u2019t something I created. I call what I do maintenance and delivery. For the rest of it, I\u2019m just grateful.<\/p>\n WSR: Tell me a little about Bob Dylan.<\/p>\n Joan Baez: I was mystified by him. I just thought he was so brilliant, and he was channeling from somewhere. We didn\u2019t use the word back then, but he was just writing songs a mile a minute, all day and all night. And most of it was good. He once said, \u201cAfter I\u2019m dead, they,\u201d meaning critics, \u201cthey\u2019re going to try to figure all this shit out.\u201d He said, \u201cShit, I don\u2019t know what it means.\u201d<\/p>\n WSR: So, now you\u2019re 85. How does that feel?<\/p>\n Joan Baez: 80 was one thing, 85\u2019s another. 80 was a shock that I was 80; 85 is difficult. Keeping up the body and the mind, flexibility, balance. It\u2019s a lot. I\u2019m not\u2026I have a difficult balance, so I work on that constantly, and I\u2019ve fallen. You know, I try to learn how to fall right. Some of the physical therapy really is getting how to fall right. And I\u2019m good at falling backwards. You kind of roll up.<\/p>\n WSR: As long as you don\u2019t hit your head. What about singing?<\/p>\n Joan Baez: Singing\u2026 my voice that people know, just basically I don\u2019t have anymore. I have the one that last night you heard. So singing\u2026 I try to find what songs I can do in that range that are good. And right now, I sing at different events, you know, at tributes to my fellow songwriters.<\/p>\n WSR: How did you like your visit to the Upper West Side? What do you think of the neighborhood?<\/p>\n Joan Baez: I had a wonderful time walking up and down your neighborhood. And you\u2019re right, people are friendly. They\u2019re probably not that friendly in my little tiny town. New Yorkers have a special thing with each other, I think. They\u2019re proud to be New Yorkers.<\/p>\n Subscribe to West Side Rag\u2019s FREE email newsletter\u00a0here<\/a>. And you can Support the Rag\u00a0here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Joan Baez at Belvedere Castle, 2026. Photos by Carol Tannenhauser By Carol Tannenhauser Joan Baez met Bob Dylan…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":244084,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[72068,9,11,10],"class_list":["post-244083","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-joan-baez","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244083","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=244083"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244083\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/244084"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/IMG_0912-scaled.jpeg\")
An American treasure.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Image-1-scaled-e1779388633949.jpeg\")
Volodymyr Zelensky, president of Ukraine. Painting by Joan Baez<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/IMG_0906-1-scaled.jpeg\")
Joan and Teddy.<\/p>\n