Joan Baez (born January 9, 1941,Staten Island,New York, U.S.) is an American folksinger and political activist who interested young audiences infolk music during the 1960s. Despite the inevitable fading of the folk music revival, Baez continued to be a popular performer into the 21st century. By touring with younger performers throughout the world and staying politically engaged, she reached a new audience both in theUnited States and abroad. Her sense of commitment and unmistakable voice continued to win acclaim.

The daughter of a physicist of Mexican descent whose teaching and research took him to variouscommunities in New York,California, and elsewhere, Baez moved often and acquired little formal musical training. Her first instrument was theukulele, but she soon learned to accompany her clear soprano voice on theguitar. Her first solo album,Joan Baez, was released in 1960. Although some considered her voice too pretty, her youthful attractiveness and activist energy put her in the forefront of the 1960s folk music revival, popularizing traditional songs through her performances in coffeehouses, atmusic festivals, and ontelevision and through her record albums, which were best sellers from 1960 through 1964 and remained popular. She was instrumental in the early career ofBob Dylan, with whom she was romantically involved for several years. (Her relationship with Dylan and with her sister and brother-in-law, the folksinging duoMimi andRichard Fariña, is chronicled in David Hajdu’sPositively 4th Street [2001].) Two of the songs with which she is most identified are her 1971 cover of the Band’s “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” and her own “Diamonds and Rust,” which she recorded on her acclaimed album of the same name, issued in 1975.

An active participant in the 1960s protest movement, Baez made free concert appearances forUNESCO,civil rights organizations, and anti-Vietnam War rallies. In 1964 she refused to pay federal taxes that went toward war expenses, and she was jailed twice in 1967. The following year she marriedDavid Harris, a leader in the national movement to oppose thedraft who served nearly two years in prison for refusing tocomply with his draft summons (they divorced in 1973). Baez was inHanoi in December 1972, deliveringChristmas presents and mail to Americanprisoners of war, when the United States targeted the North Vietnamese capital with the most intense bombing campaign of the war. The title track of her 1973 albumWhere Are You Now, My Son? chronicles the experience; it is a 23-minute spoken-word piece punctuated with sound clips that Baez recorded during the bombing.

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Throughout the years, Baez remained deeply committed to social and political matters, lending her voice to many concerts for a variety of causes. Among her later noteworthy recordings areVery Early Joan (1982),Speaking of Dreams (1989),Play Me Backwards (1992),Gone from Danger (1997),Bowery Songs (2005),Day After Tomorrow (2008), andWhistle Down the Wind (2018). A CD/DVD set of her75th Birthday Celebration concert was released in 2016, and she was inducted into theRock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2017. Baez later received a Kennedy Center Honor (2021). She wroteDaybreak (1968), an autobiography, and amemoir titledAnd a Voice to Sing With (1987). In 2023 she was the subject of an acclaimeddocumentary,Joan Baez: I Am a Noise; among the film’s executive producers was the singer and musicianPatti Smith.