Did you ever hear Joan Baez do her Bob Dylan imitation?:
Comments
Open thread 3/5/2025 — 23 Comments
The young Joan Baez is a dead ringer for my sister-in-law. I wonder if that’s why my brother fell for her. My sister-in-law still looks good at age 75.
That’s a new one, Baez as Dylan, and not bad. Time for an anecdote from the anti-war past.
It was the fall of 1967 and I’d received my draft induction notice. The student deferment had run out and it was time for a pre-induction physical. That October day hundreds of us headed down to Oakland. As the buses pulled up to the Army Induction Center we were greeted with a row of protesters, some sitting cross legged, arms joined, swaying while they sang, and blocking the entrance. We remained in the buses watching the spectacle until MPs separated them and opened the double doors wide. As I followed the mostly teenage boys into the place, a voice not needing amplification echoed off the building walls, a voice we all knew, Joan Baez singing at the top of her lung capacity “We Shall Overcome”. It haunts me to this day. What a voice!
Anyway, I passed the physical but enlisted in the Air Force.
Couple billion here, couple billion there and before ya know it you have inferior courts excercising the powers of the second article. Thanks, Amy!
Did you ever hear Joan Baez do her Bob Dylan imitation?
My dad was still in middle school then, so no, and he probably didn’t hear it either.
The disappointing squishiness of Roberts and Barrett is unsurprising. It’d be interesting to see precisely who and what that $2 billion is going to. I’m imagining things like transgender operas in Bolivia and other such nonsense that’s far from congruent with American tax payer interests and desires.
Very good Dylan imitation. I am reminded of other singers with magnificent voices who parodied bad voices. Patricia Routledge did a good job of being a bad singer in her Hyacinth Bucket role in Keeping Up Appearances. Then there were Jo Stafford & Darlene Edwards.
Interesting Joan Baez tales in the comments. The only one I have is about her father. I saw a film in physics class that Joan’s father–a physics professor at UC Berkeley– had narrated.
The key weakness of Baez’s Dylan impersonation is it is on key.
@Gringo:I am reminded of other singers with magnificent voices who parodied bad voices.
Madeline Kahn parodying Marlene Dietrich in “Blazing Saddles”…
Years ago, I saw Arlo Guthrie as part of a Tribute to Steve Goodman benefit concert for the Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago. He closed his three song set with a drop-dead impersonation of Dylan singing All Along the Watchtower. It brought the house down.
Also on the bill that night: Todd Snider, Iris DeMent, Kathy Mattea, Emmylou Harris, Jackson Browne, Lyle Lovett, and John Prine. Fronting a full band, Prine was absolute dynamite. I consider myself lucky to have seen such a show.
Bob Dylan was a phonie, as was Arlo. Dylan was born a Zimmerman, in Duluth. He taught himself the Dylan voice. Countrysided himself.
Girls just wanna have fun (on the SCOTUS (who knew about Johnie boy(?))).
Amy, check your notes about the Constitution.
Dylan was born a Zimmerman, in Duluth. He taught himself the Dylan voice.
My sweet summer child.
As if Dylan were the only performer who created a persona.
Joan Baez was plenty smart and talented. After all she was the daughter of a renowned physicist who taught at MIT while Baez got her start as a folksinger in the cafés of Boston and Cambridge.
Not exactly what I imagined when I first came to her music.
Of course I loved her 60s folk music, but the Baez album which touched me, haunted me was titled “Joan” (1967). Like so many albums that year it was deeply personal and cross-genre.
No idea if the following story is really true – heard it while listening to the radio. Dylan was famous for just writing and writing, gibberish and garbage just to get it all out of his head. He’s doing precisely that one night while hanging out with friends and when the evening winds down he just leaves it all sitting there. Baez, who’s gotten to know him pretty well by now, knows he’ll never come back for it. He’s probably already forgotten all about it. So she takes it all with her, writes a song using those lyrics, and it becomes popular enough to get some radio play. Dylan tells her one day that he really likes the lyrics. “You should”, she says. “They’re yours.”
Mike Plaiss:
That sounds like the story of “Love is Just a Four-Letter Word”:
_______________________________
Baez immediately took to the song, which was written by Dylan sometime around 1965, and began performing it, even before it was finished. In the film Dont Look Back, a documentary of Dylan’s 1965 tour of the UK, Baez is shown in one scene singing a fragment of the then apparently still unfinished song in a hotel room late at night. She then tells Dylan, “If you finish it, I’ll sing it on a record”.
Dylan never recorded the song. It remains a gem on “Any Day Now,” Baez’s album of Dylan covers.
The title might sound like a woman’s understandable plaint against men, but I can sure hear a young Bob Dylan writing it.
I consider it one of his great songs.
_____________________________
Seems like only yesterday
I left my mind behind
Down in the Gypsy Cafe
With a friend of a friend of mine
She sat with a baby heavy on her knee
Yet spoke of life most free from slavery
With eyes that showed no trace of misery
A phrase in connection first with she occurred
That love is just a four-letter word
–Bob Dylan
Neo – regarding the Steve Goodman benefit, being a Goodman fan you would have loved it. They opened the show with this priceless video of Stevie signing one of his most beloved compositions. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xBxZGQ1dJk
I’m not a Cubs fan and I love this song. Imagine confronting your mortality with such good humor and a twinkle in your eye! Steve Goodman was a giant talent and a musical treasure that sadly left us much too soon. My wife saw Goodman years ago at the Earl of Old Town from just a few feet away. I have always envied her for having that experience.
Scott:
I wish I’d seen Goodman in person. What a guy and what a talent!
Baez said about her ex-boyfriend Dylan that he didn’t know how to ride a motorcycle and sat on it like a sack of potatoes.
“Bob Dylan was a phonie…” I disagree and think he is sui generis; very talented and successful. However, maybe he originally had a Minnesoota accent?
I think Joan Baez should have been censured for her butchery of “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down.”
Agreeing with Dax.
Bob Dylan was sui generis.
One of a kind.
https://x.com/SpencerGuard/status/1897426395783168289
“Hamas must be disarmed and their military and political power in Gaza destroyed by force. Move civilians completely out of harms way and destroy Hamas through military operations.”
See link for statement by Pres. Trump to Hamas and Gaza people. It’s on.
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The young Joan Baez is a dead ringer for my sister-in-law. I wonder if that’s why my brother fell for her. My sister-in-law still looks good at age 75.
That’s a new one, Baez as Dylan, and not bad. Time for an anecdote from the anti-war past.
It was the fall of 1967 and I’d received my draft induction notice. The student deferment had run out and it was time for a pre-induction physical. That October day hundreds of us headed down to Oakland. As the buses pulled up to the Army Induction Center we were greeted with a row of protesters, some sitting cross legged, arms joined, swaying while they sang, and blocking the entrance. We remained in the buses watching the spectacle until MPs separated them and opened the double doors wide. As I followed the mostly teenage boys into the place, a voice not needing amplification echoed off the building walls, a voice we all knew, Joan Baez singing at the top of her lung capacity “We Shall Overcome”. It haunts me to this day. What a voice!
Anyway, I passed the physical but enlisted in the Air Force.
Couple billion here, couple billion there and before ya know it you have inferior courts excercising the powers of the second article. Thanks, Amy!
Laurindo Almeida plays One Note Samba: https://youtu.be/ojQGRSnEAQY
Joe Pass and Ella, the same: https://youtu.be/o21F0J1t3dQ
Did you ever hear Joan Baez do her Bob Dylan imitation?
My dad was still in middle school then, so no, and he probably didn’t hear it either.
The disappointing squishiness of Roberts and Barrett is unsurprising. It’d be interesting to see precisely who and what that $2 billion is going to. I’m imagining things like transgender operas in Bolivia and other such nonsense that’s far from congruent with American tax payer interests and desires.
Very good Dylan imitation. I am reminded of other singers with magnificent voices who parodied bad voices. Patricia Routledge did a good job of being a bad singer in her Hyacinth Bucket role in Keeping Up Appearances. Then there were Jo Stafford & Darlene Edwards.
Interesting Joan Baez tales in the comments. The only one I have is about her father. I saw a film in physics class that Joan’s father–a physics professor at UC Berkeley– had narrated.
The key weakness of Baez’s Dylan impersonation is it is on key.
@Gringo:I am reminded of other singers with magnificent voices who parodied bad voices.
Madeline Kahn parodying Marlene Dietrich in “Blazing Saddles”…
Years ago, I saw Arlo Guthrie as part of a Tribute to Steve Goodman benefit concert for the Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago. He closed his three song set with a drop-dead impersonation of Dylan singing All Along the Watchtower. It brought the house down.
Also on the bill that night: Todd Snider, Iris DeMent, Kathy Mattea, Emmylou Harris, Jackson Browne, Lyle Lovett, and John Prine. Fronting a full band, Prine was absolute dynamite. I consider myself lucky to have seen such a show.
Bob Dylan was a phonie, as was Arlo. Dylan was born a Zimmerman, in Duluth. He taught himself the Dylan voice. Countrysided himself.
Girls just wanna have fun (on the SCOTUS (who knew about Johnie boy(?))).
Amy, check your notes about the Constitution.
Dylan was born a Zimmerman, in Duluth. He taught himself the Dylan voice.
My sweet summer child.
As if Dylan were the only performer who created a persona.
What did he sound like before
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/reversing-kissinger-trump-china
Scott:
That sounds like a fabulous concert.
Joan Baez was plenty smart and talented. After all she was the daughter of a renowned physicist who taught at MIT while Baez got her start as a folksinger in the cafés of Boston and Cambridge.
Not exactly what I imagined when I first came to her music.
Of course I loved her 60s folk music, but the Baez album which touched me, haunted me was titled “Joan” (1967). Like so many albums that year it was deeply personal and cross-genre.
–Joan Baez – Children Of Darkness [HD]”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoBjNb00SYY
No idea if the following story is really true – heard it while listening to the radio. Dylan was famous for just writing and writing, gibberish and garbage just to get it all out of his head. He’s doing precisely that one night while hanging out with friends and when the evening winds down he just leaves it all sitting there. Baez, who’s gotten to know him pretty well by now, knows he’ll never come back for it. He’s probably already forgotten all about it. So she takes it all with her, writes a song using those lyrics, and it becomes popular enough to get some radio play. Dylan tells her one day that he really likes the lyrics. “You should”, she says. “They’re yours.”
Mike Plaiss:
That sounds like the story of “Love is Just a Four-Letter Word”:
_______________________________
Baez immediately took to the song, which was written by Dylan sometime around 1965, and began performing it, even before it was finished. In the film Dont Look Back, a documentary of Dylan’s 1965 tour of the UK, Baez is shown in one scene singing a fragment of the then apparently still unfinished song in a hotel room late at night. She then tells Dylan, “If you finish it, I’ll sing it on a record”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_Is_Just_a_Four-Letter_Word
–Joan Baez : Love Is Just A Four-Letter Word
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1fpDWXwfso
_______________________________
Dylan never recorded the song. It remains a gem on “Any Day Now,” Baez’s album of Dylan covers.
The title might sound like a woman’s understandable plaint against men, but I can sure hear a young Bob Dylan writing it.
I consider it one of his great songs.
_____________________________
Seems like only yesterday
I left my mind behind
Down in the Gypsy Cafe
With a friend of a friend of mine
She sat with a baby heavy on her knee
Yet spoke of life most free from slavery
With eyes that showed no trace of misery
A phrase in connection first with she occurred
That love is just a four-letter word
–Bob Dylan
Neo – regarding the Steve Goodman benefit, being a Goodman fan you would have loved it. They opened the show with this priceless video of Stevie signing one of his most beloved compositions.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xBxZGQ1dJk
I’m not a Cubs fan and I love this song. Imagine confronting your mortality with such good humor and a twinkle in your eye! Steve Goodman was a giant talent and a musical treasure that sadly left us much too soon. My wife saw Goodman years ago at the Earl of Old Town from just a few feet away. I have always envied her for having that experience.
Scott:
I wish I’d seen Goodman in person. What a guy and what a talent!
Baez said about her ex-boyfriend Dylan that he didn’t know how to ride a motorcycle and sat on it like a sack of potatoes.
“Bob Dylan was a phonie…” I disagree and think he is sui generis; very talented and successful. However, maybe he originally had a Minnesoota accent?
I think Joan Baez should have been censured for her butchery of “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down.”
Agreeing with Dax.
Bob Dylan was sui generis.
One of a kind.
https://x.com/SpencerGuard/status/1897426395783168289
“Hamas must be disarmed and their military and political power in Gaza destroyed by force. Move civilians completely out of harms way and destroy Hamas through military operations.”
See link for statement by Pres. Trump to Hamas and Gaza people. It’s on.