SXSW Interview: Joan Baez
Austin Convention Center, Saturday, March 20 Joan Baez must have a tasty ass, because there sure were a lot of folks lining up to kiss it at Saturday’s SXSW interview. The gracious 63-year-old folksinger looked absolutely fabulous, having taken time out of her current tour in support of the recent Dark Chords on a Big Guitar. Interviewer Alan Light nervously commenced with a fawning introduction unbecoming of any music critic worth their salt. Baez sported an orange T-shirt with Dubya’s face hovering over crossbones, the warning “Danger” emblazoned beneath it. This provided the perfect lead-in to Light’s first question regarding Baez’s transformation into a politically charged artist. “I was already politicized before I discovered ballads,” corrected the singer, recounting a story of how she protested air-raid drills in high school. Baez further explained over the course of the discussion that she didn’t want to be known as “the world’s oldest living folksinger” and that she’s turned her focus to developing young songwriters like Josh Ritter. “Being a legend is lovely as long as you can also be contemporary,” she urged. Light then went on to probe about Baez’s 1972 trip to Vietnam and other events stretching back to the early Sixties. How’s that for focusing on the contemporary?This article appears in March 26 • 2004.