Joan Baez

US folk singer Joan Baez first appeared at the 1959 folk festival at Newport, Rhode Island, and with fellow singer (and erstwhile boyfriend) Bob Dylan helped to popularize folk music.

Her religious beliefs as a Quaker also made her a committed opponent of war and racial discrimination, and she stood up for her convictions in life as well as in her songs.

Her self-titled debut album in 1960 was a collection of traditional folk songs, including a number of Scottish ballads - (Baez's mother was Scottish, while her father was Mexican). The album eventually charted at Number 15 in the US (in 1962) and at Number 9 in the UK (as late as 1965). 

Her second album (Joan Baez Vol 2) was actually her first album to chart in the US and Baez headlined the first Monterey Folk Festival in 1963, also introducing her protégé Dylan. Later that year, her debut chart single (We Shall Overcome) peaked at Number 90 in the US but became a national anthem for civil rights and anti-war protesters around the country.

In 1964 Baez refused to pay 60% of her income tax in protest at government spending on weapons. At the same time she began appearing at Civil Rights demonstrations and on picket lines protesting racial discrimination. In 1966 she was arrested and jailed for blocking the entrance to the Armed Forces Induction Center at Oakland, California in protest against US involvement in the Vietnam War. A year late, Baez and her mother were sentenced to 45 days in prison for taking part in another anti-war demo.

Joan married draft resister David Harris (the leader of Peace and Liberation Commune) in March 1968, but Harris was to spend half of their three-year marriage in jail for draft evasion. During that time, she released an album entitled David's Album, comprising a collection of songs dedicated to her imprisoned husband.

Over the next four years, she continued to play at large folk festivals, and to release successfulmuddy records - all with some message of protest. At the end of 1972, she travelled to Hanoi, North Vietnam, to distribute Christmas gifts and letters to US prisoners of war. 

In 1973, Baez devoted one side of her Where Are You Now, My Son? album to an audio documentary about the US bombing campaign in Vietnam.

Joan Baez remained a tireless campaigner for peace causes throughout the 80s and 90s, always taking an active role rather than paying lip service to the cause. In 1993 she undertook a short tour of Croatia, playing to refugees from the back of a truck, and stated "my devotion to social change will go on until I fall into the grave".