CostelloNews.com: Joan Baez covers The Scarlet Tide

The Ann Arbor News reports -

Baez said she still believes music has the power to fuel change, but singing has to be backed up with action. "I made a documentary once called 'Music Alone is Not Enough.' But I wouldn't want to be part of social change that didn't have music,'' she said. The problem is, no one has written an anthem people can rally 'round.

"You fill in as well as you can until that happens. If I thought I could do that, I would do it.''

Steve Earle, whose "Christmas in Washington'' and "Jerusalem'' are on her new disc, takes powerful steps in the right direction, she added, as does Elvis Costello with "Scarlet Tide,'' which she's in the process of learning. "The words are pretty amazing: 'I thought I heard a black bell toll, up in the highest dome ... admit you're wrong, just bring the boys back home.'

"It's beautiful,'' she said.

Same as she ever was '60s icon Joan Baez, appearing at The Ark, still politically passionate

Saturday, October 15, 2005BY ROGER LELIEVRE
News Arts Writer

The phone rings, and it's Joan Baez on the line, calling from the Land of Oz.

"I'm in Kansas,'' the folk icon, whose current tour brings her to The Ark for two sold-out shows Monday and Tuesday, said by way of explanation. "Click, click and I was here.''

Baez, a lifelong peace activist and a key figure in the anti-Vietnam War protests of the 1960s, went on to talk about an upcoming concert in Lawrence, and then launched right into a not-unexpected topic - politics. She said she's feeling encouraged these days because recent events have made it harder for the administration in Washington to pretend the situation in this country is fine and dandy.

"I think the atmosphere changed with Cindy (Sheehan) and Camp Casey and 300,000 people marching on Washington. First, Michael Moore cracked the wall of denial put up by this administration that we had all been banging our heads against. Then Cindy put her foot through it. And it took a hurricane to knock that wall down.

"The question to me is what is going to arise from the rubble, in particular since the war got started and things have deteriorated and deteriorated.

"But this time the president can't just unplug his TV. There are too many things going on. ... He's really swatting flies, he's backpedaling to some degree. It looked for a while that would never happen, that everybody would always think the emperor had clothes on.''

This is Baez's second fairly recent visit to The Ark - she played a show in March 2004 that set an Ark record for selling out in a matter of minutes. At that session, she was backed by a four-piece band, but this time around that's been pared down a bit.

"I have two musicians with me and I do a lot of things on my own,'' said Baez, who recently released the live disc "Bowery Songs,'' recorded in New York City. "I'm doing a lot of things from long ago, and so the nature of it is in some ways really quite different than the last time I was here.''

Baez said she still believes music has the power to fuel change, but singing has to be backed up with action. "I made a documentary once called 'Music Alone is Not Enough.' But I wouldn't want to be part of social change that didn't have music,'' she said. The problem is, no one has written an anthem people can rally 'round.

"You fill in as well as you can until that happens. If I thought I could do that, I would do it.''

"It's beautiful,'' she said.

Baez, who is now in her 60s, has a personal connection to Baghdad, having lived there as a child nearly 50 years ago. She said she is saddened by the war and has no plans to visit the strife-torn country.

"To go back and see the general status of things, which the president insists are marvelous, would be ridiculously unsafe, unless I was on a mission, and I've done that before. I don't think I'd serve a purpose at the moment.''

Baez was in the headlines this summer when she showed up at Camp Casey, the site of anti-war vigil established near President Bush's Crawford, Texas, ranch by Sheehan, whose son was killed in Iraq. Baez said Camp Casey - and Sheehan's recent arrest for protesting in front of the White House without a permit - reminded her of the early days of the civil-rights movement.

Baez's "Bowery Songs'' follows on the heels of 2003's disc "Dark Chords on a Big Guitar,'' her first album of studio recordings in six years. The CD featured works from contemporary songwriters, among them Ryan Adams, Greg Brown, John Ritter and Natalie Merchant.

"Bowery Songs'' also includes Woody Guthrie's "Deportee (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos),'' which she has been singing since the 1960s, as well as Bob Dylan's "Farewell Angelina'' and "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue.''

Ann Arborite Carolyn Hough knows right where she will be Monday night - that is, if she can't score two tickets to the sold-out shows by then. She'll be out in front of The Ark, hoping someone has tickets for sale. She said she has been searching for tickets to either of Baez's shows for weeks, to no avail.

"My husband and I saw her 30 years ago in the Village. ... It was just a wonderful show. We've been listening to her ever since,'' Hough, who runs the Mail Shoppe in downtown Ann Arbor, said. "It's just the memories it brings back of that era.''

Roger LeLievre can be reached at (734) 994-6848 or by e-mail at rlelievre@annarbornews.com.
� 2005 Ann Arbor News.