Let’s be honest: There aren’t a lot of hot new takes on Joan Baez out there. In her six decades as one of America’s most badass bards, Baez has been pretty well documented. Not that the 77-year-old’s fitness routine isn’t fascinating (a lot of posture work, interestingly enough), and the Judas Priest-Joan Baez lovefest in the ol’ WaPo in August was great, but they are all variations on the same story: Baez is the best, and she’s bowing out.
The materfamilias of modern folk is making her victory lap before retiring from touring, and every jaded keyboard jockey wants to get a word in, no matter how mundane or odd their take may be. On one hand, we should be paying attention — her latest album Whistle Down the Wind is an amazing epilogue to an amazing career. But on the other hand, if you’ve had any contact with the music press over the past 60 years, you already know that this pioneering woman is the greatest of all time. Her generation-spanning influence on American music and culture is so profound that it’s tough find a new angle.
But what if you could play Whistle Down the Wind for someone who had no context, no clue as to the massive influence of this woman’s body of work? How would they react? I decided to sit down with my son Seamus, aka Big Shimmy, and gauge his reaction. He’s 11 weeks old, and he just discovered sound. He’s totally into rain, power tools, traffic (both the modern annoyance and the band) — all of it. And, yes, Aunt Susan, we only listen at safe volumes. He digs soul-jazz and ’90s hip-hop and Spike Jones. His first LP was Professor Longhair’s New Orleans (thanks, Aunt Kina). His favorite lullaby is “We Travel the Spaceways” by Sun Ra. He thinks People Only Die of Love in Movies, Steve Haruch’s collection of Jim Ridley’s film writing, is a book of bedtime stories. He’s a hip kid — he just doesn’t know anything yet. Total n00b, maybe a bit of a poser. His parents definitely pick out his clothes. Anyway, Big Shimmy doesn’t know a lot about folk music. He slept through Murray Lerner’s Festival a couple of weeks ago, but that’s about it.
I cue up Whistle Down the Wind. He is into it, I think. He’s a little offended every time I start to talk, he seems concerned every time I’m not staring at the speaker. Honestly, he’s got that level of serious-listening face you don’t often see outside the front rows of the Newport Folk Fest. His little fingers move like he knows how the guitar works, picking an imaginary string, maybe not keeping time but certainly responding to the stimuli sneaking into his ear hole. Today is Day 2 of Dude Time With Dad, an experiment in rock-critic-led child care. Mom is going back to work after three months’ maternity leave, and the Maloney Boys are practicing not burning the house down. As it stands, music is the best distraction from Dad’s inability to produce boob-juice.
It dawns on me: He might actually be hip to Baez already. We left him with Nana for a yoga date, and Nana had Baez tickets; maybe she already spilled the beans about the folk legend. Maybe he wasn’t asleep when we were watching Festival. The kid doesn’t have many voluntary reactions in his repertoire: smiling, crying, looking folk-fan serious. It’s instinctual, inelegant and rather easy to read — either “This is cool” or “What fucking horrors have you unleashed upon me, you evil warlock, with your fucking noise magick?” (Apparently he doesn’t enjoy Plastikman’s Sheet One. Doesn’t enjoy it at all.) He also makes a pretty solid “meh” noise if he’s not into a situation. He’s a loud pooper. We are exceptionally lucky. He is average as hell.
Watching his eyes look for the piano, the humming, the strumming of the things; watching his tiny eyebrows arch as things get serious on “Civil War,” watching the sense of relief as Baez hums the bridge of “The Things That We Are Made Of.” (Apparently civil war is such a heavy concept that it can even bum out a person with no real concept of language. And the “Things” bridge totally sounds like Nana, if you were wondering.) He loses his shit when “Silver Blade” gets going — clearly, he’s not a fan of even the most beautiful of murder ballads. But the shuffle-step and steel guitar of “The Great Correction”? That right there is what this boy wants to hear. (That could be a side effect of the 12-hour marathon of the Dead’s Dick’s Picks in the delivery room.)
By the time “I Wish the Wars Were All Over” is over, it’s pretty clear that the power and beauty of Joan Baez’s work connect with a listener, regardless of age, experience or the ability to hold one’s head up for more than a split second.
