Posted on the Facebook page for Joan Baez, where someone was lamenting about keeping politics out of music and movies:
HeeeLLLOOOooo...whoever didn't get the Folk Music memo, News Flash: Folk Music IS by definition, if not always directly political, at least strongly associated with political and social issues. Joan Baez has been a folk singer since before I was born...and I'm really, really old. She was political by 1962 when she became active in Civil Rights causes and was interested before becoming active.
During the Vietnam War, (which lasted from before I was born until I was a teenager!) we were not allowed to play her albums within earshot of my father, who would scream about her political leanings, although the albums we had were all of traditional music either from other countries or from American sources dating from long before the war. After the war ended in 1975, one of us put on a Joan Baez album and Dad came charging in and yelled, as usual, "She was a traitor to her country!" My sister said, "Well, she was RIGHT, wasn't she?" Dad left the room and that's the last we ever heard about not playing Joan's music. I have continued collecting and playing it since!
Do you think Joan started political activism last week? She was doing this long before many people were alive! I, for one, am delighted to see her continuing the good (nonviolent) fight. From what she said following the 2016 election, I feared she planned to pack it all in to plant pansies.