Joan Baez brings her amazing graces to Chicago on Veterans Day

November 11, 2008, at Chicago Symphony Orchestra

By Selena Fragassi
Published: November 14th, 2008 | 10:30am

“I was right 40 years ago, and I’m right today!” Joan Baez triumphantly shouted to a crowd that sold out the four tiers of the lavish Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Dressed in a black blazer, jeans, and a teal scarf, the double agent singer-songwriter and social-political activist was halfway through her hundred-minute set when, unsurprisingly, her thoughts turned to the current state of politics as she dedicated the song “Joe Hill” to President-elect Barack Obama.

Unlike other momentous shows that bookmarked times of political upheaval (1969’s Woodstock and Big Sur, for example), tonight’s historic 50th-anniversary performance struck a slightly different chord. Although Baez is known for a repertoire of songs that debate war, elude the establishment, and fight for the right of civil liberties everywhere, this appropriately scheduled Veterans Day performance brought an uncommon sense of peace and hope as she capped a 20-song set with an encore that featured emotional performances of John Lennon’s “Imagine” and a chilling, full-house sing-a-long of “Amazing Grace.”

In true Baez fashion, she was clear to let the Chicago crowd know that the city’s newly minted and history-making icon was what caused her to change her tune. “Yes we did!” she exclaimed, with a sense of accomplishment that finally her hard work had paid off, both politically and musically.

It’s an intersection that she has crossed so many times before in an expansive career that has provided the soundtrack for some of the darkest moments in American history: the civil rights movement, the Vietnam War, the Cold War, and, most recently, the war in Iraq and the gloom of a failed Bush Administration.

At 67 years-old, Baez proved that she still has a lot of life to live and even more to say, even after winning the Grammy’s Lifetime Achievement Award in 2007. Touring behind the September release of Day After Tomorrow (Razor and Tie), her first album in five years, she introduced the audience to new hits that featured lyrical heavyweights such as Tom Waits on the title track, Elvis Costello and T-Bone Burnett on “Scarlet Tide,” and producer Steve Earle on “God is God.” Filled with accordions, violins, and banjo, the new material was reflective of her fondness for country, bluegrass, and folk compositions.

Baez also showed her spiritual side with covers of gospel songs like “Catch the Wind” (a song she often sang with her sister Mimi Farina) and “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,” an old Negro spiritual she sang a cappella, bathed in blued light. “I’ll sing you a white gospel song just to prove it’s not an oxymoron,” she joked.

The most beloved performances of the night, though, came in classic favorites like “Fennario,” “Diamonds and Rust,” “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down,” and Bob Dylan’s “Farewell Angelina” and “Love is Just a Four-Letter Word,” the latter which provided an opportunity for her best impression of the slow speak and twanged drawl of her one-time lover.

But if there was one Dylan song that could have perfectly summed up the night it would have been “These Times They Are A-Changing,” in homage to the calm and peace of looking forward to a new presidency, and a musical career that’s far from over.

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