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Joan baez and a voice to sing with5/13/2023 “It took a lot of courage to be nonviolent,” says Neuwirth, “especially when people had clubs, dogs, handcuffs and all that shit.” “She has a kind of bravery that could just kick down the doors.” Baez was a fixture at marches and protests, especially in the Sixties, preaching a philosophy of nonviolence. “Joan has that rock & roll attitude toward life and freedom and love,” says singer-songwriter Bob Neuwirth, who has known Baez since her folk-club days in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the Sixties. “I told them, ‘If I had a hammer – I’d hit myself on the head. “But I said, ‘ Ooh, can I get one too?’ ” In 2010, when she was invited to perform at a White House celebration of music from the civil-rights era, Baez refused a request, from Michelle Obama, to sing “If I Had a Hammer.” “That is the most annoying song,” Baez says. “Most mothers would say, ‘Oh, honey, really?’ ” she says proudly. Resting her chin on her hand, she flashes her recent metal-chick tattoo: a series of circles and arrows that rings her right wrist, from a visit to New Zealand with her son, Gabe. Baez, 76, loves to play against her image as the serene, hyperserious matriarch of folk music.
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