INTERVIEW: Peace activist Baez has no regrets, likes Obama

Jun 19, 2008, 12:14 GMT

San Francisco - American folk singer and pacifist Joan Baez, 67, can't hold her tongue. For decades she has stood up against violence and for peaceful coexistence all over the world, and now for the first time is backing a political candidate, Barack Obama.

'I regret nothing,' said the mellow but unswerving activist in an interview with Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa and German television ahead of a European concert tour that starts June 29.

Here are excerpts from the interview, which took place in Palo Alto, California:

QUESTION: On your Myspace site you list the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Obama as one of your over 14,000 friends. Are you in contact with him?

BAEZ: No. I wrote him a letter of support and a letter reminding him or encouraging him to think in terms of nonviolence as much as possible. That was when there was a clash with Hillary (Clinton) and she was really so aggressively unpleasant. So what does he do in that situation in a country where you have to be tough (or else) people think you are a weakling. Somehow he stood his ground and was not ugly. He had to get tough and nasty but it was pretty much in response to her. But still I thought, who is going to encourage him to be strong and not resort to the old-fashioned tactics, which is so ugly?

QUESTION: You are not as active as you were years ago and you spend more time with your son, grandchild and your mother. Your father died last year.

BAEZ: He died at 94. My mother is 95 (and shows) no particular signs of stopping at this point. I want to be around her. I do want to make up for time in the '60s and '70s when I was never home and all my attention went somewhere else. And then comes that terrible realization that it will continue without me, the marches, the institutes.

No, I'm not as deeply involved, but it's me, these things are me. When I walk out on the stage I'm part of history, period. It doesn't take more than two or three sentences in the concert for people to understand where I am on certain subjects. (Previously) I felt it necessary not only to speak out on everything but to be in the middle of a project in order to present it to the public and maybe that was correct. I don't regret any of the things I did. The only things I regret are not being there enough for my son.

QUESTION: But I heard he is proud of you.

BAEZ: I heard that too, and I love that.

QUESTION: What kind of music do you listen to alone at home?

BAEZ: This is always bizarre for people because they can't spell it. There is an opera singer from Sweden named (Jussi) Bjoerling. Starting at age 8, I heard his music - that would be my first choice.

But then there are people that we would recognize; some opened concerts for me. Josh Ritter and the Indigo Girls. There are some that I would share with my son. Sometimes when I listen to myself, I think I'm brilliant especially the earlier music when it was effortless, and now it's not so effortless, it's more difficult.

QUESTION: What can we expect from the new album?

BAEZ: At this point there are four songs from the album that I do in the concert. Two of them are just easy to hear no matter what country I am in, no matter what language it is, so it doesn't need much explaining.

And one of them, the actual song The Day After Tomorrow seems to be understood.

I say just the tiniest thing in English, whether it's Romania or Germany ... and the rest of the song takes off on it's own. There is something special about the song. The concerts have a couple of things from 45 or 50 years ago ... and then the long period in the middle and then also very new material. Maybe some things that are not even on the record.