datamusicata

Last night I watached a PBS DVD on Joan Baez (www.joanbaez.com).     I had realized that she was a cultural icon of my generation and I knew very little of her music and only what the newspapers had reported of her political actions.

I remembered that she subtracted the percentage of her income tax that was the same percentage of the GNP that the government  spends on war.   I thought she was crazy when I was twenty.   I think she’s courageous and remarkable now.

Joan Baez, in 1967, was a powerful force in folk music and, in my opinion, it was folk music that gave rock and roll it’s artistic/poetic aspirations.    I was a big fan of Bob Dylan (www.bobdylan.com)  and Simon & Garfunkel (www.simonandgarfunkel.com)  and consequently not only sang their songs, but had been writing my own (none of which, mercifully, can be recalled).

As I watched her life unfold, I thought about the time that I almost sang for her in Monterey, California.

I was attending the Defense Language Institute in Monterey studying Chinese and was also working as a bartender at a place called Flora’s on Cannery Row.   

They discovered that I played guitar and sang and the next thing I know I was singing every weekend from eight to midnight, though I started out each Friday and Saturday tending bar at five pm, quitting at quarter to eight, grabbing slice of pizza and then singing.

The bar was owned by a fellow named Dick O’Kane, who was extremely kind and generous to me.  But I was a service man and he was nothing if not a patriot to the jingo extreme.  As for the 1967 political scene with Weathermen, hippies, Black Panthers, liberals, draft dodgers, he was outraged and angry.   He thought that Joan Baez and her hippy politics were simply a thinly veiled attempt by the communists to take down America.

One weekend night, I was in my usual place singing the popular songs of the day interspersed with my own when who suddenly appears in the doorway, but Joan Baez, her sister Mimi Farina, (www.richardandmimi.com) on whom I had an enormous crush, and one gentleman escort.   They stood in the foyer of Flora’s for a minute and took in the complete Victorian atmosphere, right down to a beautiful waitress in a boustier (sp?) and started looking for a table.

I thought my heart was going to explode.   Here she was, the reigning queen of folk music, and I was going to get to sing for her.   I wasn’t unaware that Joan had brought Bob Dylan on stage at dozens of her shows and made her audiences listen to him.    I’m not saying I’m Bob Dylan, but still, if she liked what I did, it’s possible that her endorsement could change my life.   You cannot imagine how high my imagination, hopes and dreams were soaring as they walked in.

Suddenly Dick O’Kane was the at the door, stopping them from entering.    They looked bewildered, but patiently listened as he explained to them that they could not come in because of their improper attire.     They were wearing expensive clothes and what appeared to be some kind of fur coats to keep them warm against the Monterey fog.   They tried for only an instant to talk around this incredible imposition and then quietly turned and left.

I could not believe it.    I almost sang for Joan Baez, which would in my twenty one year old mind, surely have changed my life and now I was just another G.I. with a night job as a bar tender who sang on the weekends.

I did use to make drinks for Kim Novak (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YcxP0jt3U9c&feature=related) , but that was scant consolation now.    Another opportunity to rise out of the morass foiled by right wing ignorance.

Ouch!