Joan Baez gave me a ride home in her Jag-u-ar and she was wearing a trench coat. Nobody else in the world at the time knew she even had a Jaguar. They thought she walked barefoot all the way to Selma and would eat beans. She probably did eat beans, but she had a cool car that no one would suspect she had.

I'd seen her, I did remember at the time, once before performing in Claremont a few years prior to 1963. I went with some friends and wasn't sure what or who I was watching, I was so young. All I remembered was her clear high singing voice.

So in 1963, I wondered if she were in town for a concert I hadn't heard about yet. I'd asked her at the Chase's house where I ran into her if she was going to perform again. She laughed and was referring to Dorothy and Charles when she said, "They won't let me."

We were standing in Dorothy's kitchen at the time.

Later, Joan told me about a bus trip she and her sister Mimi had taken, buying tickets and riding the Mexican bus all the way from the border thousands of miles through the desert all the way down to Todos Santos, at the very tip of Baja. They'd get off the bus along the way, and rent a room, and the lady who would show them the room used too much fly spray as they were considering the price of the rental.

Even now, though I realize I must have seen one of her first performances in town if indeed anywhere, I can barely remember it. I could barely remember the show a few years later. I must not have been paying real attention, not knowing that would be an event of significance for some.  ¶ 1/06/2011 11:44:00 AM