Joan Baez’s favourite Van Morrison song: “I was addicted”
Joan Baez truly is the queen of folk. Standing out as the leading light of 1960s folk music, penning deeply moving tracks that call for societal change or tell confessional stories of her life, Baez’s music is timelessly beautiful. A peer to all the folk legends like Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell and more, Baez was also a huge Van Morrison fan.
Baez’s career started in the way most do: being moved by a concert so profoundly that she went out and bought an acoustic guitar. Turning her naturally gifted voice to folk music and away from the choir hymns she grew up with, her involvement in the college music scene in Boston quickly led to her writing music, too.
After a performance at the 1959 Newport Folk Festival, Baez captured the world’s attention with her angelic vocals. She recorded her debut album, and the rest was history, growing to become known as the “Queen of Folk” and a key figure in the 1960s counterculture scenes due to her passionate political streak.
In contrast, Van Morrison’s folk career seems more of an afterthought. Initially starting out in rhythm and blues bands, his mid-60s group Them is most well-known for writing ‘Gloria’, a track made famous by Patti Smith. Once the band split up, Morrison turned to pop-leaning rock, releasing ‘Brown Eyed Girl’ to major success.
It wasn’t until 1968 that his sound mellowed. Despite going on to be his most notable album and a record well regarded as a classic, Astral Weeks performed terribly at the time as fans hoped for more radio hits from Morrison. Instead, he turned to atmospheric folk, capturing the respect and attention of the worldwide folk scene, including Baez.
“I listened to Astral Weeks every single night for I don’t know how many months just before I had my son,” Baez told the BBC, picking the album out as one of her Desert Island Discs. Baez and journalist David Harris’ son Gabriel Harris was born in December 1969, a year after Astral Weeks was released.
One track in particular sticks in Baez’s mind from that period, adding, “‘Madame George’ was the one I think I was addicted to.” Listening to the song so often, she laughed on the radio show as she suggested it subconsciously got through to her as yet unborn son, telling the presenter, “It occurs to me that this is the song that son knows by heart somewhere in his system, whether he’s ever listened to it in his conscious life or not.”
As a ten-minute-long rolling folk track, ‘Madame George’ travels to Morrison’s hometown and childhood street, Cypress Avenue. Letting his unique vocals fly, accompanied by delicate flutes and classic folk guitars, the track is considered one of the finest on the album. A hypnotic story that considers the many characters of his home, it’s no wonder Baez had the track on repeat.
While pregnant with her son as his father awaited release from prison after refusing induction into the armed forces, it feels beautifully apt that Baez would be addicted to a song so full of freedom.
