Early sounds of Joan Baez

Sam Smith - At Harvard in the 1950s, I was news director at its student run radio station, WHRB. In the station log, I left a note referring to a live folk music program: "We had the usual motley collection of musicians and would-be musicians. The best by far were Bill Woods and a beautiful girl named Joan." Joan was a Boston folksinger brought to the station by her friend and later our 40th Vietnam fatality, Lew Walling. Lew also helped launch her career, getting her a seminal serious gig at 47 Mt. Auburn.

47 Mount Auburn,, which opened in 1958, was a coffee house located just around the corner from my entry of Adams House. The club would become increasingly famous with time, eventually becoming more important for folk singers than similar spots in New York. An up and coming Bob Dylan sang there between acts, Bruce Springsteen was refused a gig there, Bonnie Rait hung out there, and Muddy Waters attracted the Cambridge police who, according to one account, “couldn’t believe that the loud music could be coming from a place that only plays ‘folk’ music.

Joan Baez at 47 Mt.Auburn (which also featured singers like Tom Rush and Bob Dylan

I have a recording of part of Joan Baez' first radio appearance on WHRB. So new she was that the host couldn't quite get her name right. Here's the clip.