Joan Baez, leggenda vivente della musica folk e attivista per i diritti civili, si racconta in questa autobiografia, narrandoci una vita vissuta all'insegna della musica e immersa nell'appassionata ricerca della giustizia sociale. Se la sua importanza come musicista è fuori discussione - ha letteralmente dettato i canoni della folk music -, l'autrice, oltre ai numerosi retroscena del mondo musicale, svela ai lettori ciò che la ferma aderenza ai propri valori - il pacifismo, la non violenza, l'uguaglianza - ha comportato nella sua vita pubblica e privata. Dalle marce di protesta a fianco di Martin Luther King, all'impegno in favore di Amnesty International; dalla controversa relazione con Bob Dylan, alla memorabile avventura di Woodstock; dai bombardamenti di Hanoi, in Vietnam, vissuti in prima persona in un bunker antiaereo, fino ai grandi tour americani ed europei. Tra un incontro e l'altro con i protagonisti della cultura pop e della storia del Novecento (Marlon Brando, Janis Joplin, François Mitterand, Nelson Mandela e molti, molti altri), la cantautrice ci dona la testimonianza di un'esperienza umana unica e sempre attuale, come attuali sono le lotte per i diritti umani di cui è stata pioniera e che anche oggi la vedono in prima linea. In occasione dell'ottantesimo compleanno di Joan Baez (9 gennaio 2021), Edizioni Bietti pubblica la nuova edizione dell'autobiografia, sincera e commovente, di un'icona internazionale fra le più influenti e importanti del nostro tempo, ammessa, nel 2017, nel prestigioso Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

In 1984, the White Mountain communities of Pinetop and Lakeside in east-central Arizona undertook a 'marriage of convenience' and incorporated. Historically, they could not be more different. Like rival sisters, one was pious and churchgoing while the other was wayward and fun loving. But in the best of American traditions, they formed a town government to provide services for their combined residents. Pinetop-Lakeside's history is as rough-and-tumble as that of any Western town. Settlement began with the establishment of Fort Apache in 1871. The cavalry post provided employment for freighters and skilled laborers, as well as a market for beef, hay, and grain. The 1880s brought colonists from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. They built the dams and lakes that in the next century would become the basis for an economy based on outdoor recreational tourism. Today, Pinetop-Lakeside is a thriving community of approximately 4,500 residents. One thing that hasn't changed since the time of the pioneers is the natural beauty that defines life on the mountain.

Fifty years after her stunning debut at the Newport Folk Festival, Joan Baez remains a musical force of nature whose influence is incalculable. Her voice is part of the soundtrack of a generation, and her commitment to social justice helped form its conscience. She marched on the front line of the civil rights movement with Martin Luther King, Jr., inspired Václav Havel in his fight for a Czech Republic, sang on the first Amnesty International tour, and stood alongside Nelson Mandela on his ninetieth birthday in London's Hyde Park. She brought the '60s Free Speech Movement into the spotlight, organized resistance to the war in Southeast Asia, and forty years later saluted the Dixie Chicks for their courage to protest war. Her earliest recordings fed a host of traditional ballads into the rock vernacular, and she unself-consciously introduced Bob Dylan to the world in 1963 in an effort to bring attention to songwriters that continues to this day.

Hers is a journey of the spirit, told with intimacy and passion as Baez shares her introduction to folk music and her baptism as its first female star in the coffee houses of Cambridge, Massachusetts. She recounts her musical and personal entwinement with Bob Dylan; her marriage to David Harris, and their painful breakup; and the joy she found upon the birth of her son, Gabriel.

With a new introduction by acclaimed music critic Anthony DeCurtis, And a Voice to Sing With is the story of an American cultural icon. Marked by the openness and vulnerability that have touched us in her music, and the passion and integrity that have informed her politics, this is a disarmingly frank and stirring memoir of the life and work of one of the most extraordinary performers of our time.