Joan Chandos Baez was born on 9 January 1941, in Staten Island, New York City USA, of half Mexican descent through her father, and part-English through her mother. She is a musician, songwriter, singer, and activist, best known for her contemporary folk music, having released over 30 albums during her 55 year career, and recorded songs in at least six languages. All of her efforts have helped put her net worth to where it is today.
How rich is Joan Baez? As of late-2016, sources inform us of a net worth that is at $11 million, mostly earned through a successful career in the music industry. She’s performed many genres including gospel, pop, and country, and has consistently collaborated with many other artists, and all of these achievements have ensured the position of her wealth.
Joan Baez Net Worth $11 million
Joan started her music career playing the ukulele, and later on she would become very interested in folk music after going to a concert by Pete Seeger; she would soon practice these types of songs and perform them in public, after buying her first acoustic guitar.
In 1958, Joan’s family moved to Massachusetts and she would start performing in the area in local clubs. She later attended Boston University for six weeks, but was always more interested in musical performances. In 1958 she would do her first concert at Club 47, and while very few people attended it, Club 47 liked her and invited her back to perform once a week. She would continue doing performances and recorded with a few groups, performing at the 1959 Newport Folk Festival which gained her a lot of attention, with many giving her the nickname “the barefoot Madonna”. She was offered a contract by Columbia Records, but Baez opted to go to Vanguard Records for more artistic freedom. Her net worth was established.
Her first, self-titled album was released in 1960 featuring a lot of ballads, and would sell well. The following year she released “Joan Baez, Vol. 2” which would achieve gold status, and which contained a lot of traditional music, and later on she would help promote Bob Dylan. She would then have several charting songs including “There but for Fortune” which is a cover of Phil Ochs’ song.
Eventually she started to experiment with her music, and would incorporate classical styles to her next three albums. She sang poems on the album “Baptism: A Journey Through Our Time” which was more akin to a concept album. In 1968, Joan would work on her next two albums one of which was called “Any Day Now” and consisted of Bob Dylan covers. She then started to incorporate country-rock music to her songs, and would also write her own lyrics. She subsequently used her popularity to promote social protests, singing songs about peace and human rights, being one of the first artists to do so. With her continued releases, her net worth steadily increased.
In 1971, she cut ties with Vanguard after releasing the gold-certified “Blessed Are…” She switched to A&M Records under which she would release her next six albums, which would continue to build her net worth. Her first album for the record company was “Come from the Shadows” which featured a lot of personal compositions. In 1980, she was given an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree by Rutgers University and Antioch Unversity. She would later perform at the Grammy Awards in 1983, performing Bob Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind”. She continued releasing albums and then wrote an autobiography entitled “And a Voice to Sing With” which was released in 1987. She also became the first major artist to perform a concert on Alcatraz Island, a charity event at the former prison in San Francisco Bay.
Starting from 2001, both Vanguard and A&M would re-release all of her older albums with digitally restored sound and bonus content. She would perform at various events including the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival, while also releasing several live albums. One of her last performances was played at the 50th Newport Folk Festival in 2009 which marked the 50th anniversary after her initial breakthrough at the event.
For her personal life, Joan was married to David Harris from 1968-73, with whom she has a son. She also had relationships with Bob Dylan and Steve Jobs. Her family converted to Quakerism early in Joan’s life. It is known that Joan’s father is responsible for co-inventing the x-ray microscope.
