Posted on 05/02/2007 8:05:57 AM PDT by kellynla
Folk singer and anti-war activist Joan Baez says she doesn't know why she was not allowed to perform for recovering soldiers recently at Walter Reed Army Medical Center as she planned.
In a letter to The Washington Post published Wednesday, she said rocker John Mellencamp had asked her to perform with him last Friday and that she accepted his invitation.
"I have always been an advocate for nonviolence and I have stood as firmly against the Iraq war as I did the Vietnam War 40 years ago," she wrote. "I realize now that I might have contributed to a better welcome home for those soldiers fresh from Vietnam. Maybe that's why I didn't hesitate to accept the invitation to sing for those returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. In the end, four days before the concert, I was not 'approved' by the Army to take part. Strange irony."
Baez, 66, told the Post in a telephone interview Tuesday that she was not told why she was left off the program by the Army. "There might have been one, there might have been 50 (soldiers) that thought I was a traitor," she told the paper.
The Post reported that Walter Reed officials did not respond to requests for comment Tuesday, but that in an e-mailed statement published Monday on RollingStone.com, spokesman Steve Sanderson said the medical center received the request for participation by Baez just two days before the concert.
"These additional requirements were not in the agreement/contract and would have required a modification," Sanderson told the magazine's Web site.
Baez's manager, Mark Spector, told the Post that Mellencamp's management invited Baez to perform in March and handled all the arrangements. The Post said Mellencamp's manager, Randy Hoffman, did not return calls requesting comment and that Mellencamp's publicist said the singer was ill Tuesday and unavailable.
But Mellencamp earlier told RollingStone.com: "They didn't give me a reason why she couldn't come. We asked why and they said, 'She can't fit here, period.'"
ping
HA HA
LOSERS
I thought she was dead oh well add to my 2007 dead pool
Joan Baez is the only high profile war crtitic who expressed regret at how things turned out in Indochina with the commies in control.
Plus, she sounds like a drowning cat. She could make healthy people sick, no way should she be allowed near recovering patients.
That’s precisely what’s so pathetic about these pacifists: they fervently and sincerely believe that their commitment to surrender in the face of pure evil somehow creates a bond with U.S. soldiers.
How about 150 million Americans?
Joan Baez can perform at Walter Reed, but only if she either: (1) performs a set consisting only of requests from the soldiers or (2) performs a set consisting entirely of her own compositions.
I'll point out that in her 48 year career as a folk singer, she has not written a single composition herself.
Or, if she has, she has never recorded such a composition on any of her 30+ albums, to my knowledge.
Whatever happened to her former husband David who went to jail as a draft dodger? During his stretch she had a lesbian affair didn’t she?
I’m not a fan, but she did write “Diamonds & Rust.”
she’s still around.....like any young person today wants to listen to her or even knows who the heck she is.
Her version of “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” always brings me to tears....of pain.
No bra-less anti-war chicks over the age of 30!!!
“Whatever happened to her former husband David who went to jail as a draft dodger? During his stretch she had a lesbian affair didn’t she?”
don’t know & don’t care...
but being a “draft dodger” in America is a badge of honor these days...look at Clinton...he dodged the draft THREE FRIGGIN TIMES and what did he get for his cowardice?
He was elected & reelected POTUS!
Is this a great country or what!
If she really doesn't know why they wouldn't want her there, she must be going through the early stages of Alzheimer's.
btw, anybody that wonders about Mellencamp, check out the transcript of his conversation with Charlie Rose a few weeks back.
Among the other insane comments he made, he suggested we ‘over reacted to Pearl Harbor’....(eyes rolling)
Kinda like you over reacted to your four previous wives, Johnny?
LOL!
And Rob Halford sang it better.
[she sounds like 2 chalkboards mating]
I beat you by less than a minute....LOL!
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