- Bob Dylan and Joan Baez are played by Timothée Chalamet and Monica Barbaro in “A Complete Unknown.”
- The two folk singers met in the early ’60s and quickly became close collaborators.
- They dated briefly in the ’60s and continued to perform together over the years, despite friction.
James Mangold’s new biopic, “A Complete Unknown,” opens with 19-year-old Bob Dylan (Timothée Chalamet) arriving in New York City, essentially homeless yet armed with his guitar.
It’s not long before viewers are introduced to 20-year-old Joan Baez (Monica Barbaro), an already-established performer in the Greenwich Village folk scene. In her first scene, Baez takes the stage at Gerde’s Folk City and sings “House of the Rising Sun,” the fourth track on her self-titled debut album, released in 1960.
“Joanie was at the forefront of a new dynamic in American music,” Dylan recalled in the 2009 documentary “Joan Baez: How Sweet the Sound.”
“She had a record out, circulating among the folk circles,” he continued, “and everybody was listening to it, me included. I listened to it a lot.”
In “A Complete Unknown,” Baez’s performance at Gerde’s is followed by Dylan’s. He sings “I Was Young When I Left Home,” leaving the movie version of Baez awestruck.
The star-crossed encounter kicks off a fruitful collaboration and passionate romance, despite Dylan’s existing relationship with Sylvia Russo (Elle Fanning).
In real life, however, Baez had gone to Gerde’s specifically to see Dylan.
“Somebody said, ‘Oh, you’ve gotta come down and hear this guy, he’s terrific,'” Baez told Rolling Stone in 1983. “And so I went down with my very, very jealous boyfriend, and we saw this scruffy little pale-faced dirty human being get up in front of the crowd and start singing his ‘Song to Woody.'”
“I, of course, internally went completely to shreds, ’cause it was so beautiful,” she continued. “But I couldn’t say anything, ’cause I was next to my very, very jealous boyfriend, who was watching me out of the corner of his eye and trying to mentally slaughter Dylan, I think. And then Bob came over and said, ‘Uhhh, hi’ — one of those eloquent greetings — and I just thought he was brilliant and superb and so on.”
The movie depicts Dylan and Baez starting a sexual relationship after another chance encounter, when Baez stumbles upon Dylan performing “Masters of War” in a coffee shop. Notably, this takes place in the throes of the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962, when the world seemed on the brink of nuclear armageddon. After kissing at the coffee shop, the pair return to Dylan’s apartment.
Again, this doesn’t seem to be quite accurate. Dylan and Baez did meet again, but it would’ve been years before they began their ill-fated fling.
In real life, Baez was instrumental in introducing Dylan to a larger crowd
Dylan and Baez became an unofficial musical duo in the early ’60s, encouraging each other to refine their songcraft (she as a singer, he as a writer) and regularly performing duets at Baez’s concerts.
In the 2009 Baez doc, one friend described the pair as “quite a force at that time,” adding, “I think she had a crush on him. I know he had a crush on her.”
The details of Dylan’s life can be difficult for historians to confirm, given his penchant for myth-making and obfuscation. (He even asked Mangold to include an inaccurate scene in “A Complete Unknown,” according to actor Edward Norton, apparently just for kicks.) So, it’s unclear exactly when Dylan and Baez’s relationship became romantic.
When Rolling Stone asked Baez how long they’d been involved, she replied, “You mean what period of three months was it? Um, Bob and I spent some time together. I honestly don’t know what the year was.”
Baez wasn’t interested in drugs, which she said caused her to feel disconnected from other musicians, including Dylan. She also wanted Dylan to be more politically active outside his music, leading to a rift between them.
In 1965, a few months before the famous Newport Film Festival that saw Dylan “go electric,” he invited Baez to join him on tour in England — but neglected to invite her onstage for any show. This trip is scrubbed from the timeline in “A Complete Unknown,” but by all accounts, it was the death blow to their relationship.
“I just sort of trotted around, wondering why Bob wouldn’t invite me onstage, feeling very sorry for myself, getting very neurotic and not having the brains to leave and go home,” Baez told Rolling Stone. “That would be the best way to describe that tour. It was sort of just wasted time.”
Dylan also traced their split back to 1965 and, more specifically, the frenzy of his newfound fame.
“I was just trying to deal with the madness that had become my career, and unfortunately she got swept along, and I felt very bad about it,” he said in the Baez doc. “I was sorry to see our relationship end.”
“A Complete Unknown” depicts Dylan and Baez duetting at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival, but this didn’t happen in real life; they were on the outs by then. (They did sing at the festival together in 1963 and 1964.)
Baez later said that Dylan broke her heart.
Even after their relationship deteriorated, their connection fueled their art
Many fans believe Baez inspired notable Dylan songs, like the iconic 1965 hit “Like a Rolling Stone” and 1966 song “Visions of Johanna,” though he’s never confirmed either theory.
In 1968, Baez released her ninth album, “Any Day Now,” comprised entirely of Dylan songs. Her 1970 compilation album, “The First Ten Years,” includes six Dylan covers, including her much-loved version of “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right.” She also released the 1972 song “To Bobby” as an open letter to Dylan, begging him to engage with the protest movement.
A few years later, Baez wrote the heart-wrenching ballad “Diamonds & Rust,” which was shaped by an emotional phone call with Dylan.
“Well you burst on the scene / Already a legend / The unwashed phenomenon / The original vagabond,” she sings. “You strayed into my arms / And there you stayed / Temporarily lost at sea / The Madonna was yours for free.”
Baez later described “Diamonds & Rust” as “the best song of my life.”
“The really, really good stuff comes from down deep,” she told Rolling Stone in 2017, “and that was how strongly I was affected by Bob in the relationship and everything. It’d be stupid to pretend otherwise.”
“I love that song ‘Diamonds & Rust,'” Dylan said in the 2009 documentary. “To be included in something that Joan had written — ooh. I mean, to this day, it still impresses me.”
“Diamonds & Rust” was released in 1975 on Baez’s album of the same name. Later that year, Dylan invited her to join the Rolling Thunder Revue tour alongside a wide cast of their contemporaries, including Joni Mitchell and the Byrds frontman Roger McGuinn.
In the Baez doc, Dylan said he remembers her as “completely in her element” during that time, while Baez characterized the tour as fun and carefree — a departure from her typical activities as a social activist. The experience seemed to mend a bridge between them, however temporarily.
Dylan and Baez performed a few more duets before cutting ties for good
The pair reunited at a 1982 Peace Week concert at the Rose Bowl in Los Angeles, performing a three-song set together: “With God On Our Side,” a cover of Jimmy Buffett’s “A Pirate Looks at Forty,” and “Blowin’ in the Wind,” which Dylan had written shortly after they met.
Dylan’s guest appearance at the anti-nuke event came as a shock to the crowd, given that he’d declined to denounce the Vietnam War and generally avoided political events.
The following year, when Rolling Stone asked Baez about Dylan’s state of mind at the show, she demurred.
“I really have no idea. But I love singing with him,” she replied. “He isn’t in tune, the phrasing is nuts, and he always wants to do a song I’ve never heard before.”
The magazine also asked if the couple would ever get back together, “when they’re both 60 or something.” Baez replied, “Spare us, please. Both of us.”
In fact, the very next year, they reunited again for a 1984 European stadium tour with Carlos Santana.
Baez came to discover she’d only been added to the bill because the promoter thought it would boost sales. In her 1987 memoir, “And a Voice to Sing With,” Baez said she wasn’t treated as an equal performer and was largely ignored by Dylan backstage.
After a few haphazard duets in Germany, Dylan stopped inviting her to share the stage with him, so she decided to quit the tour. In her book, Baez described Dylan as tired and disoriented when she said goodbye in his dressing room. She told him their touring together didn’t work out, and he said, “That’s too bad.” She also wrote that he ran his hand up her skirt.
“Goodbye, Bob,” Baez wrote. “I thought maybe I shouldn’t write all this stuff about you, but as it turns out, it’s really about me anyway, isn’t it? It won’t affect you. The death of Elvis affected you. I didn’t relate to that, either.”
The two musicians haven’t been seen together since. While they did cross paths at a 2010 White House event to celebrate civil rights-era music, Baez said she didn’t try to greet him.
“The chances of him just walking past me would be too awful a scenario,” Baez told Rolling Stone. “It would just bring up feelings that aren’t necessary.”
In 2015, Dylan praised Baez when he was named Person of the Year by MusiCares.
“I learned a lot of things from her,” he said during his acceptance speech. “A woman with devastating honesty. And for her kind of love and devotion, I could never pay that back.”
Last year, Baez told Variety that she was not in touch with Dylan, though she didn’t harbor any resentment. “I may never see him again,” she said, “and that’s OK too.”
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