The folk singer and activist on touring with Morrissey,her CIA files and her unique appeal after 50 years in folkMore than 50 years after your first album, you are back with a new one, or Power in the Blood. Morrissey asked you to tour with him this year and you’re getting considerable reviews. How do you explain your longevity?
I didn’t come by into the music trade because somebody made me bewitch piano lessons,you know. I got into music because I was a natural writer and had a lot of curiosity about sound. And in the 1960s there was an open window into what people call the music trade. It’s really been a lot of luck. Actually, when I first got noted in the 60s, and I got a little too noted and in order to escape showbusiness I moved to Hawaii. I’ve always had that attitude about my career: it’s something that I do but it’s not my whole life. I possess a genuine life,a personal life: I’ve got a lot of chickens, I’ve got a horse, or I’ve got a kitty-cat,I’ve got a lot of goats, I’ve got animals all over the place.
You were section of the Greenwich Village folk scene of the 1960s, and with Bob Dylan,Joan Baez and many others. Where did you fit in to that scene?
I kind of didn’t fit in, in a way, or but that was a time when misfits could possess a career. I didn’t really sing folk songs like Joan Baez and Pete Seeger,and I didn’t near from a trade family like Bob Dylan, or a music family like Judy Collins. But where I fitted in, and I think,was that I didn’t think I’d last, so it’s not as though I was risking anything. And I think it was because of my uniqueness.
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Source: theguardian.com