Joan Baez banned from performing with John Mellencamp

It must have seemed like the Vietnam era all over again for Joan Baez last week, as she got an official thumbs-down from the U.S. Army. Baez was supposed to do two songs at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., on Friday (April 27th), as a guest of John Mellencamp. But four days before the event, Baez learned that the Army had decided not to allow her to perform with Mellencamp, who was doing a free, non-partisan show for injured troops, their families, and staff members at the hospital.

On Wednesday, May 2nd, The Washington Post printed a letter from Baez about the situation, in which she wrote:

"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. During that war, I could not, in good conscience, have 'sung for the troops.' Doing so would have meant condoning a war that was tearing soldiers, civilians, this country, Vietnam, and, in some senses, the world, apart. I do not regret that decision.
"What I do regret is having ignored the needs of the men and women who returned from Vietnam. For some who were relatively unscathed, it seemed possible to get on with life, with or without all of their limbs intact.
"But it's clear that, for many, returning was hell.
"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 a separate interview, Baez told the paper that it's possible she was barred because some soldiers might look at her as a traitor, based on her anti-war stance, though she didn't know that for sure. Referring to the living conditions scandal at Walter Reed earlier this year, Baez said one of her friends joked, "They let the rats in, why not you?"

An Army spokesman said Baez and Dan Rather were both kept out because the requests came in too late, though Baez's manager says that's not true. Rather was supposed to interview Mellencamp after the performance on the cable channel HDNet, which broadcast the show live.

Mellencamp hasn't commented on the situation, but he did tell us that getting Baez to sing on "Jim Crow" from his album Freedom's Road was great: "It was important, not because of the subject matter -- that didn't hurt -- but it's just that when I wrote the song, I just heard her singing it more than me, and I just thought it would be pretty with her singing it, and have (a) more haunting feel, and I think it does. We sent the song to her manager, and then the manager forwarded it on to her, and she called me and said, 'Yeah, I'd love to sing on this record.'"
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