Joan Baez not allowed to perform at WRMC

[mikeschmike]

http://www.cnn.com/2007/SHOWBIZ/Musi....ap/index.html

WASHINGTON (AP) -- 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.

In a statement, a Walter Reed spokesman said that leaving Baez out of the program was a matter of logistics.

"The John Mellencamp concert took several months of coordination between Hoffman Entertainment, Walter Reed, Department of the Army and Department of Defense," said spokesman Steve Sanderson in the statement.

"A final agreement/contract was prepared between Hoffman entertainment and the Defense Department laying out everything the performance would entail. However, two days prior to the live concert, Hoffman Entertainment suggested Ms. Joan Baez's possible performance coupled with an interview by Mr. Dan Rather to Walter Reed officials. These additional requirements would were not in the agreement/contract and would have necessitated a modification.

"Nevertheless, the patients and staff at Walter Reed thoroughly enjoyed the Mellencamp Concert and wish to thank him for his generosity."

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.' "

I read a similar article on AOL where JB quoted a "cynical friend of hers" wondering why "they let the rats in but not you?"

I feel a lot safer knowing that these troops won't be exposed to a 64 year old folk singer singing about peace. We barely missed that iceberg, didn't we?