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QUICK TAKES - July 31, 2009

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Associated Press

Joan Baez was just 18 when she performed at the first Newport Folk Festival, a self-described neurotic and high-maintenance teenager who remembers trembling in her sandals as she waited her turn on stage.

She sang in her signature soprano that night, and her career quickly took off; she released an album on a major record label, landed on Time magazine’s cover and made repeat appearances at the festival alongside on-off romantic partner Bob Dylan.

“I didn’t faint; I sang, and that was the beginning of a very long career,” Baez says about her 1959 festival appearance. “It’s all very extraordinary that my career has been going on all that long time and so has Newport.”

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Baez returns to Newport this weekend as the heralded festival in Rhode Island marks its 50th anniversary. She shares the bill with 90-year-old Pete Seeger, another of the festival’s original performers and a towering folk icon, as well as Arlo Guthrie, Judy Collins and more contemporary acts.

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