Folk star Joan Baez saw a “scruffy little pale-faced dirty human being” when she first encountered rising musician Bob Dylan in 1961. But after hearing him sing, Baez knew Dylan had something special that would change the course of music and her own life.
The professional and personal relationship between Dylan and Baez is explored in the biopic A Complete Unknown. Now in theaters, the movie stars Timotheé Chalamet and Monica Barbaro as the two music icons, respectively. Both actors received Oscar nominations for their performances on Thursday, two of eight the film netted overall.
The Best Picture nominee, based on music journalist Elijah Wald’s 2005 book Dylan Goes Electric!, follows Dylan’s rise from 1961 through his rock-inspired performance at the 1965 Newport Music Festival that divided fans and changed the trajectory of his career. As the folk superstar’s music evolved during this time, so did his connection with Baez.
The pair went from onstage collaborators to romantic partners. Their attachment ultimately lasted only a short time, but it had a lasting effect on both of their careers and still fascinates music fans to this day.
Baez was already a star before meeting Dylan
By the time of the events in A Complete Unknown, Baez had already established herself as a key figure in the up-and-coming folk music scene. Her breakout came at the 1959 Newport Folk Festival, where her duets with Bob Gibson enthralled attendees and helped earn Baez, then 18, a record contract. Each of her first three albums was certified gold.
Baez was touring in 1961 when someone recommended she check out a “terrific” new singer at Gerde’s Folk City, a music venue in New York City’s Greenwich Village. And, thus, she and her boyfriend at the time were introduced to Dylan, whose real name was Robert Zimmerman, and his “Song to Woody.”
“I, of course, internally went completely to shreds, ’cause it was so beautiful,” Baez told Rolling Stone in 1983. “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.”
Soon after this, Baez invited Dylan to perform as an opener and duet partner on her tour. Baez was still the bigger name—even appearing on the November 23, 1962, cover of Time magazine—but her new protege was on the path to stardom.
Dylan dated Suze Rotolo before Baez
While Dylan and Baez had an immediate connection, their relationship initially didn’t stray beyond music. One reason is that Dylan already had a partner at the time.
In 1961, the singer met Suzie Rotolo during a folk music festival in New York City. “She was the most erotic thing I’d ever seen,” Dylan wrote of Rotolo. “She was fair skinned and golden haired, full-blood Italian... We started talking and my heart started to spin.”
Rotolo—whose name is changed to Sylvie Russo in A Complete Unknown—became known as the singer’s muse and helped inspire some of his early songs, including “One Too Many Mornings” and “Tomorrow Is a Long Time.” She even appeared with him on the cover of his 1963 album, The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan.
But as Dylan’s profile grew, Rotolo began to resent her image as merely his accessory, or as she once wrote being “a string on his guitar.” Following her six-month trip to study art at the University of Perugia in Italy, their relationship quickly soured. According to The New York Times, Rotolo moved out of her apartment with Dylan in August 1963 and, after discovering she was pregnant, underwent an illegal abortion.
By that time, Dylan and Baez had already begun their affair and established their reign as the dominant voices in folk music.
Baez called their relationship “totally demoralizing”
After the release of his aforementioned 1963 album, Dylan quickly became a national name as he continued to perform with Baez. In addition to their talent, Dylan and Baez were united by their outspokenness regarding social issues. This is illustrated by their performances at the March on Washington on August 28, 1963—the occasion for Martin Luther King’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech—which only increased Dylan’s profile.
But by 1965, Dylan began to move away from protest anthems to more mainstream genres such as pop and rock. His burgeoning celebrity further strained his relationship with Baez. “I think that his fame happened so fast, and it was so huge, that I kind of got lost in the shuffle,” she said.
While the pair separated following Dylan’s 1965 tour of the United Kingdom, the final heartbreak for Baez came later that year. In November, Dylan quietly married Sara Lownds, who has pregnant with his first child.
Decades later, in 2023, Baez described their relationship as “totally demoralizing” but acknowledged many factors contributed to the breakdown. “We were in our early 20s. We were stupid, and you can’t blame somebody forever,” she said.
Their romance inspired multiple songs
Although their relationship was over for good, it became evident through their music that Dylan and Baez carried lingering emotions.
In 1972, the protest-minded Baez debuted the bluntly named single “To Bobby” on her LP Come from the Shadows. As Dylan recalled in his 2004 memoir, the song challenged him to return to the politically-geared music that made him so popular and “come out and take charge, lead the masses—be an advocate, lead the crusade.”
Three years later, Baez took a more reflective approach with “Diamonds and Rust,” which directly focused on their relationship. Dylan loved the song and even invited Baez to join him for his Rolling Thunder Revue tour, according to Rolling Stone.
Although Dylan has remained much more secretive about his music, Baez believes she at least partly inspired his songs “Like a Rolling Stone” from 1965 and “Visions of Johanna” from 1966. Evidence for the latter lies in a cryptic lyric: “And Madonna, she still has not showed.” According to Far Out Magazine, a writer at the 1959 Newport Folk Festival called Baez the “barefoot Madonna,” a reference to her lack of footwear during the performance and the spiritual themes in her music.
Dylan hasn’t confirmed nor denied the speculation, fueling intrigue behind both songs to this day. Rolling Stone named “Like a Rolling Stone” the Greatest Song of All Time in 2010, and a handwritten draft of Dylan’s lyrics sold for more than $2 million in 2014.
Baez and Dylan didn’t keep in touch
Dylan, now 83, is considered one of the greatest vocalists of any genre. According to the Bob Dylan Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma, he has released more than 50 albums and written more than 6,000 songs. The 11-time Grammy winner has also received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Barack Obama in 2012 and the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2016.
While not quite as voluminous, Baez’s career has been impactful in its own right. Also 83, she released more than 30 albums by the time she retired from touring in 2019 and was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2017.
Away from the stage and studio, each went on to marry and divorce—Dylan twice—and become parents. Dylan is a father of six, while Baez has one son.
As for their relationship with each other, Baez told People in 2023 the pair never truly reconnected. Still, she revealed she found “total forgiveness” after painting a portrait of the singer in his youth. “I put his music on, and I just dissolved into tears. When I was through with the painting, I had no animosity left. None. It’s remained that way,” Baez said.
Dylan has similarly spoken kindly of Baez, praising his former collaborator during a speech at the 2015 MusiCares Gala. “Joan Baez is as tough-minded as they come. A truly independent spirit, nobody can tell her what to do if she doesn’t want to do it,” he said. “I learnt a lot of things from her. For her kind of love and devotion, I could never repay that back.”
Now, a new generation of music fans will experience their memorable partnership through the new movie.
See A Complete Unknown in Theaters Now
No stranger to musical biopics—previously helming 2005’s Walk the Line about Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash—director James Mangold met with Bob Dylan multiple times before production began. According to Rolling Stone, the singer had significant influence over the movie’s script and personally insisted on fictional adjustments, including the changes to Rotolo’s name and backstory.
Meanwhile, actor Monica Barbaro nervously spoke to Baez and was relieved to receive her blessing. “She is Joan. She’s not so concerned with protecting [her legacy] or hovering over it. She signed over her songs [to the film], all her arrangements,” Barbaro told The Hollywood Reporter. “She and Bob are sort of similar, in that they’re not so obsessed with dictating this idea of who they are and who they were.”
You can see their modern take on Dylan and Baez’s relationship with A Complete Unknown now in theaters. Elle Fanning portrays Suzie Rotolo’s fictional counterpart Sylvie Russo. The movie earned eight Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Director, Best Actor for Timotheé Chalamet, and Best Supporting Actress for Barbaro.
Tyler Piccotti joined the Biography.com staff as an Associate News Editor and is now the News and Culture Editor. He previously worked as a reporter and copy editor for a daily newspaper recognized by the Associated Press Sports Editors. In his current role, he shares the true stories behind your favorite movies and TV shows and profiles rising musicians, actors, and athletes. When he's not working, you can find him at the nearest amusement park or movie theater and cheering on his favorite teams.
