What thin one was that, Al? I only remember what I think must be the fat one, with the large profile pic of her against a greenish background background on the cover. Never even knew about any other songbook.

Like CupofTea, I also had a much-loved Judy Collins Songbook, and the pair of them sat together on my bookshelf - as indeed they still do. I'm looking at them as I type, two grand ladies who have spent years being dragged through countless digs and bedsits and flats in three countries. This is their (and my) first actual permanent house.

Back to Joan, and a memory that her book sparks: When I was new to London, I earned a bit of money by teaching piano to the ten-year-old daughter of some friends. This child was psychologically fragile in some way - very reclusive, stayed only in one room and would not come out, didn't speak unless absolutely necessary (at which times she could communicate perfectly well). It had to do with some emotional trauma centred around the death of her mother and unresolved mourning, rather than autism, which her family reckoned meant that she might be cured. Because the room she would not come out of had a piano in it, and the girl had shown herself to be musical and liked to sing, they figured that learning music might help heal her and bring her out of her self-imposed shadows. And that is where Joan and her book come in:

I tried all sorts of different things with her, in an effort to evoke a response and get an impression which musical path might entice her. Classical piano - apart from showing her how to hold her hands - didn't seem to be working, nor jazz (to the limited extent that I could teach any). Then, at a local music shop I saw in a window display the Joan Baez Songbook - my faithful friend and companion throughout high school - and something of the comfort I had taken from it flashed through my mind.

So I bought it, took it along to the next lesson - and it unlocked the door for this child. We worked on Joan's lovely songs, the girl started singing them, I showed her some simple piano chords (maybe guitar ones too, can't remember) and the road to healing began. These people later moved out of London and I lost touch with them decades ago so I don't know how she got on in later life, but by the time we parted the skies were looking much sunnier. And Joan's music was a direct cause of that.