Perhaps you saw this picture when it made the rounds of social media earlier this month. What you took away from the picture probably depends on when you came of age.
It was taken Saturday night, Feb. 8, 2025, backstage at The SF Masonic Auditorium in San Francisco during what was billed as “A Night to Honor Joan Baez: A Benefit for Sweet Relief Musicians Fund Celebrating 30 Years.”
There’s the mighty Joan Baez — just turned 84 — in the middle, flanked by Margo Price, Bonnie Raitt and Linda Ronstadt on the left and by Rosanne Cash, Lucinda Williams and Emmylou Harris on the right.
It’s a super cool team picture. From that group, I’ve seen Bonnie Raitt (twice since 1989, with a third time coming up later this year), Rosanne Cash and Emmylou Harris.
But my eye immediately went to the timelessly beautiful Linda Ronstadt, seated in a wheelchair and holding hands with Joan Baez. Ronstadt, now 78, is rightly celebrated as part of this all-star sisterhood, but she can no longer sing with them.
Price, the youngest of them all at 41, was so blown away by the experience that she wrote about it on her Substack.
“I held back tears of joy and pinched myself repeatedly to make sure it wasn’t in fact a dream. … I knelt beside Linda Ronstadt as she listened to the rehearsals side stage and thanked her for her life’s work — pointing to ‘Canciones de mi Padre’ as one of my favorite albums of all time. She remarked that it was good to hear someone sing ‘Deportees,’ as it feels unfortunately pertinent with all of the mass deportations happening with ICE. Linda listened to my songs and told me she loved my voice following it up by saying, ‘I’m glad you young kids are learning all these old songs.'”
Ronstadt retired from singing in 2013 after being diagnosed with progressive supranuclear palsy, a brain disorder that affects movement, vision, speech, and cognitive ability. It was initially misdiagnosed as Parkinson’s disease.
Another member of that sisterhood, Lucinda Williams, now 72, had a stroke in November 2020. At first, she couldn’t play guitar. She walked with a cane. But by the following summer, she’d recovered enough to tour with Jason Isbell.
The musicians we love and have loved are just like us. They get sick.
Last week, Brian Setzer said he can no longer play guitar because of an auto-immune condition. Setzer is 65. He shared this on Instagram:
“Towards the end of the last Stray Cats tour I noticed that my hands were cramping up. I’ve since discovered that I have an auto-immune disease. I cannot play guitar. There is no pain, but it feels like I am wearing a pair of gloves when I try to play. I have seen some progress in that I can hold a pen and tie my shoes. I know this sounds ridiculous, but I was at a point where I couldn’t even do that. … I know I will beat this, it will just take some time.”
Earlier this month, Ozzy Osbourne said he probably won’t be a full participant in the July 5 reunion of the original Black Sabbath in Birmingham, England, because he can no longer stand. Ozzy has Parkinson’s disease. He’s 76.
“I’m not planning on a doing a set with Black Sabbath, but I am doing little bits and pieces with them. I am doing what I can, where I feel comfortable,” he said on his “Ozzy Speaks” show on his Ozzy’s Boneyard channel on Sirius XM radio.
In recent years, perhaps no performer beset by serious illness has more memorably reclaimed their greatness than Joni Mitchell, now 81.
After experiencing a devastating aneurysm in 2015, she made a triumphant comeback at the Newport Folk Festival in 2022. Mitchell sat at center stage, befitting her status as music royalty, performing with friends and admirers — among them Brandi Carlisle, Wynonna Judd, Shooter Jennings, Marcus Mumford, Taylor Goldsmith and Allison Russell.
That performance is captured on “Joni Mitchell at Newport,” a Grammy-winning live folk album released in 2023.
About the Sweet Relief Musicians Fund: It’s a 501(c)(3) non-profit charity organization founded in 1994 by singer-songwriter Victoria Williams after she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. Its mission is to provide “financial assistance to all types of career musicians and music industry workers who are struggling to make ends meet while facing physical or mental health issues, disability, or age-related problems.”
Backstage photo by Jay Blakesberg. (© 2025 Jay Blakesberg)