Nobody's yet invited Joan Baez to be a voice coach on "American Idol," but one of the most celebrated singers of the last half century does have a word or two about the show. And as it happens, she sees it fairly regularly when she's hanging out with her son and his family up in the Bay Area.

"My daughter-in-law loves that show," she told me during our recent chat in conjunction with her UCLA Live show tonight at Royce Hall.  "It's sort of funny ... but you really can't stop watching it once you start."

The woman who first brought many of Bob Dylan's songs to a broader audience with her otherworldly soprano finds it both impressive and unsettling how so many contestants follow the Whitney Houston-Mariah Carey model of twisting and turning notes all across their vocal ranges.