The 1960s have been over for a long, long time: temporally, culturally, ideologically. And one by one, its leading musicians are deciding they’ve been on the road long enough. Yes, Bob Dylan and Neil Young, among others, are still barnstorming. But on Friday and Saturday nights, farewell tours by two major figures rooted in the 1960s folk revival came to New York City: Joan Baez, 77, at the Beacon Theater and Paul Simon, 76, at Flushing Meadows Corona Park.

Their careers have intersected. On Saturday night, before a crowd of more than 30,000 people, Mr. Simon explained that he wrote “Rene and Georgette Magritte With Their Dog After the War” — his “oddest song title,” he said — after seeing a photograph with that caption in a book he happened to leaf through while rehearsing with Ms. Baez at her California home.

Ms. Baez, on Friday night, raved over the concert by Mr. Simon that she had just seen at Madison Square Garden; then she sang a Simon & Garfunkel hit, “The Boxer.” Ms. Baez’s concert was serene and modest, deferring — as always — to the songs she sang and the ideals they suggested. Mr. Simon worked on a larger scale, invoking a world of influences, ideas and details, juxtaposing and often combining introspection with a dance party.

A farewell concert is inevitably a reckoning with an entire career, a last major chance in the spotlight to put a near-lifetime of music into perspective. It took the Grateful Dead five nights in 2015 — two in California, three in Chicago — to encompass the jammy sprawl of their music (and most of the band members were back on the road in various configurations within months). By contrast, set lists from Elton John’s three-year farewell tour, which comes to New York City in October, show a straightforward jukebox of two dozen certified hits. Mr. Simon and Ms. Baez both chose not to retire with wall-to-wall oldies; their farewell shows revisited past glories but also showed them still engaged, still tinkering.