Joan Baez (Photo by Dana Tynan)
Clips of Baez in performance during her 2008-2009 world tour and in intimate conversations with individuals whose lives parallel hers are interspersed with rare archival footage of her early performances at Newport and at Boston’s famed Club 47, and of her marching with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., among others. The documentary also features candid interviews with David Crosby, Bob Dylan, Steve Earle (who produced her latest studio album, Day After Tomorrow an, and two previous recordings), ex-husband David Harris, Roger McGuinn and more. A companion CD and a DVD containing additional footage and interviews is being released this month by Razor & Tie.
During a career spanning more than 50 years, Baez has released more than 30 albums and has inspired a generation of female singer-songwriters. In addition to scoring hits with her own compositions like “Diamonds in the Rust” and “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down,” the soprano with a three-octave vocal range also has drawn accolades for her interpretations of songs by the likes of The Beatles, Donovan, Bob Dylan, Tim Hardin, Phil Ochs and Malvina Reynolds, among others. The National Academy for the Recording Arts & Sciences (the organization behind the Grammy Awards) presented her with its prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award in 2007, while the Americana Music Association honored her last September with its Spirit of Americana Free Speech Award which “recognizes and celebrates artists who have ignited discussion and challenged the status quo through their music and actions.”
A longtime committed social activist, as well as a seminal recording artist, Baez has been engaged in a number of social movements and causes over the years. A recipient of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Earl Warren Award for commitment to human and civil rights issues, she sang out for and about freedom and civil rights on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial during Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s famed March on Washington in 1963 and helped inspire Vaclav Haval in his fight for a Czech Republic. Baez participated in the birth of the Free Speech Movement at UC Berkeley and co-founded the Institute for the Study of Nonviolence, as well as the Humanitas International Human Rights Committee. She stood in the California fields along with Cesar Chavez and migrant farm workers pressing their case for fair wages and better treatment. She marched, sang and fought against the Vietnam War, helped establish Amnesty International’s presence on the West Coast and participated in the international human rights organization’s first concert tour. In 1985, Baez opened the U.S. segment of the worldwide Live Aid telecast. Last June, she stood alongside South Africa’s Nelson Mandela when the world celebrated his 90th birthday in London’s Hyde Park
Produced by THIRTEEN and WNET in New York, with support from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the American Masters series of primetime specials explores the lives, works and creative processes of some of America’s leading cultural icons. Previous subjects have included Bob Dylan, John Hammond, Joni Mitchell, Willie Nelson, Paul Robeson, Pete Seeger, Sweet Honey in the Rock, Hank Williams and Neil Young. “American Masters” won the 2009 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Nonfiction Series, its seventh win in that category in the past decade.
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