Joan Baez in Conversation With Dar Williams on American Masters Podcast

Singer-songwriter Joan Baez has been an icon of American folk music since the counterculture movement of the 1960s. Listen to her in conversation with fellow collaborator Dar Williams in�episode eight of the American Masters Podcast as they share anecdotes from their time on the road together, and how they've influenced each other in both music and life. This exclusive interview is pulled from the cutting room floor of director Mary Wharton's "American Masters - Joan Baez: How Sweet the Sound (2009)."

Hosted by series executive producer Michael Kantor, new episodes of the American Masters Podcast are available biweekly on the In Their Own Words: The American Masters Digital Archive website, iTunes, Soundcloud and Stitcher. Season One,�"Women on Women,"�features long-form interviews with influential women discussing women cultural icons. In a never-before-seen video from In Their Own Words: The American Masters Digital Archive, Dar Williams recounts a story about Joan Baez surviving bombing raids during the Vietnam War, just like Jesuit priest, poet and activist Daniel Berrigan,�his brother, Josephite priest Philip Berrigan, and historian and activist Howard Zinn.

The episode comes as American Masters celebrates the 30th anniversary with the launch of their digital video archive and podcast, featuring previously unreleased interviews with David Bowie, Gloria Steinem, Herbie Hancock, Bernadette Peters, Mike Nichols and others from the series' award-winning documentary films: 2,156 tapes, approximately 1,388 digitized hours, 800-plus interviews and counting.

In 1986, THIRTEEN's American Masters made its series debut on PBS with "Private Conversations: On the Set of "Death of a Salesman," a cin�ma v�rit� documentary about the making of Arthur Miller's masterpiece for network television, and its stars Dustin Hoffman and John Malkovich.

A selection of short-form videos showcasing interviews with celebrities discussing America's most enduring artistic and cultural giants are available now on the American Masters website. New videos will be released on an ongoing basis as the archive is digitized.

The American Masters Podcast, hosted by series executive producer Michael Kantor, will feature long-form interviews from In Their Own Words. The first season, "Women on Women," presents interviews with influential women discussing women cultural icons. Episode one features Gloria Steinem in conversation with the late, multiple Emmy-winning filmmaker Gail Levin taking a critical look at the life and career of Marilyn Monroe from 2006's "American Masters - Marilyn: Still Life." New episodes will be released biweekly on the American Masters website, iTunes, Soundcloud and Stitcher.

All full-length, digitized interviews will be archived by the American Archive of Public Broadcasting (AAPB), a collaboration between WGBH and the Library of Congress to preserve and make accessible significant historical content created by public media.

"I'm thrilled that the National Endowment for the Arts has provided major funding to get this project off the ground so we can finally share gems from the cutting room floor with the public," said Michael Kantor, executive producer of American Masters. "Series creator Susan Lacy built a rich library of more than 200 documentary films, which is a treasure trove of American arts, culture and intellect, and the amazing interviews that informed these films are largely unseen. While we are still seeking funds to create a comprehensive, interactive digital archive website, we are confident that In Their Own Words and the American Masters Podcast will inspire and entertain a broad audience both today and in the future."

Pending funding, the In Their Own Words: The American Masters Digital Archive dedicated website will eventually house all full-length, digitized interviews and be a public research-and-learning tool with an emphasis on usability, discoverability and comprehensive indexing to make American Masters interviews easily accessible and available to all.

To further explore the lives and works of masters past and present, the American Masters website currently offers streaming video of select films, outtakes, filmmaker interviews, photos, educational resources and more. American Masters has earned 28 Emmy Awards -- including 10 for Outstanding Non-Fiction Series and five for Outstanding Non-Fiction Special -- 12 Peabodys, an Oscar, three Grammys, two Producers Guild Awards and many other honors. The series is a production of THIRTEEN PRODUCTIONS LLC for WNET and also seen on the WORLD channel.

For more information, visit http://pbs.org/americanmasters