Episode/Archives
Hearing Voices- Hour Show
HV086- WHER-Memphis
Hearing Voices from NPR®
086 WHER-Memphis: All Girl Radio
Host: Susan Stamberg of NPR
Airs week of: 2011-03-09 (Originally: 2010-03-10)
“WHER-Memphis” (52:00 mp3):
The first all-girl radio station in the nation, WHER-Memphis, went on-air in 1955. It was the brainchild of sound legend Sam Phillips, who created the groundbreaking format with money he raised from selling Elvis Presley’s Sun Studios contract. Women almost exclusively ran the station. They read the news, interviewed local celebrities, and spun popular records. They sold and produced commercials, directed and engineered programming, and sat at the station’s control boards.
NPR’s Susan Stamberg hosts this one hour special on WHER, produced for the Kitchen Sisters’ series Lost and Found Sound. Mixed by Jim McKee of Earwax.
NPR links for WHER: music | part 1 & 2 | press | transcript | WHER reunion.
More info: PRX | Country Music Showcase.
HV071- Vietnam Vets
HV/Series/Episode/ Work by: Scott Carrier · Katie Davis · Larry Massett
Hearing Voices from NPR®
071 Vietnam Vets: Coming Home
Host: Larry Massett of Hearing Voices
Airs week of: 2011-03-02 (Originally: 2009-09-23)
“Vietnam Vets” (52:00 mp3):
Recordings, remembrances, poetry, and PTSD from some of those who fought America’s longest war:
The sounds of Saigon, 1972: in combat, on the radio, in the streets, were recorded by Claude Johner for the Folkways recording Good Morning, Vietnam (liner notes 4M pdf).
Doug Peacock, former Green Beret medic, deals with the PTSD of vets, including himself (interviewed by Scott Carrier). Peacock wrote the book Walking It Off: A Veteran’s Chronicle of War And Wilderness.
Rich Kepler’s war experiences were bottled up and about to burst, until he released them in his poetry (producer: Larry Massett).
An oral history of African-American Vietnam vets, based on the book Bloods: Black Veterans of the Vietnam War: An Oral History by Wallace Terry; produced for radio by Katie Davis.
HV111- Guitar Heroes
HV/Series/Episode/ Work by: Jack Chance · Barrett Golding · David Greenberger · Musicians Own Words · David Schulman · Susan Stamberg
Hearing Voices from NPR®
111 Guitar Heroes: Pickers, Pluckers, Players
Host: Barrett Golding of Hearing Voices
Airs week of: 2011-02-23
“Guitar Heroes” (52:00 mp3):
From the original big bad bluesman to a Master Class with classical guitarist Christopher Parkening:
The legend is of a shadowy soul traveling the countryside as singer, preacher, outlaw, teacher, of a hard boozin’, brawlin’, womanizin’ Blues Man. Well, that man had a name: Charley Patton, born around 1890 in the heart of the delta.
We hear interviews with people who played with Patton, David “Honeyboy” Edwards, and archival tape from Booker Miller (interviewed By Gayle Dean Wardlow), Roebuck ‘Pops’ Staples, and Howlin’ Wolf. And we talk to musician Corey Harris and authors Jim O’Neal (Living Blues Magazine) and Francis Davis (History of the Blues: The Roots, the Music, the People: From Charley Patton to Robert Cray
HV110- Mormon Fringe
Hearing Voices from NPR®
110 Mormon Fringe: Life with Latter Day Saints
Host: Barrett Golding of Hearing Voices
Airs week of: 2011-02-16
“Mormon Fringe” (52:00 mp3):
Polygamists, Polynesians, and Indian Israelites:
Mormons believe Native Americans are descendants of the ancient House of Israel. It’s a Mormon mission to bring them back to the Kingdom of God. So they brought children, mostly Navajo, from their reservation homes, and placed them in Mormon foster families across the West. From 1954 to 1996, more than 20,000 kids went through the Indian Student Placement Program. Producer Kate Davidson spent a year interviewing people about their experiences. Her story, edited by Deb George, ran on the Worlds of Difference series from Homeland Productions.
“Take the road toward the top secret army base. Go past Muskrat Spring until you get near Salt Mountain.” A statue of a Hawaiian chief overlooks the Utah desert, with a plaque reading: “Ua mau ke ea o ka aina i ka pono. Ua mau ke ea o ka aina i ka pono,” the motto of the kingdom of Hawaii: “The life of the land is perpetuated in righteousness.” A tale of two states, lost tribes, and the Polynesians of Skull Valley who named their town, Iosepa, after Joseph Smith III.
Members of the polygymous True and Living Church of Jesus Christ of Saints of the Last Days were excommunicated by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, not for plural marriage, but because the TLC called the LDS elders the agents of Satan. Then the sect split again, over how many wives can be in a husband’s bed. Scott Carrier spends time in the Last Days of Manti, Utah. Produced for This American Life “Factions.”
HV053- Ranchers
HV/Series/Episode/ Work by: Phillip Kent Bimstein · Barrett Golding · Jason Rayles · Jesikah Maria Ross
Hearing Voices from NPR®
053 Ranchers: Life, Death, Land, and Livestock
Host: Barrett Golding of Hearing Voices
Airs week of: 2011-02-09 (Originally: 2009-03-18)
“Ranchers” (52:00 mp3):
Cattle and sheep, wool and meat:
Our host documents a year on a Roxanne Linderman’s Montana sheep ranch, raising, lambing, herding, shearing, and selling sheep.
Click thru our audio-viz gallery of sheep-shearer Jerry Iverson’s ranch paintings.
Composer Phillip Bimstien made music with the voice of his neighbor, a Rockville, Utah cattleman, in “Garland Hirschi’s Cows
Lili Olsen, 3-years-old, takes us around her New Hampshire farm, recorded by Jason Rayles.
The late Attilio Genasci, interviewed for this story at age 97, held onto his California alpine-valley cattle ranch. Produced for the Nature Conservancy’s Stories from Heart of the Land and Saving the Sierra.
HV109- Musical Memory
HV/Series/Episode/ Work by: Ann Heppermann · Musicians Own Words · Kara Oehler · David Schulman
Hearing Voices from NPR®
109 Musical Memory: The Soundtrack of Our Lives
Host: Barrett Golding of Hearing Voices
Airs week of: 2011-02-02
“Musical Memory” (52:00 mp3):
Selections from Musicians in their own words, from the series Song & Memory (What one song do you remember most from your childhood?), and from the Afterquake project:
Song & Memory: Rebel Chef Anthony Bourdain is known for his raucous ways in the world of the professional kitchen, detailed in his book “Kitchen Confidential.” We asked him to put away his pans and think back to when he was a kid — is there a song from childhood that brings it all back? Bourdain can pinpoint his desire sex-drug-rock n’ roll start to a single song: “96 Tears
Musicians in their own words: Trudy Pitts and her husband, drummer Bill “Mr C.” Carney do a first-person duet. Trudy is an unsung hero of the Hammond B-3 electric organ. With her husband, Mr C, they’ve played with the Lionel Hampton, Clark Terry and Pat Martino. Their 50s R&B band, the Hi-Tones, featured a young sax player: name of John Coltrane. Their most rewarding musical partnership, though, is the one they share with each other. (MITOW stories were produced for NPR and are archived at PRX)
HV084- Place Your Bets
HV/Series/Episode/ Work by: Phillip Kent Bimstein · Scott Carrier · Alex Chadwick · Carolyn Jensen Chadwick · Joe Frank · Barrett Golding · John Ridley
Hearing Voices from NPR®
084 Place Your Bets: What Happens in Vegas
Host: Alex Chadwick of Conservation Sound
Airs week of: 2011-01-26 (Originally: 2010-02-17)
“Place Your Bets” (52:00 mp3):
We play keno, cards and craps in Sin City:
Up all night in America’s gambling Mecca: Vegas, baby.
A classical composition, in three parts, for strings, winds, and an interview with Tom Martinet, who trained to be a priest, but, instead, started working Nevada dice tables. Premiered 1997 in Vegas, performed by Sierra Wind Quintet. Re-released on PKB’s 2006 Larkin Gifford’s Harmonica.
An NPR hosts pits his wits against the regulars at a downtown small-town casino. Guess who wins. Produced by Carolyn Jensen; sound engineer by Michael Schweppe.
An excerpt from Joe’s hour “Zen” in his series The Other Side. What happened in Vegas… definitely didn’t stay in Vegas. Getting on the wrong side of Sin City’s collection crew.
Jazz bassist Kelly Roberti (David Murray Quintet) lost his bass to the keno machines. He kicked the habit; the scars remain, but the bass is back. Kelly was a 2010 Governor’s Arts Awards winner.
A radio drama written for Ridley’s 2001 LA Series on NPR Morning Edition. Performers are Bob Wisdom, Yang Chee, and Jim Wallace (script).
Above photo of the Las Vegas sign by Kcferret, June 2005.
HV108- Making Music
HV/Series/Episode/ Work by: Ginna Allison · Jay Allison · Katie Davis · Barrett Golding
Hearing Voices from NPR®
108 Making Music: For a Living, For a Life
Host: Barrett Golding of Hearing Voices
Airs week of: 2011-01-19
“Making Music” (52:00 mp3):
Making music, for a living, for a life:
The Maddox Bros. & Rose were America’s Most Colorful Hillbilly Band. In the 1930s, 40s & 50s, the four brothers and sister/singer Rose paraded thru America in their colorful Cadillacs and cowboy outfits. “Their costumes make Liberace look like a plucked chicken,” said Tennisee Ernie Ford.
Born to sharecroppers in Boaz, Alabama, they rode the rails and hitch hiked to California in 1933, where they formed the band. Their sound was both old-timey and western swing; their rhythms helped plant the roots of rockabilly. Ginna Allison’s sound-portrait features interviews with Rose Maddox, Tennesse Ernie Ford, Cliffie Stone, and her co-prodcuer on this piece, TJ Meekins of KVMR-Nevada City CA. (Images: Maddox Bros. & Rose: Myspace, Rockin’ County Style)
A preacher’s son, met in a North Carolina thrift shop, comes over the house to play guitar, and talk Jesus, G chords, and Gilligan’s Island. Carmen’s grandmother would not approve. Produced by Jay Allison for This American Life (PRX).
