HV034- To War

Hearing Voices from NPR®
034 To War: Getting In and Getting Out
Host: Scott Carrier of Hearing Voices
Airs week of: 2009-11-18 (Originally: 2008-10-22)

“To War” (52:00 mp3):

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

We get out of one conflict and into another:

Our show host travels the country in early October 2001, asking everyone the same question: “Are You Ready for War?”

An NPR chronicle leading up to the last day of US flights out of the Vietnam War, 30 April 1975: the fall of Saigon, with original recordings by one of the helicopter pilots.

UH1 helicopters at sunrise in Vietnam, photo by Lowell Eneix, 121st Assault Helicopter Company, US Army (from Vietnam Helicopter online gallery).

HV027- Poland

Hearing Voices from NPR®
027 Poland: A Ghost Story
Host: Art Silverman of NPR
Airs week of: 2009-09-16 (Originally: 2008-09-03)

“Poland” (52:00 mp3):

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

For the 70th anniversary of the invasion:

Poland battles against the Germans and then the Russians at the start of the Second World War.

A German foot soldier and Polish townspeople recall, differently, the first days of the invasion of Poland in September 1939, and Poland’s later battle to fight years of environmental poisoning during the Soviet era.

All in a series of stories written by NPR’s Alex Chadwick and produced by host Art Silverman.

HV068- Jean Shepherd 2

Hearing Voices from NPR®
068 Jean Shepherd 2: A Voice in the Night
Host: Harry Shearer of Le Show & KCRW
Airs week of: 2009-08-19

“Jean Shepherd 2″ (52:00 mp3):

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

The final hour of a two-part tribute to radio raconteur Jean Shepherd. For info or to Comment, see Jean Shepherd, Part 1.

HV067- Jean Shepherd 1

Hearing Voices from NPR®
067 Jean Shepherd 1: A Voice in the Night
Host: Harry Shearer of Le Show & KCRW
Airs week of: 2009-08-12

“Jean Shepherd 1″ (52:00 mp3):

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Hour one (of two) in this two-part tribute to radio raconteur Jean Shepherd:

Jean Shepherd used words like a jazz musician uses notes, winding around a theme, playing with variations, sending fresh self-reflective storylines out into the night. Marshall McLuhan called Shepherd “the first radio novelist.” From 1956-1977 Shep spun his late night stories over WOR radio, New York City. PBS gave him a TV series, “Jean Shepherd’s America.” In 1983 he co-wrote and narrated the film version of his “A Christmas Story.”

Shep inspired a new generation of spoken narrative artists who tap into the American psyche. Among them was Harry Shearer (Le Show), who hosts this two part tribute to Jean Shepherd. Shearer interviews Shep’s co-workers, friends and fans, including Robert Krulwich, Joe Frank, Paul Krassner, and Jules Fieffer.

Thanks to Mr. Shearer, KCRW- Santa Monica (and Sarah Spitz), NPR, and Art Silverman for production support, and for allowing us to re-air this two-hour tribute. This is part one; part two is next week.

One time I woke up at 3 o’clock in the morning. My radio was still on, and a man was talking about how you would try to explain the function of an amusement park to visitors from Venus. It was Jean Shepherd. He was on WOR from midnight to 5:30 every night, mixing childhood reminiscence with contemporary critiques, peppered with such characters as the man who could taste an ice cube and tell you the brand name of the refrigerator it came from and the year of manufacture. Shepherd would orchestrate his colorful tales with music ranging from “The Stars and Stripes Forever” to Bessie Smith singing “Empty Bed Blues.”
–Paul Krassner (from “How the Realist popped America’s cherry“)

The Realist: series of Jean Shepherd essays, Radio Free America, issue #42, #44, #48, #50.

Jean Shepherd – The Great American Fourth of July – PART 1

More…

HV059- War Memorial

Hearing Voices from NPR®
059 War Memorial: Return to Vietnam
Host: Alex Chadwick of Interviews 50 Cents
Airs week of: 2009-5-20

“War Memorial” (52:00 mp3):

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

For Memorial Day, two stories recorded in Vietnam, one after the war, and one during:

In 1966, a young Lance Corporal carried a reel-to reel tape recorder with him into Vietnam. He made tapes of his friends, of life in fighting holes, of combat; and he continued to record until, two months later, when he was killed in action. Friend and fellow marine, Tim Duffie, remembers him in “The Vietnam Tapes of Michael A. Baronowski,” produced by Jay Allison and Christina Egloff for Lost & Found Sound. NPR: story | response | credits/links; American RadioWorks: transcript; Lance Cpl Baronowski: Memorial.

Host Alex Chadwick first went to Southeast Asia was as a soldier in the Sixties. Two decades later, he made a “Return to Vietnam” as a journalist, on the anniversary of the Tet offensive, to find what had and hadn’t changed since the war (producer: Art Silverman, engineer: Flawn Williams).

Art of Larry

At NPR’s blog is a wonderful short film & essay by Art Silverman about Sundays, stories, friendship, coffee, cooking, and “Smokin’ Larry” Massett.

“Larry changed my concept of what could be done on radio.”

HV026- Prime Candidates

Hearing Voices from NPR®:
026 Prime Candidates— Portraits of Past Presidential Primaries
Host— Barrett Golding of Hearing Voices
Airdates— 8/27/2008 – 9/3/2008

Politicians who fancy themselves president tromp thru the New Hampshire mill town of “Claremont,” produced by Larry Massett, Art Silverman and Betty Rogers.

The media spin myths out of misquotes in “Democracy and Things Like That” by Sarah Vowell and This American Life (Alex Blumberg and Ira Glass, producers).

The Language Removal Service concocts the world’s first wordless political debate in their “California Recall Project.”

And all this years primary losers re-appear in “Super Tuesday Mixdown” (w/ music by Robert Wyatt and Bruce Springsteen), from Peter Bochan’s series Presidential Shortcuts.

Prime Candidates (53:00 mp3):

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

HV006- Radio Dial

Hearing Voices from NPR®:
006 Radio Dial— Signals from the Sky
Host— Barrett Golding of Hearing Voices
Airdates— 4/9-16/2008

Radio Dial (54:00 mp3):

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Radio stories about radio, then stories about radio stories:

Jake Warga paints sound-portraits of “Urbana FM” in Uruguay and “Radio Gondor” in Ethiopia.

Myke Weiskopf of the ShortWaveMusic blog records “Duelling Transmitters” (also check his CD 30: A Retrospective 1976-2006).

“WWV- The Tick” comes from Douglas Grant (voiced by former WWV announcer John Doyle).

We premiere Chesty Morgan’s Forbidden Love!.

Larry Massett interviews the “Language Removal Services.”

Recordist Steve McGreevey captures the solar sounds of space weather, the northern lights, and “Natural Radio.”

The Android Sisters lament the loss of great “Ray-Dee-Ohh.”

And Scott Carrier reports to work for “The Friendly Man.”

Shortwave/music mixes from Myke Weiskopf’s CD 30: A Retrospective 1976-2006.