HV/Series/Episode/ Work by: Ben Adair · Scott Carrier · quiet american
Hearing Voices from NPR®
066 Desert Air: Audio from the Arid Regions
Host: Ben Adair of American Public Media
Airs week of: 2011-09-28 (Originally: 2009-08-05)
“Desert Air” (52:00 mp3):
Hot & dry stories and soundscapes (see Dave’s Deserts for photos from the American West):
Coyotes, owls, frogs and songbirds are part of Desert Solitudes, recorded by Bernie Krause and Ruth Happel in the Sonoran and Chihuauan deserts, part of New Mexico’s panhandle.
Host Ben Adair heads down to the ghost towns, Opera Houses, century-old abandoned mines, and billion-year old boulders along Death Valley’s “Mojave Road.”
Kraut-rockers Faust dial in “Long Distance Calls in the Desert,” from their album Rien.
The Quiet American (Aaron Ximm) sound-captures the forbidding warning signs rattling in a harsh wind and “Desert Sun” outside the nuclear Nevada Test Site north of Las Vegas.
Back in the early 1990s, SLC producer Scott Carrier found the Basin & Range, near Nevada”s “Battle Mountain,” beautiful, lonely, dreary, and full of sagebrush, solace and stories. And more Desert Solitudes.
Desert Gallery
Photos by David Matherly’s of deserts in the American West:
Photos © David Matherly
I really enjoyed this broadcast. I would like to know who the blues guitarist was that was playing the background music. Could I get his name the artist who played this music?
Brian, Ben sez: “I used I use a blues guitar in mine — right after the miner talks. It was the group Dirty Three with the song Distant Shore off the CD Ocean Songs.”
Scott sez, in his piece in 2nd hald of this episode: “probably stevie ray vaughn in the bar scene.”
It is true that the desert is an alternative; an
anachronism to our so-called western civilization’s
urban-planning. It is star-filled; flora-and-fauna
laden quietude.
Nevertheless, the summer’s energy-sapping heat
and interminable dust makes one long for
autumn and cooler climes.
A big thank-you to Ben Adair for his erudite
perspective on this often- ignored geographic
gateway to introspection.
Art Uvaas,
Ontario, California
I love this episode. I love Hearing Voices. It is my favorite radio. I could listen to Scott Carrier talk until the end of time.
Is that Stevie Ray Vaughn song is right before the bar scene? Do you know what song it is?
Lauren, if you mean the bar scene in the 2nd half, in Scott’s piece, he’s not sure, but thinks: “probably stevie ray vaughn in the bar scene.”
See comment above:
http://hearingvoices.com/news/2011/09/hv066-desert-air/#comment-27548
Would anyone know the artist who performs “Diamond Joe” starting at 32:20? Every song in this episode is just killer.
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