Hearing Voices from NPR®:
008 About Aging—
I Thought You’d Never Ask
Host— David Greenberger of Duplex Planet
Airdates— 2009-04-22 (Originally: 2008-04-23)
From StoryCorps comes a remembrance from Richard Craig of his days as a dance host on cruise ships.
In Sound Portraits “The Ground We Live On” journalist Adrian Nicole LeBlanc faces mortality in recordings she made during her father’s last months alive.
And host David Greenberger shares some stories told him over the years by the elderly, including “Growing Old in East LA“.
Here’s another entry in our What NPR Was category: In the late 70s & early 80s Keith Talbot produced several series for NPR; among them was The Radio Experience. One episode, “Death in Venice” by Larry Massett, was mainly interviews with Venice FL retirees.
The half-hour is like a swim in the ocean, soothing, stimulating, but watch for the rocks and rip tides — it pulls you in. The piece told us then what non-fiction creative radio could be. Almost thirty years later, it still does.
Larry Massett wrote the narration, produced, and played his original music; Joe Frank narrated. From June 1981, “Death in Venice” (29:01 mp3):
Larry sez:
“I had no idea what was doing. And so I didn’t have any questions for anybody. I just stood on the beach in Venice with a microphone. If anybody asked I just said I was recording.
All I knew was is it was a retirement area, and there were a lot of fossils on the beach. Certain people saw the mic and came up and started talking. It was only after I got home and started to paw thru the tape that I realized what they had chose to talk about was the love of their life.”
The piece will be in an upcoming HV hour on Memory. Another Massett/Talbot experience, “Ocean Hour,” is up at Third Coast (with an KeithT interview on the NPR days of yore).
NPR has changed. As evidence I offer this early 80s promo produced by Jesse Boogs for NPR. This imagistic radio dramatic audio artistic style said NPR then. Now, not so much; “Morning Edition promo” (1:00 mp3):
Got an email from a listener, Matthew Hazelwood, the conductor of the Interlochen Arts Academy Orchestra. He heard our Radio Dial hour in which I played an a cappella vocal group imitating the sounds of tuning thru the radio dial. I got the recording from a friend who taped it off the radio in South America. Neither of us know who the singers were, so, in the program I asked if anyone in radioland knew.
Conductor Hazelwood did indeed:
“Heard your program this evening on IPR here in Interlochen Michigan and enjoyed it very much. The a cappella group you were asking about is a fantastic Cuban group of 6 vocalists. There are called “Vocal Sampling” (yes, they use an English name), and that “Radio Reloj” is a great track from an early CD of theirs. They are fantastic musiciansand the rest of the track that follows the sound effects section you played is stunning. All the best with your new show.”
So thanks, Matthew; and here ’tis in its entirety, Vocal Sampling, from their 1995 Una Forma Mas, “Radio Reloj” (3:56 mp3):
The MacArthur Foundation selected the Public Radio Exchange for one of its 2008 Award for Creative and Effective Institutions, which comes with half-a-million $mackers. PRX is an audio archive site, an essential public radio tool and community. We at HV use it almost daily. Righteous to see their recogintion. PRX was one of eight orgs chosen for this MacArthur Award.
Sundays at the Little David Church in Hayside VA resound with the sweet, haunting singing voice of Frank Newsome. He was featured on today’s NPR WE-SUN. It’s another in the What’s in a Song series, from the Western Folklife Center, “Virginia Preacher Leads Congregation in Song” (5:54 mp3):
Hearing Voices from NPR®:
005 Backroads — For Station Pledge Drives
Hosts— The Kicthen Sisters, Scott Carrier, John Rieger, Larry Massett
Airdates— 2008.04.02-09
Two old friends Cedric Chambers and John Gallagher have been caring for each other into old age. After John’s wife passed away and his children moved across the country, John turned to Cedric when he was diagnosed with lung cancer. Together they face the end of his life. Produced by Jen Nathan for the SALT. Broadcast today on NPR Day to Day, “A Square Meal, Regardless” (7:20 mp3):
WFUV-NYC, one of my favorite stations on the planet, just added our weekly series of HV Hours to their Saturday morn sked. Very happy to be on in da apple.
Radio stations broadcasting the HV weekly hour series:
Hearing Voices from NPR®:
004 Comedy with a Beat—
Comic Bits with Music Beats
Host— David Ossman of Firesign Theatre
Airs week of— 2009-04-08 (Originally: 2008-03-26)
HV doubled down with two pieces on NPR Day to Day, the first— There’s history and politics hidden in the songs of Tibet, which has been under Chinese control for half a century. A music recordist visits during Losar, the Tibetan New Year, looking for traditional music (produced for KGLT-Bozeman), “Song of Tibet” (3:30 mp3):
Another HV on this afternoon’s NPR Day to Day was their second from the ZBS series, 2 Minute Noir. An angel wants to walk on the dark side in “Say ‘So Long’ to Shangri-La” (2:25 mp3):
Yesterday on StoryCorps®— Pinky Powell could pick 100 pounds of cotton by lunchtime. Her great-granddaughter tells her tale of life on an Alabama plantation. This one hurts, “Mary Ellen Noone” (2:15 mp3):
The 14-station Wyoming Public Radio network just added our weekly hour to their sked. Which means we now have more stations in WY than all other stations in the universe combined. Our thanks to the Cowboy State for more than doubling our carriage.
Hearing Voices from NPR®
003 Her Stories: For Women’s History Month
Host: Dmae Roberts of Stories1st.org
Airs week of: 2012-02-29 (Originally: 2008-03-19)
The Thermopolis transmitter of Wyoming Public Radio was off-air. To fix it they needed to get up past three feet of snowdrifts, over three inches of ice, and into 40-mph winds blowing snow sideways across a cloud-covered hilltop. A four-wheel drive wouldn’t make it; a rental Sno-Cat would have taken days to find; and snowmobile travel would have been dangerous with the weight and bulk of the gear and parts needing transport. So how did Chief Engineer Reid Fletcher and Program Director Roger Adams make their mid-winter ascent? Hint: “Giddyup.”
C’mon, bait your line. Let’s go smelt fishin’ on the ice. Ten shacks on a frozen river are filled with ice fishermen for ten weeks each year. Owner Steve Leighton provides the bait; his patrons bring the beer; and the fish take care of the rest. Produced by Grant Fuller of the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies, premiered on Weekend America, “What Are You Gonna Do with 400 Fish?” (5:13 mp3):
Hearing Voices from NPR®:
NPR has changed. As evidence I offer this early 80s promo produced by Jesse Boogs for NPR. This imagistic radio dramatic audio artistic style said NPR then. Now, not so much; “Morning Edition promo” (1:00 
Audio excursions from the early eighties; four traveling stories from public radio’s past, hosted by the independent producers who made them:
Two old friends Cedric Chambers and John Gallagher have been caring for each other into old age. After John’s wife passed away and his children moved across the country, John turned to Cedric when he was diagnosed with lung cancer. Together they face the end of his life. Produced by Jen Nathan for the 
Here’s HV’s first contributions to CPB’s new 
Yesterday on 
