Today we share a prescient work by Ross Sutherland from his long running, award winning show Imaginary Advice. It's a darkly funny spiral and a fantastic listen.

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S.E.I.N.F.E.L.D. originally aired in 2016 on Imaginary Advice. It was written, produced and voiced by Ross Sutherland and a robot voice.

This week we're sharing a piece from The Big Read, a book club for public radio from the National Endowment for the Arts. This episode is about Ernest Gaines' A Lesson Before Dying. Set in the fictional community of Bayonne, Louisiana, in the late 1940s, A Lesson Before Dying tells the story of Jefferson, a twenty-one-year-old Black field worker wrongfully accused and convicted of the robbery and murder of a white man, and sentenced to death by electrocution. It's an incredible story of friendship and what it means to resist and defy one's fate

Original Series Credits:

This program was created by the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with the Institute of Museum and Library Services. It was hosted by Dana Gioia and written and produced by Molly Murphy and Dan Stone, and mixed by Molly Murphy.

Readings from A Lesson Before Dying were by KenYatta Rogers. "Were You There?," "Guitar Man," "John Henry," "Piedmont Medley" and "Amazing Grace" by NEA Heritage Fellow Cephas and Wiggins used courtesy of John Cephas, Phil Wiggins and Joe Wilson."Cotton Fields," "Leaving Blues," "Let it Shine on Me" and "Moanin'" performed by Lead Belly. Plus "Death is Awful" by Doc Reed, all used with permission of Smithsonian Folkways Recordings. Original sound effects by Brent Finley at Sonic Magic Studios. Production Assistant: Adam Kampe. Administrative Assistants: Pepper Smith and Erica Koss. Special thanks to Ken Hoffman, Louise Herras, Keith Cornell, Sister Margaret, Luthetha Martin, Angie Knorwood and to our contributors: Warden Burl Cain, Ruby Dee, Ernest J. Gaines, Ash Green, Romulus Linney, Sister Helen Prejean and Cicely Tyson.

Today we're featuring one of our favorite series, American Icons, on a true work of art: I Love Lucy. It's a hilarious and bittersweet documentary, exemplary of the incredibly thoughtful work that Studio 360 bestowed upon listeners for twenty years until its end in F2020.

Original Series Credits:

American Icons: I Love Lucy was produced by Jenny Lawton, with production assistance from Chloe Plaunt and Claes Andreasson. David Krasnow edited the show.

Peabody Award-winning Studio 360 with Kurt Andersen is public radio’s smart, fun, and provocative window on pop culture and the arts. Listen to surprising conversations, performances, and stories from across the spectrum of art and culture.

This week we share a story from the front lines. Literally, from the front lines of a brutal war. But also figuratively, from the front lines of a change in technology that would shape how civilians understand war: personal recording.

We've got two additional episodes in a new collection for subscribers including a special from Hearing Voices that is actually six individual pieces.

It's great listening for the long night.

Original Series Credits for The Vietnam Tapes:

The Vietnam Tapes of Lance Corporal Michael A. Baronowski was produced by Christina Egloff with Jay Allison. It won the Best Documentary: Gold Award in the 2001 Third Coast / Richard H. Driehaus Foundation Competition. It was originally produced for the Lost and Found Sound series. The original series also included special thanks to: the Family of Michael A. Baronowski, including his sister, Lorraine “Cookie Meckley; Tim Duffie, Art Silverman, Darcy Bacon, Deb George and Bill Deputy of NPR; Phil Prince, Mike’s squad leader; Ray Borowski and Tom Mosher, Mike’s comrades; Brent Runyon and Viki Merrick of Atlantic Public Media; Barbara McQuiston; public radio stations WGBH, WCAI and WNAN in Massachusetts.

More about the story can be found here: https://transom.org/2013/the-vietnam-tapes-of-lance-corporal-michael-a-baronowski/

In this episode, we offer a few of our favorite shorts as sonic gifts. We've got the humble farmer, an early work by Arlie Adlington, and one of the most formative works of contemporary audio: CAT NAMES.

This week we bring you a rare longform piece by Radio Diaries featuring Bridgette McGee, our narrator as she uncovers the truth about her grandfather's death, through uncomfortable interviews, original reporting, and some of the most arresting archival tape. We are with Bridgette for every step of her process, and in doing so, we share a history that could have otherwise been erased.

Photo courtesy of Bridgette McGee.

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Original Series Credits:

Our story was narrated by Bridgette McGee-Robinson and produced Joe Richman and Samara Freemark of Radio Diaries, with help from Anayansi Diaz-Cortes, Deborah George and Ben Shapiro.

This week we're sharing a banger documentary from Kelly McEvers which may leave you standing, staring at a wall by the end. The podcast version of a driveway moment.

Ten years before McEvers' show Embedded hit the air, you can hear the idea for it beginning to form. Diary of a Bad Year is a bold and compelling look at why journalists risk it all for the story.

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Jay Allison financed, produced, edited and mixed this series for Transom.org. More about the piece can be found at Transom: https://transom.org/2013/diary-of-a-bad-year-a-war-correspondents-dilemma/

Original Thank You and Music Credits for Diary of a Bad Year are here:

I dedicate this piece to the lost members of the tribe and to their families. I stand forever in salute to Chris Hondros, Tim Hetherington, Gilles Jacquier, Anthony Shadid, Marie Colvin, and Remy Ochlik.

A huge thanks to those who participated in this project by agreeing to talk to me: Mark Brayne, Anthony Feinstein, Paul Wood, Anna Blundy, Jon Lee Anderson, Sebastian Junger, and Christiane Amanpour. Thanks again to the wonderful folks at Transom, who opened their houses and their hearts and reinforced my belief in the principle that if you listen, really listen, great things happen.

Thank you to my true partners in crime — Lava Selo, Rima Marrouch, and Rasha Elass — who have been by my side on every Syria story. Thank you to my dear friend and editor, Doug Roberts, who let me try weird things on the radio despite the fact that I was breaking all the rules. I am forever in his debt. Thanks to the inimitable Loren Jenkins, for believing in me after all those years of trying.

Thank you to Jonathan Blakley, who first put me in touch with Mark Brayne and who helped me understand it’s okay to talk to a counselor; to Barbara Surk and Hassan Jamali, who were with me as we were tear-gassed in Bahrain; to Noor Kelze, who first took me to the front line in Aleppo; to Manoli Wetherell, Jim Lesher, and Suzanne Lennon, who engineered and recorded interviews; to Jennifer Dargan, who helped arrange my interview with Christiane Amanpour; and to Tim Fitzsimons, Susannah George, and John Mangin, who provided early and very helpful feedback.

And perhaps the biggest thanks of all goes to my family — Steve, Claudia, and Dave McEvers — whose support is unwavering despite the pain it causes them, and to Nathan Deuel, my collaborator, my best friend, and my one great love.

Music

Thank you to Matthias Bossi, Carla Kihlstedt, and Jon Evans for the original music they composed for this piece. You can find more of their music at:

Lawless Music

Rabbit Rabbit Radio

Carla Kihlstedt

Matthias Bossi

Jon Evans

Today we're presenting a documentary about an icon, Tony Schwartz, and made by icons, The Kitchen Sisters.

For thirty years (1945-1976), Schwartz created and produced a radio program for WNYC featuring the people and sounds of New York City. He amassed an archive of recordings (now housed in the Library of Congress) that are expertly mixed together in this documentary so listeners can hear the world as Tony Schwartz did.

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Tony Schwartz: 30,000 Recordings Later’ was produced by The Kitchen Sisters, Davia Nelson and Nikki Silva with help from Tim Berbee, Nina Ellis and Jim Anderson mixed by Jim McKee at Earwax Productions in San Francisco.

Tony Schwartz: 30,000 Recordings Later was created as part of a Peabody Award-winning series heard on NPR’s All Things Considered, exploring American life through recorded sound.

Created in 1999 by The Kitchen Sisters with Jay Allison, this Peabody, Clarion and Webby award-winning series brought together some of the most respected producers and storytellers in public radio with artists and NPR to create this imaginative series. Liberace & the Trinidad Tripoli Steel Band; French Manicure: Tales from Vietnamese Nail Shops in America; Cigar Stories, WHER: 1000 Beautiful Watts; Tony Schwartz: 30,000 Recordings Later — more than 80 stories make up this series. Lost & Found Sound was supported in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities.