Showing results by narrator "Joe Loesch" in All Categories

For over two centuries, it’s been what Walt Whitman called “our game”. It’s America’s favorite pastime, our national preoccupation. It’s more than a game, more than a sport. It’s who we are as a people, as a culture. But where did baseball come from?

From itinerant circuit preachers warning of eternal damnation, to flamboyant radio evagelism of Aimee Semple McPherson, the age of American ferver ignited with diversity and power. Welcome to Fires of Faith, the historical audio collection. Chronicling the lives and times of a cast of characters both strident and spiritual, Fires of Fiath takes the listener on an evocative journey through the US religious movement, an era of sin, song, and salvation.

With Thomas Jefferson's purchase of the vast Louisiana Territory, the U.S. President was one step closer to realizing his dream of a nation spanning the oceans. The next step was exploration of this new geographical possession. Thus began the unbelievable four-year odyssey chronicled in Lewis and Clark: The Great American Expedition.

The mythical legends and historical allure of the old west come galloping onward with The Old West Collection: Amazing Legends and Incredible Tales of the American West. This thundering audio compendium celebrates the epic events of America's frontier, whether rediscovering the California gold rush at Sutter's Mill in '49 or recreating the outsize personalities of John Jacob Astor to Belle Starr and Billy the Kid. From racing on horseback for Oklahoma land in '89 to Dodge and Last Chance Gulch.

Entrenched in a conflict over slave labor, the industrialized North and slave-powered South of the mid-1800s became entangled in the only war to be waged between Americans on U.S. soil. The Civil War, infamously known as the bloodiest military conflict to date, engaged three million Americans, claiming the lives of over half a million.

For three generations of travelers, Route 66 was the highway that linked America together. It was The Mother Road and there was never another like it. Hear the stories of the tourists, the Okies, the wartime GI’s, the people who ran the tourist courts and cafés…the famous and infamous. There’s history in the Land of Lincoln, a cave in Missouri, Indian jewelry in New Mexico, a jackalope in Arizona and the Santa Monica Freeway at the end of the road.

For years, rifle shots echoed through the mountains of Kentucky and West Virginia. Dark secrets were hidden far back in the hollows, and no stranger dared go there. The law stayed away, and justice was found in the barrrel of a gun....

Tombstone was one of the most colorful towns in the old west. Here’s the story of the OK Corral gunfight, the Crystal Palace and the Bird Cage Theater, the Earps and Doc Holiday, the ladies of the evening and the men and women who made Tombstone what it was…the town too tough to die.

The contradictions of the new frontier were never so evident as when gold was discovered in the Sierra Nevada mountains. This approximately three-hour audio collection brings to life the tumult that was Northern California circa 1849. Chronicling the lives and times of a cast of characters both rapacious and refined, Days of ’49 takes the listener on an evocative exploration, from prologue to aftermath, of the California Gold Rush.

The American cowboy came into the west to begin after a bloody civil war had ended. He worked long hours in lonely cow camps and his pay was meager, but he had grit and determination. He faced constant danger; he fought Indians and rustlers and braved swollen rivers and stampedes. And, finally, when the days of the open range were over, he rode off into the sunset. But his legacy lives on.

Cowboys, Clowns & Carnies takes the listener on an evocative journey through the outrageous cast of men and women-quack doctors, unscrupulous pitchmen, exotic dancers, and silent movie stars-who brought to frontier life the sights and sounds of a fabled Western ideal the likes of which will never be seen again.

Chronicling the lives and times of a cast of characters both courageous and cold-blooded, American Mobsters takes the listener on an evocative journey through the lawless days of Prohibition, providing an earful of Tommy guns and terror; speakeasies and St. Valentine’s Day.

The American territory in the 19th century was a place of uneasy Army-Indian relations and fiercely fluid borders. America’s Fallen Forts chronicles the lives and times of a cast of characters both strategic and star-crossed, taking the listener on an evocative journey through the battle-scarred days of the U.S. frontier - an era of Indian wars and infighting; massacres and Manifest Destiny.