Today we're sharing a classic Sean Cole work from his time on the documentary team at WBUR's Inside Out.  It's a beautiful work of scene and memory, taking listeners to a reunion for a town that hasn't physically existed for generations. 

Today we're featuring a excerpt of a work that explores the relationship of art, documentary, and history through a search for class struggle in Appalachia.  Beyond the limited academic concept of oral history, I Can Almost See the Lights of Home: A Field Trip to Harlan County, Kentucky is a essay-in-sound that weaves the words and stories of Harlan County residents with the sounds and music of the place itself.  The result is documentary art, and a deeply compelling listen.  

Original Series Credits:

"I Can Almost See the Lights of Home ~ A Field Trip to Harlan County, Kentucky An Essay-In-Sound"

Writers: Charles Hardy III and Alessandro Portelli
Interviews: Alessandro Portelli
Musical recordings: Alessandro Portelli and Charles Hardy III
Producer/Engineer: Charles Hardy
Financial assistance provided by the Columbia University Oral History Research Office, the West Chester University Faculty Development Program, the English Department of the Univerity of Rome "La Sapienza," and a grant from the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education. Special thanks to Annie Napier, Ron Grele, Mary Marshall Clark, Stig Hornshøf-Møller, Steve Rowland, and the participants of the 1997 Oral History Research Office Oral History Summer Institute.

More of Hardy's and others' writing on these works and others can be found here:

Aural History, The Digital Revolution, and the Making of I Can Almost See the Lights of Home: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9781137322029_4

“Authoring in Sound: Aural History, Radio, and the Digital Revolution,” The Oral History Reader, 2nd edition, editors Rob Perks and Alistair Thomson, (Routledge, 2006): 393-406.

“Oral History in Sound and Moving Image Documentaries,” (with Pamela Dean) Handbook of Oral History, editors Thomas Charlton et. al., (AltaMira Press, 2006): 510-62. Reprinted in Thinking About Oral History: Theories and Applications, (AltaMira Press, 2008).

Painting in Sound: Aural History and Audio Art,” Oral History: The Challenges of Dialogue. Marta Kurkowska-Budzan and Krysztof Zamorski, eds. (John Benjamins Publishing, 2009): 147-67 https://digitalcommons.wcupa.edu/hist_facpub/14/

Oral History in the Digital Age: https://ohda.matrix.msu.edu/about/authors/hardy/

This week we're featuring a super interesting conversation with Eleanor McDowall, creator of Radio Atlas, about the world of the radio feature and the artistry of audio works that aren't in English. 

Note: this week's episode is a video podcast because it is a celebration of audio subtitles.  You'll need to experience it on a platform that supports video files.

This week we're sharing a choice work from our new collection celebrating ten years of Radio Atlas, an English-language home for subtitled audio from around the world. A place to hear inventive documentaries, dramas and works of sound art that have been made in languages you don’t necessarily speak.  Radio Atlas has subtitled stories from over 30 countries, and has been an instrumental part of audio festivals and awards since its inception (and it's won several awards itself).  

We're sharing one feature from the collection today: The Woman on the Ice produced by Rikke Houd for Third Ear in 2014.  A young woman walks out onto the ice in Greenland, under a full moon, and disappears.  It's haunting, super compelling and will reshape your expectations for documentary.   

*********

Original Series Credits from Radio Atlas: 

Produced by Rikke Houd for Third Ear (11th March 2014)

“In 1932 a young, Danish woman went as the first Danish nurse to the sparsely populated Greenlandic east coast. She trained as a nurse with the sole purpose of going to Greenland, but she didn’t get to live there for a year. One night she went out into the frozen landscape. She walked out on towards the sea, to the edge of the ice. Here the story ends with her footprints…”

Deep beneath the Greenlandic ice, lies a hidden history. The Danish feature-maker Rikke Houd travels in the footsteps of Karen Roos, who disappeared on the ice outside the small East Greenlandic town of Tasiilaq in 1933.

Winner of the 2015 In The Dark award for audio documentary presented at Sheffield Doc/fest. Produced with support from the Danish Arts Council. 

thirdear.dk 

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.  

*******

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.

*****
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.