Studs Terkel Interviews Bob Dylan, Shel Silverstein, Maya Angelou & More in New Audio Trove

[Recursion]

http://www.openculture.com/2013/12/studs-terkel-interviews.html

The recently-launched digitization project PopUp Archive hosts a great selection of Studs Terkel audio. The site’s archive of interviews comes from Terkel’s 1952-1997 radio show, “The Studs Terkel Program,” on the Chicago station WFMT.

While Terkel is famous for interviewing everyday people for his oral histories of the Depression, work, and World War II, and his radio show featured its fair share of students, domestic workers, and veterans, this particular archive is full of big names: Actress and comedian Lily Tomlin. Literary theorist Edward Said. Actor and activist Sidney Poitier.

A short trip into the interviews reveals Shel Silverstein telling Terkel the story of his as-yet-unpublished book Lafcadio, The Lion Who Shot Back, in a rapid-fire Chicago accent. Terkel interviews the photographer Diane Arbus about the Depression, trying in vain to elicit any memories at all pertaining to financial stress. (Even Terkel couldn’t win them all.) And an interview with James Baldwin is punctuated by the unmistakable sound of a Zippo lighter in use.

Currently, there are about twenty audio files available, and the archive promises more to come, pending digitization and the clearing of rights. (Let’s hope they hurry up! Some of the placeholder entries for not-yet-available interviews—Buckminster Fuller, Margaret Mead, Arthur C. Clarke—are most tantalizing.)

[mucifer]

1. I've had these interviews for years. First I got them on cassette. Then CDs.

Donating to my local classical radio station WFMT gave me this.

I have fond memories of listening to Studs show as a child. My parents were big fans.

WFMT still plays his shows Friday night 10pm central time. http://www.wfmt.com/main.taf?p=1,1,41,31

You can stream them from the WFMT website.

[Gato Moteado]

2. i was born and raised in chicago......

...and listened to WFMT (and, of course, wxrt!). I loved terkel's show. I also used to attend the new years eve midnight special folk party in the mid to late 9os at the wfmt studio. I knew a sound engineer there and I also knew a bunch of the folkies.

[trof]

3. Terkel is one of my heroes. I named my first German Shepherd 'Studs'.

Thank you.

[nolabear]

4. Thanks! I have a friend who'll love these!

Old Chicagoan to whom Studs is a god. It'll be fun to send him the info.