Joe is utterly dedicated to the preservation of early 20th century music.  He is a musician, a radio host, founder & owner of Fonotone Records, and he's probably best known as a voracious record hunter and collector.  

Joe is certainly a lover of music, but when you bring up Rock n Roll, you quickly discover that the term "music" doesn't necessarily have a universal definition.  Joe is quick to dismiss modern music as "bangin' and thumpin'" filled with "moanin' and groanin'"...and by modern music, he means post-depression.  String bands, jug bands, family groups of singers and players... real blues, real jazz...to Joe, that's the definition of music.

In the age of the random playlist and the mix CD, listening to Joe speak so lovingly about his records and the music carved into them makes me think about the overlooked power of music and how we take the listening experience for granted.

-Dan Bloom

The Fonotone box set is released by Dust to Digital 

Fonotone Records homepage 

Joe Bussard on Myspace

Coming up this week on The Bob Edwards Show, it's the producers calling the shots. We'll hear some of the staff's favorites, including Bob's conversations with director David Lynch, actors Michael Caine and Kenneth Branagh, writer Tim Winton and eccentric record collector Joe Bussard.  

In September, we're back with all new shows. You'll hear Bob's visit with record producer Jim Dickinson at Dicinkson's recording studio in Mississippi.  He's worked with an incredibly diverse roster of musicians from The Replacements to Ry Cooder to the North Mississippi Allstars. You'll also hear Bob's conversation with one of America's most powerful novelists, Philip Roth. They'll talk about his new book Indignation as well as Roth's entire body of work, including his Pulitizer Prize winning novel, American Pastoral. And, of course, Bob continues his Monday morning conversations with columnist David Broder. David will join Bob on September 8th to catch up on the presidential race and the rest of the world's news.

And don't forget to check out the links on the left side of the page. There you'll find photos of Bob and his guests, links to some of our documentaries and our Bob Edwards Weekend podcast. 

As always, feel free to drop us a line and let us know how we're doing.  You can reach the show at bob@xmradio.com

--Steve Lickteig

(all black and white photos by Michael Hyatt)

Bob looks on as Border Patrol agents process an illegal immigrant (photo by Chad Campbell)

Here's Michael Hyatt's photo of the unnamed migrant being taken into custody by the Border Patrol.  Before we arrived, the man suffered a gash on the top of his head.  It's unclear how he was injured.  One agent said he fell while being chased. The man was examined by Samaritan volunteer Dr. Bob Cairns who suggested a few stitches were needed to close the wound. Pictured below are Bob, Geoffrey, Dr. Cairns, the migrant and a Border Patrol EMT.  The migrant's 11 other traveling companions would soon join him on the idling Border Patrol bus waiting on the other side of Highway 286.

Michael Hyatt's photos are featured in a book called "Migrant Artifacts: Magic and Loss in the Sonoran Desert."  To see more of his photos, click here.

We're currently considering a return trip to the southwest for a follow-up and to gather more material for a full border documentary to air in late October.  Watch this blog for news about that possibility.

-Chad

Stetson Kennedy has spent a lifetime in the service of his country, whether or not his country appreciated it. During the Great Depression, Kennedy collected and documented songs and stories for the Florida Writers' Project. In the 1940s, he infiltrated the Ku Klux Klan and shared their secrets with the media. He's published several books, including The Jim Crow Guide, a compendium of discriminatory laws. All of this indicates an unrelenting drive to make the world a better place, to rail against injustice and to celebrate positive cultural traditions. And Kennedy is still at it, through the Stetson Kennedy Foundation. You can read more about Kennedy and his work by clicking the links below.

http://www.stetsonkennedy.com/

http://www.stetsonkennedy.org/

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/florida/ffbio.html  

G-Dawg. That's what the young Latinos of East Los Angeles affectionately call Father Greg Boyle. Jesuit priests are usually found in the many colleges they founded in America, mulling over weighty theological questions. Greg Boyle is a Jesuit in the mean streets of the barrio, working with gangbangers. Sooner or later, the young people realize they can't continue in the gang life and that their luck in staying alive might someday run out. Others get married, have children, and want to leave the gangs and meet their new responsibilities. That's not so easy if have a spotty education, no job experience and little family support (indeed, the gang is often the only family some of them know). This is where Father Greg steps in. His slogan is "Jobs, not jails." If he can't find a job for some kids, he tries to employ them at Homeboy Industries, a group of companies he started--then turned over to the former gang members. Homeboy Industries includes a bakery, a silk-screening business, a landscaping service and the Homegirl Cafe, where young Latinas plan the menu, cook, and serve the food. G-Dawg also has ten volunteer doctors removing the tattoos that mark these young people with gang signs--making them targets for assassination by a rival gang. Father Greg told me that the LAPD has given up on the gangbangers and want them all in jail. A priest, however, believes in redemption and Greg Boyle shows it can happen. He's not saving souls, he's saving lives.

Producer Andy Danyo was the one who told me about Greg Boyle and she produced the 2005 interview which we're airing again on Friday. The interview had a couple of other things going for it. Father Greg happens to be a superb story-teller who knows exactly how to build drama and deliver a great snappy closing sentence. He is also a cancer survivor and the concern his young people had for him is a big part of the story. I've spent 40 years doing 30,000 interviews---THIS one is my favorite.

Bob

The Bob Edwards Show learned about the 40^th year reunion of the Third Medical Battalion from its organizer, Al Naar. He’s a fan of the show (I later learned he listens to the show multiple times throughout the day) and he wrote an email to invite us to attend their anniversary in Charleston, South Carolina. Bob couldn’t go because he had a commencement speech to give that weekend, so I had the honor. I knew a couple of the stories before going there but I really didn’t know what I was going to find. What I found was a slew of men – yes, all men, because of the dangerous locations where they were based in Vietnam – who were very eager to tell their stories. I recorded interviews until the last minute, literally, before I had to leave the hotel to catch my plane and I still wasn’t able to get to everyone. I took photos of each person who I talked to. At some point someone asked me how I was going to remember who was who. Well, after hearing these stories, I don’t think I’ll forget any of these men, their faces, nor their stories for a very long time.

I didn’t do much in the interviews – I told the men that the microphone was there for them to use, not me. I figured they were the ones with the important things to say (yes, a technique used by our formidable host, I believe). The music was crucial to the Third Med veterans – they said they always had music on (The Doors, Neil Young, Crosby, Stills and Nash, and others) so it was important to use in telling the stories. I think it also helped steer the storyline--- as did the archive tape I was able to use. Traditions Military Videos kindly granted us permission to use those recordings. You should go to militaryvideo.com if you’re looking for archive material. They have lots of good stuff there.

I can’t think of a better way to remember our men and women who have served our country than through stories like these. I hope you agree.

Ariana

Click here for photos and more information about the Third Medical Battalion 

The above photo was part of a photo essay Cherry did called The 14 Days of Antoinette.  She photographed a little girl named Antoinette who left home for the first time to attended a public sponsored summer camp. 

Cherry loved to ride the Third Avenue El train, and commented during the interview that it offered one of the best views of the city. She shot two photo essays of it, Riding the Third Avenue El and Tearing Down the Third Avenue El, both done in the early 1950s.

--Cristy Meiners

Every so often, we get a letter from a listener complaining about the overabundance of singer-songwriters on the program. Here is an excerpt from one of my favorites:

Dear Bob,

I look forward to the variety and wisdom of your program. As much as that is so, I do not look forward to the singer-songwriter segments you present; ..... just as television fills time it otherwise know not what to do with by bringing in minor celebrities to cook on camera, so does radio call upon two-bit singer/songwriters to blather endless faux sociological explanations of the trivia they try to sing about.

Just for the enlightenment of all the NPR, PRI and XM intellectuals (if the shoe fits...?) who don't know an augmented fifth from a large bottle of Jack Daniels, songwriting must be the easiest and craftiest of all the crafts on earth in which one can indulge him/herself. . . And to carelessly apply the term 'artist' to any disheveled, failed poet who disguises his/her inadequate verbal offerings in repetitive plinky-plunk mediocrities of musical notes is to insult those, living and dead, who are or were musicians and lyricists.

It is a sad sign of our times that for every poor excuse for a comedian and 'musician' who appears on national television and radio, one can find at least one truly talented and creative (and underappreciated) comedian and MUSICIAN in any high school inthe United States of America.

Otherwise, please keep up the good work!

A listener from KY

Well, I apologize ahead of time, Listener from Kentucky, but today you’ll be getting another one. His name is Paul Thorn. And even if you don’t like his music, I’ll be very surprised if you don’t like his stories. Some of the best are the ones about the things Paul did before he was making a living as a musician: tambourine gig at his dad’s tent revivals, McDonald’s fry guy, professional boxer. As you’ll hear in the interview, Paul was a pretty good boxer. In 1987, he went seven rounds against three-time world champ, Roberto “Hands of Stone” Duran, in a nationally-televised fight. Paul lost, but the headline in the New York Post the next day was “Duran Survives Bloodbath.”

You can watch the fight here.

Paul Thorn and Bob talked for more than an hour, and we had to edit down about a fourth of their conversation to make room for David Broder. One part that made me sad to cut was Paul talking about his fourteen-year-old daughter Kit, who wants to follow in her dad’s footsteps. There’s a gem of a clip of Paul performing one of his songs with Kit. She plays the clarinet like a champ, but her voice is super-impressive, too. The song is about someone Paul knows. . . the story is true but her name has been changed.

Paul Thorn sings Joanie, The Jehovah Witness Stripper with his daughter, Kit, at the New Daisy Theatre in Memphis, watch it here.

I will admit that we do have our fair share of singer-songwriters on this program, generally Southern. One of the reasons, as Paul Thorn proves, is that they are almost always guaranteed to be good talkers. And that makes good radio.

If you want to know more about Paul Thorn, check out his website. That’s also where you can see some of his Howard Finster-inspired art.

Andy

David Maraniss

To see photos of the 1960 Olympics, click here.

Click here for a brief bio of David Maraniss.

-Chad