Terry Gross

We continue our rebroadcast of our series on American Popular Song with a tribute to ragtime composer and performer Eubie Blake. He was born on Feb. 7, 1883, in Baltimore, Md. He wrote the songs for the Broadway hit Shuffle Along. African American ragtime musicians of the day sought out Eubie to write their songs. Two of Eubie Blake's best known songs are "I'm Just Wild About Harry" and "Love Will Find A Way." Just over 100 years after his life began, on Feb. 12, 1983, Eubie Blake died in Brooklyn, New York.

We continue our American Popular song series, with a program about composer Will Marion Cook. He was born in 1869 and was part of the first generation born after slavery. Cook was one of the innovators of ragtime song, and helped introduce ragtime to Broadway. Cook wrote In Dahomey the first full-length broadway musical written and performed by African Americans. It opened on Broadway in 1903. Some of Cook's songs reflect the racial stereotypes and dialect of the time.

This Christmas week we rebroadcast our series on American popular song. This one profiles composer Jerome Kern. He wrote the songs All the Things You are, Can't Help Lovin' That Man, I'm Old-Fashioned, Ol' Man River, and The Way You Look Tonight. A number of those songs are from the broadway musical Showboat which he wrote. We'll focus on the music he wrote before then, before 1927.

This Christmas week we rebroadcast our series on American popular song, and begin with the late lyricist Dorothy Fields. Born in 1905, she was the only woman in the pre-rock era to sustain major critical and popular acclaim as a songwriter. First, singer Becky Kilgore and pianist Dave Frishberg perform music by Dorothy Fields. Biographer Deborah Grace Winer talks about Fields life and music. Winer is author of On the Sunny Side of the Street: The Life and Lyrics of Dorothy Fields. Philip Furia talks specifically about the lyrics Dorothy Fields wrote.

Dr. Lynn Amowitz is a researcher for Physicians for Human Rights. Amowitz specializes in internal medicine, women health and epidemiology. Last month she was in Afghanistan interviewing displaced women as B-52s were bombing just six miles away. Previous to that visit, Amowitz researched and compiled the report on the condition of women under the Taliban in the report "Women Health and Human Rights in Afghanistan." Amowitz specializes in working in war torn communities. Over the years she worked in Kosovo, Sierra Leone, Zaire, and Nigeria.

Pulitzer-prize winning journalist David Vise is a staff writer for The Washington Post. He the author of the new book, The Bureau and the Mole: The Unmasking of Robert Philip Hanssen, the Most Dangerous Double Agent in FBI History (Atlantic Monthly Press). Vise tells the story of how a seemingly all-American boy became a traitor. Vise had access to files about Hanssen, and the opportunity to talk with Hanssen family and friends.

Bernard Lewis is a Professor Emeritus of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University. He just written a new book about the war in the Middle East called What Went Wrong? Western Impact and Middle Eastern Response (Oxford University Press). The New York Times Book Review has called Lewis "the doyen of Middle Eastern Studies." Lewis says that there may be no escape from the "downward spiral of hate and spite...culminating sooner or later in another alien domination."

Professor Robert Jay Lifton specializes in the study of extremist religions and cults. Hel talk with us about John Walker, the American captured in Afghanistan fighting for the Taliban. Lifton is Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry and Psychology at the Graduate School University Center and Director of The Center on Violence and Human Survival at John Jay College of Criminal Justice at The City University of New York. He written books on many topics, including the Japanese cult which released poison gas in the Tokyo subways, Nazi doctors, Hiroshima survivors and Vietnam vets.

Will Smith is starring in the new film Ali as fighter Muhammad Ali. The film begins in 1964, the year that Cassius Clay became world heavyweight champion, announced his conversion to Islam, and took on the name Muhammad Ali. The film is directed and co-written by Michael Mann who also made The Insider. Smith also starred in the films The Legend of Bagger Vance, Men In Black, Independence Day, and Six Degrees of Separation. Smith got his start as a rapper, making his first record in high school.

Alan Ball is the creator of the HBO series Six Feet Under which premiered last summer to critical acclaim. On Wednesday, December 12th, HBO began rebroadcasting the original 13 episodes. They will run on successive Wednesday nights at 10 p.m. EST. The new season of Six Feet Under will begin in March 2002. Ball won an Academy Award for writing the screenplay for American Beauty. He also has production credits on the TV shows Cybill and Oh Grow Up. Ball has served as producer, writer and director on Six Feet Under.