Terry Gross

Anthony Lewis, the New York Times columnist and reporter who covered the Supreme Court in the late 1950s and early 1960s, died Monday. Fresh Air remembers him by listening back to a 1991 interview in which Lewis talks about the responsibilities of a columnist and the importance of a correctly-spelled name.

To remember Chinua Achebe who died last Thursday, Fresh Air listens back to an interview with the great African writer that originally aired on May 10, 1988. In it, Achebe talks about the literary trope of the white explorer or missionary living amongst the savages, and the importance of struggle.

The veteran journalist died on Sunday at age 87. He was famous for his reporting on the Vietnam War, and in 1989 he spoke with Fresh Air's Terry Gross about another war: The Spanish-American War and U.S. involvement in the Philippines.

Bass died on Dec. 27, 2012. We'll listen back to a Fresh Air interview from March 1995, in which she spoke about performing at funeral homes as a girl in St. Louis and how secular music wasn't allowed in her childhood home.

We'll listen back to a 1989 interview with actor Harry Carey Jr., who died Dec. 27. Carey co-starred with John Wayne in the classic Westerns She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, The Searchers and 3 Godfathers. He talked to Fresh Air about filming epic cavalry-versus-Indian scenes — and his most challenging stunts.

In a 1999 interview, Ravi Shankar, who died Tuesday, talked to Fresh Air about hippies, psychedelic drugs, "Norwegian Wood," George Harrison, his fond memories of the Monterey Pop Festival of 1967 and his less-fond memories of Woodstock.

Hal David, the Oscar- and Grammy-winning lyricist, died Saturday in Los Angeles. He was 91. David is best known for his many collaborations with composer Burt Bacharach between the late '50s and the mid-'70s.

Comedian Phyllis Diller died Monday at the age of 95. In a 1986 interview with Fresh Air, Diller explains her routine when starting out, before she developed her persona as a crazed housewife.

Writer and humorist David Rakoff, who died Thursday at the age of 47, wrote with a perfect balance of wit and gravity about the cancer that would ultimately take his life. Fresh Air remembers Rakoff with excerpts from two interviews in 2001 and 2010.

Keegan spent his life studying war, but he never fought in one and described himself as more or less a pacifist. The British military historian, who died last week at age 78, chronicled the history of warfare from Alexander the Great to the U.S. invasion of Iraq.