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Terry Gross at her microphone in 2018

Terry Gross

Terry Gross is the host and an executive producer of Fresh Air, the daily program of interviews and reviews. It is produced at WHYY in Philadelphia, where Gross began hosting the show in 1975, when it was broadcast only locally. She was awarded a National Humanities Medal from President Obama in 2016. Fresh Air with Terry Gross received a Peabody Award in 1994 for its “probing questions, revelatory interviews and unusual insight.” America Women in Radio and Television presented her with a Gracie Award in 1999 in the category of National Network Radio Personality. In 2003, she received the Corporation for Public Broadcasting’s Edward R. Murrow Award for her “outstanding contributions to public radio” and for advancing the “growth, quality and positive image of radio.” Gross is the author of All I Did Was Ask: Conversations with Writers, Actors, Musicians and Artists, published by Hyperion in 2004. She was born and raised in Brooklyn, NY, and received a bachelor’s degree in English and M.Ed. in communications from the State University of New York at Buffalo. She began her radio career in 1973 at public radio station WBFO in Buffalo, NY.

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21:05

From the Archives: Singer Betty Johnson.

Singer Betty Johnson. She was a member of "The Johnson Family," which sang gospel and country music for two decades. President Franklin D. Roosevelt was a fan, and the group was invited to sing at his memorial service. Johnson went solo in the late 1950s and was a regular on Don McNeill's "Breakfast Club," and Jack Paar's TV show. She also made many guest appearances on TV shows. During that time she made over 150 records and a dozen albums. Johnson left show business to raise a family and receive a degree in drama at Dartmouth.

Interview
21:41

From the Archives: Soprano Eileen Farrell.

Soprano Eileen Farrell. At the age of 75, she's had a long career: she began in radio, with her own show on CBS, in the forties. In the fifties she started singing opera, and has performed with every major opera company and symphony orchestra in the U.S., including five seasons with the Metropolitan Opera in New York. She has also been a professor of music at Indiana University and the University of Maine. Starting in the sixties, she began putting out albums of jazz standards.

Interview
26:40

Drugs, Addicts, and Prisons.

Ronald Williams is Executive Director of New York Therapeutic Communities Inc. It was founded in 1977 to pilot a program called "Stay'n Out." The program provides substance abuse treatment to New York state's prisons. The program is to reduce recidivism in prisons. 212-971-6033.

Interview
21:49

Race and Criminal Justice.

Marc Mauer is a co-author for a new study that says there has been a sharp increase over the past five years in the number of African-American males age 20-29 in jail, on probation or on parole. The study finds, on any given day, one in three black men in their 20s is under some form of court supervision. Five years ago, a similar study found that the percentage at one in four blacks. The study is titled Young Black Americans and the Criminal Justice System: Five Years Later. it's two authors are Marc Mauer and Tracy Huling.

Interview
11:05

O. J. Analysis: How the L. A. P. D. Bungled the Case.

Editorial writer for the New York Times Brent Staples. He wrote a memoir last year: Parallel Time: Growing Up in Black & White (Pantheon). In 1984, Staples' younger brother, a cocaine dealer, was murdered. Staples began a process of reconsideration of the major questions in his life: his distance from his family by graduate study at the University of Chicago; the demise and racial divisions of his industrial hometown in Pennsylvania.

Interview
29:40

O. J. Analysis: Stephen Adler Discusses Jurors and Race.

Journalist Stephen Adler. He is former legal affairs editor of The Wall Street Journal and is now the paper's investigative editor. Terry will discuss with him the O.J. Simpson trial and the jury process. Last year Adler's book about what's wrong with the jury system and how it can be fixed, was published: The Jury: Trial and Error in the American Courtroom, (Times Books/Random House). Adler looked at the history of the jury system and how our attitudes about juries changed over the years.

Interview
03:53

Celebrating Buster Keaton's Centennial.

Silent film legend Buster Keaton was born 100 years ago today. Kino Video collected many of Keaton's films in box set. An interview with Keaton from the set will be played. We will also hear a portion of guitarist and composer Bill Frisell's score for Keaton's film "Go West."

Commentary
40:15

Dr. Andrew Weil Discusses Working With the Body in Medicine.

Dr. Andrew Weil. He is one of the world's leading authorities on health, healing and medicine. His latest book Spontaneous Healing (Knopf) explores how to discover and enhance our body's natural ability to maintain and heal itself. Dr. Weil is currently Associate Director of the Division of Social Perspectives in Medicine. He also has a private practice, based at the Center for Integrative Medicine at Tucson, where he treats patients from around the world. (Rebroadcast of July 13, 1995).

Interview
45:41

Harry Shearer Looks Back on the O. J. Trial.

Satirist, columnist, one of the creators of and performers in the mock-rock group Spinal Tap, and host of the syndicated radio program, "Le Show," Harry Shearer. He also does several voices on "The Simpsons." Shearer has collected onto a CD his satirical pieces about the O.J. Simpson trial: "O.J. on Trial: The Early Years." (to order call, 1-800-YES-OJ-CD). These pieces originally were aired on "Le Show."

Interview

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