Terry Gross

Stephen Schiff reviews the new film by director Jane Campion, "The Piano," starring Holly Hunter and Harvey Keitel.

Singer and actress Barbara Cook. Since the 1950's Cook has been in countless Broadway musicals--"Oklahoma", "The King and I", and Leonard Bernstein's "Candide" to name a few. She's been called a "no nonsense singer...able to thrust with gentility of tone." Cook has a new album--her first in five years--called "Dorothy Fields: Close as Pages in a Book." She won a Tony Award for her part as "Marian the librarian" which she originated in "The Music Man."

Ralph Wiley: journalist, staff writer at "Sports Illustrated" for nine years, he's now an essayist on the dynamics of race in America. His pieces have been collected in two books, "Why Black People Tend to Shout" (Penguin) and newly, "What Black People Should Do Now" (Ballantine).

Howell Raines is editorial page editor of "The New York Times." He's written a new "fishing" memoir, one that's part sporting autobiography and part guide-book for the middle years of life. "Fly Fishing Through the Midlife Crisis," (William Morrow & Company). RAINES also won the Pulitzer Prize for "Grady's Gift," a New York Times Magazine article about his friendship with a black woman in segregated Birmingham. (Rebroadcast from 9/16/93).

Martin Espada, a poet, tenant's right attorney, and now Assistant Professor of English at University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Brooklyn born -in 1957- of Puerto Rican heritage, he calls his work, "poems of advocacy, based on the lives ...consigned to silence." Espada was lauded by PEN/Revson Award for Poetry for giving "dignity to the insulted and injured of the earth." Poet Carolyn Forche describes Espada as "that subversive someone we know." His new book of poems is "City of Coughing and Dead Radiators" (Norton).

Drummer and lead vocalist for the rock group The Band, Levon Helm. Helm's Arkansas roots gave the Canadian group an American folk sound. In the 1960's The Band, got it's start backing Bob Dylan. They went on their own in 1968 with "Music From Big Pink." The Band is back with a new album, "Jericho," and a tour. Helm's written a book about The Band called "This Wheel's On Fire" (Morrow).

Health care reporter Laurie Kaye Abraham. For her new book, "Mama Might Be Better Off Dead: the Failure of Health Care in Urban America" (U of Chicago), Abraham spent three years with a poor African American family studying the problem of lack of access to medical care. Abraham reveals how difficult it is for a poor family to make sense of Medicaid and Medicare, and the discrimination that blacks face in trying to find health care.

The four-man comedy troupe The Firesign Theatre. The Firesigns created satire out of the political and civil upsets of the late 1960's, drawing big underground radio and college campus audiences. Now, more than ten years since the last tour, The Firesign Theatre is making a comeback. Known for their eclectic comedy routines, they're celebrating their 25th anniversary with a reunion tour.

Writer Walter Mosley His first book, "Devil In A Blue Dress," (Norton) is a hard-boiled detective story starring a black gumshoe up against white prejudice. Mosley's mysteries are loosely based on stories his father told him about black culture the 1940's. His latest book is called "A Red Death" (Thorndike). (REBROADCAST FROM 6/8/90)

Detective writer Mickey Spillane. One of the world's most popular writers of the hard-boiled private investigator genre. His most famous character is Mike Hammer. In 1989, Spillane wrote his first Mike Hammer story in 19 years. Spillane's latest book is called "Big Kill." Last year his book "My Gun is Quick" (Chivers North America), first published in 1950, was reprinted. (REBROADCAST FROM 11/22/89)