Guests
"Fame was pretty hard to handle, actually. The country boy in me tried to break loose and take me back to the country, but the music was stronger."
Music legend Johnny Cash. Cash has been recording albums and performing since the 1950's. Representing Cash's varied musical styles, he has been inducted into the Songwriters, Country Music, and Rock and Roll Halls of Fame. He's just released an autobiography called "Cash" (Harper) The book tour for the memoir has been cancelled due to complications with Cash's Parkinson's disease.
"A song that talks about, 'Come fly me to the moon, let me dangle on the stars,' that's not my cup of tea. That's not real. I want to sing real stuff."
Etta James, the legendary vocalist who is perhaps known for her version of the song "At Last," has died. She was 73. Fresh Air remembers the singer with excerpts from a 1994 interview about her lengthy career.
"The battle I was fighting, it seemed to me, was not simply about Black people... My position as [it] concerned white America was, 'It's your country too. It's your responsibility too, you know.'"
A rebroadcast of a 1986 interview Terry Gross recorded with writer and social critic James Baldwin, who died in 1987. Baldwin's books include Go Tell it on the Mountain, The Fire Next Time and Notes of a Native Son. Baldwin was one of the first major writers to address the civil rights issue. After the civil rights movement crested, Baldwin moved to France, where he felt more tolerance for his open homosexuality and outspoken nature. (REBROADCAST from 1986)
