Terry Gross

His album, Down in the Alley has been nominated for a Grammy as Best Traditional Blues Recording. He's been playing acoustic blues for nearly 20 years. Though he was raised in California, his roots musically and otherwise are in rural Mississippi. He was influenced by Charlie Patton, Leadbelly, Blind Willie McTell and others. Later he was also influenced by Jimi Hendrix and Taj Mahal.

He directed and co-wrote the satirical films Citizen Ruth and Election. His newest film, About Schmidt, is also a social satire. It stars Jack Nicholson and Kathy Bates who have both been nominated for Academy Awards for their roles. About Schmidt is loosely based on the novel of the same name by Louis Begley. Payne and co-writer Jim Taylor won the Golden Globe for best screenplay for About Schmidt.

They cover the military for The Washington Post. They'll discuss military preparedness for the war with Iraq. They collaborated on the special report "Unrivaled Military Feels Strains of Unending War: For U.S. Forces, a Technological Revolution and a Constant Call to Do More." In it they said, "The more capable the U.S. military has become, the more it has been asked to do, and now strains are beginning to show."