Storyteller Garrison Keillor. He's the host and writer of "A Prairie Home Companion" on National Public Radio--a show that "pokes at the heart of American sensibilities and sensitivities." His new book is called "The Book of Guys" (Viking). Keillor has written five other books including the best-seller "Lake Wobegon Days."
Pete Townsend. In the 1960's he made waves as the lead guitarist in the British rock group The Who. He was world famous for smashing guitars during concerts. Now, years after The Who split up, Townsend is busy with solo projects. "Tommy," the rock opera he wrote for The Who in 1969, is on Broadway. His latest album is called "White City."
One of the "Orphans of Jonestown,"Stephan Jones. He is one of the surviving sons of Jim Jones, leader of the Peoples Temple in Guyana. Fifteen years ago Jim Jones orchestrated the mass suicide of over 900 people after a California Representative visited the temple, charging Jones with holding people against their will. Now, after the Waco tragedy, Stephan Jones remember the loss. Their were 85 survivors from Jonestown--260 children died.
Movie producer Art Linson. He broke into Hollywood with "Fast Times at Ridgemont High." His other films include "Casualties of War", "The Untouchables," and "This Boy's Life". The New York Times called him an "energetic tough guy film maker with a tendency for the offbeat." Linson grew tired of everyone (including his mother) always asking what he does. So he's written a book about his job called "A Pound of Flesh: Perilous Tales of How to Produce Movies in Hollywood" (Grove Press).
Afrikaner poet, painter and dissident Breyten Breytenbach. In 1975, Breytenbach was an anti-apartheid activist in exile. When he made a secret visit to his native South Africa, Breytenbach was arrested, charged for treason, and imprisoned for seven years. In his writing, Breytenbach "alternates outrage at South Africa's governmental policies of apartheid with love for his country and its landscape". Breytenbach's most recent work is "Return to Paradise" (Harcourt Brace).
Ed Ryder and Reverend James McCloskey The story of one man's fight for freedom. Three days after Ryder arrived at Holmesburg prison to do time for theft, he was accused of murdering a prisoner in his cell block. For twenty years, Ryder fought to prove his innocence... the city of Philadelphia rallying behind him. Reverend James McCloskey, who helps prisoners he believes are unjustly convicted get pardons, spearheaded the efforts for Ryder's release. Now Ryder is a free man.
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).
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.
