"The Studs Terkel Program"
which aired on WFMT Radio in Chicago allowed Studs the freedom to
host guests of his choice and explore topics that he thought would
be interesting to the WFMT listener audience. WFMT, Chicago's fine
arts station, also distributed the program to over 14,000,000 listeners
through the WFMT Fine Arts Network. For this audience, Terkel hosted
a broad variety of performing artists including,
operatic singers, folk singers, popular singers, stage and movie actresses
and actors, blues and jazz musicians, and television personalities.
He also invited guests who were writers; poets; playwrights; filmmakers;
historians; political commentators; and activists in community organizing,
labor relations, and civil rights to appear with him. Many authors
read from their books, and artists performed live on the program.
Terkel also played musical recordings, excerpts from previous interviews,
and created his own programs such as "Born to Live," "This
Train," and a special program for Labor Day.
Featured here is a brief list of programs that illustrate the variety
of Terkel's guests and subjects. We hope to make as many of these
available as possible on the web. But for now, we have included
some shorter clips below. Full copies of the interviews can be obtained
from the Chicago Historical
Society.
Studs Terkel's list of Favorites
1957 May 10. Interview with folk singer John Jacob Niles. T2937A
1957 Sept. 30. Interview with African American gospel singer
Mahalia Jackson. T0740, T2277A
1960 February 20. Interview with writer Nelson Algren, Herman
Kogan, and Helen Malone. T0712A,B
1960 September 5. Interview with actor Buster Keaton. T0201
1960 September 5. Terkel comments and presents a Labor Day program.
T0722
1960 September 9. Terkel comments and reads from Carl Ewald's
"My little boy." T0120A,B
1962 June 24. Interview with African American jazz musician
Louis Armstrong. T0064
1962 July 6. Presenting "Born to Live," a program
of interviews, spoken word, and musical responses to the nuclear
age. T0036B,C
1962 July 16. Clemency, redemption, capital punishment and Paul
Crump: a panel discussion. T0039A
1962 September 29. Interview with African American writer James
Baldwin. T0124
1963 Apr. 19. Interview with actor Marlon Brando. T1105A,B,C
1963 May 1. Interview with singer Bob Dylan. T1071
1963 August 27. Presenting "This Train," interviews
with participants on a train ride to Washington D.C. for a civil
rights march. T1444A,B,C,D
1963 November 25. Terkel's musical eulogy for the young president
John F. Kennedy. T1396
1964 July 21. Interview with African American poet Gwendolyn
Brooks. T1520
1964 December 17. Interview with African American comedian and
civil rights activist Dick Gregory. T1570
1964 October 3. Interview with folk singer Pete Seeger. T1535
1964 October 22. Interview with African American civil rights
leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. T1542
1965 December 6. Interview with folk singer Win Stracke. T2071A,B,C
ca. 1966 January Interview with songwriter E. Y. (Yip) Harburg.
T3001A,B
1968 May 1. Terkel comments and presents the Picasso [scuplture]
unveiling in Chicago. T2124
1968 July 2. Interview with comedian and filmmaker Mel Brooks.
T3104
1970s. Inteview with singer Janis Joplin. T3007
1970 Mar. 19. Interviews with Valerie Taylor, Jim Bradford,
and Henry Weimhoff about homosexuality. T2589
1971 August 19. Interview with community organizer Saul Alinksy.
T2625
1973 June 4. Interview with filmmaker James Cameron. T3304A,B,C,D
1973 June 8. Interview with civil rights activists Rosa Parks
and Myles Horton. T2452
1975 November 26. Interview with prizefighter Muhammad Ali.
T2490
1976 October 1. Interview with actor Zero Mostel. T3274.53
1978 September 8. Interview with historian Arthur Schlesinger,
Jr. about Robert Kennedy. T2799.34
1981. Interview with playwright Tennessee Williams on his 70th
birthday. T3274.29
1983 November 17. Interview with Native American historian Vine
De Loria. T3939
1984 April 11. Interview with television personality and master
puppeteer Burr Tillstrom. T5363
1992 June 18. Interview with African American writer Ralph Ellison.
T4020
1993 August 24. Interview with musical composer and conductor
Leonard Bernstein. T3631
1993 February 16. Interview with television journalist Bill
Moyers. T4822
Discussing clemency, redemption, capital punishment, and convict Paul Crump with Archibald Carey, Elmer Gertz, Hans Mattick, Abner Mikva, and Donald Page Moore. The program's guests were lawyers and a social worker (Mattick). Paul Crump was a death row inmate who was later paroled. Another Illinois inmate, Nathan Leopold, was paroled in 1958 after his life sentence had been reduced.
Keywords:
Crump, Paul. [He was discussed, but he wasn't present at the interviews.], Carey, Archibald J. (Archibald James), 1908-1981--Interviews., Gertz, Elmer, 1906-2000--Interviews., Mattick, Hans W.--Interviews., Mikva, Abner J.--Interviews., Moore, Donald Page--Interviews., Leopold, Nathan Freudenthal, 1904-1971. [He was discussed, but he wasn't present at the interviews.], Criminals--United States--20th century., Lawyers--United States--20th century--Interviews., Capital punishment--United States--20th century.
including,
operatic singers, folk singers, popular singers, stage and movie actresses
and actors, blues and jazz musicians, and television personalities.
He also invited guests who were writers; poets; playwrights; filmmakers;
historians; political commentators; and activists in community organizing,
labor relations, and civil rights to appear with him. Many authors
read from their books, and artists performed live on the program.
Terkel also played musical recordings, excerpts from previous interviews,
and created his own programs such as "Born to Live," "This
Train," and a special program for Labor Day.
