Listen to New Voices on Studs Terkel our partnership with 826CHI-here! Read the Story
Fleming Brown, banjo player, discusses the influences Uncle Dave Macon, Pete Seeger, The Almanac Singers, and his teacher, Doc Hopkins had on him. He and Terkel also discuss the influence of WLS's Barn Dance radio show in Chicago and the Grand Ole Opry's WSM had on folk music. Fleming plays "Uncle Buddy" by Arthur Smith, to open and close the show. He also discusses the themes of Appalachian music such as lost love, mystery and murder, and plays examples for the audience.
Bandleader, jazz musicologist and composer James Dapogny discusses his work in reviving the sound and art of jazz. Dapogny's work is mainly associated with his group James Dapogny's Chicago Jazz Band and his career in publishing lost works of Ferdinand "Jelly Roll" Morton.
American jazz cornet player Wild Bill Davison known for his wild ways, discusses his career in jazz music and life in Chicago. Davison rubbed elbows with all the Chicago bigwigs from Al Capone to jazz legends such as Fats Waller.
Content Warning: This conversation includes racially and/or culturally derogatory language and/or negative depictions of Black and Indigenous people of color, women, and LGBTQI+ individuals. Rather than remove this content, we present it in the context of twentieth-century social history to acknowledge and learn from its impact and to inspire awareness and discussion. Terry is an organizer of poor Southern whites in Chicago's Uptown neighborhood
Dempsey Travis presents a jazz program and discusses the life, the music, and the community of Chicago jazz from before The Great Depression until World War II. Travis discusses 1920s-1930s Chicago for Black families including rent parties, breakfast dances, employment opportunities, union strikes, and jazz.
Dempsey Travis, author and jazz historian, recalls his memories meeting Jazz artists of the 1920-1940s. Some artists discussed include Jimmie Lunceford, Sy Oliver, Duke Ellington, Chick Webb, Chu Berry, Andy Kirk and others. Travis also discusses his father and his own time playing Jazz.
Dempsey Travis, real estate entrepreneur and civil rights activist turned historian and author, recalls his earlier days meeting and listening to many of the African American jazz artists. Some of the musicans mentioned are Louis Armstrong, Jimmie Lunceford, Fletcher Henderson, Duke Ellington, Earl Hines, Art Tatum, Cab Calloway, Nat King Cole, and Benny Goodman.
Dempsey Travis talks about his book, "An Autobiography of Black Jazz," as he recalls his childhood memories of Jazz, Blues, and Boogie-Woogie artists that he met.