Big Mamma Revisited December 31, 2005 • Quest for Sound curator Jay Allison reviews our year in listener contributions, which all were entered into a database we called "Big Mamma."
The Loon Call December 29, 2005 • A remembrance by Brent Runyon about his grandfather, who taught family members how to do a loon call. Brent hasn't been able to master it.
Vermont's Archive of Folk Songs December 24, 2005 • Helen Hartness Flanders spent 35 years preserving Vermont's vanishing folk songs. She eventually collected more than 4,000 songs by carrying sound equipment to remote corners of the state -- and by charming residents into singing for her.
Twentieth Century Wars on Tape December 24, 2005 • Over 37 million men and women have served in the armed forces and fought in the major wars this century. They bequeathed us a legacy of recorded sound that captures the breadth of experience of war, as Quest for Sound Curator Jay Allison demonstrates.
Walkin' Talkin' Bill Hawkins December 17, 2005 • Bill Hawkins was Cleveland’s first black disc jockey. He was known for a jiving, rhyming style that had influence throught the industry and earned him many imitators. He also had a son he never knew. Lost and Found Sound sends that son -- William Allen Taylor -- back to Cleveland to find out more about his father.
West Virginia Steam Trains December 10, 2005 • Trains with steam engines have vanished in most parts of the country, replaced by diesel. But in parts of West Virginia, sounds of steam locomotive whistles can still be heard. In this edition of Lost and Found Sound, NPR’s Noah Adams said those sounds echo across the landscape like the sound of a century passing.
The Partridge Family's Grand Tour December 3, 2005 • In 1968, when Marika Partridge was 13, her family took a trip around the world, camping and driving much of the way through places like India, Afghanistan, Iran and Kenya. They also made recordings at they went.
Conrad's Garage November 30, 2005 • Frank Conrad essentially invented modern radio by tinkering around in his garage near Pittsburgh. Before him radio transmissions were morse code. But in 1919, he began broadcasting voices and music.
Aimee Semple McPherson -- An Oral Mystery November 26, 2005 • Aimee Semple McPherson - Sister Aimee - was the first modern evangelist to use broadcast media to get out her message. She used radio to reach hundreds of thousands of people. She had a huge influece, and a rapid downful largely caused by a mysterious scandal.
Pan American Blues November 24, 2005 • One of the first letters sent to Lost and Found Sound came from a listener who told us that no series about the sounds of the 20th century would be complete without the sound of the Pan American Train passing the WSM Radio tower in Nashville. The 10,000 watt station broadcast the sound live each day at 5:08pm - Nashvillians and listeners from all across the South and Midwest set their clocks by the sound.
This Was the Week That Was November 19, 2005 • Art Chimes developed an enthusiasm for an obscure 1960s-era satire show called "That Was the Week that Was." He's kept his passion for four decades.
WHER -- 1000 Beautiful Watts, Part 2 November 5, 2005 • In the second part of our story about WHER, the nation's first all-girl radio station, we hear how the station evolved from all-music to a more news and talk driven format, as the world changed around them.
WHER -- 1000 Beautiful Watts, Part 1 October 29, 2005 • They went on-air October 29, 1955, in Memphis, Tennessee, and stayed there for 17 more years -- WHER: The First All-Girl Radio Station in The World.
The Transistor on the School Bus October 22, 2005 • When the first transistor radios came on the scene, young boys got a chance to listen to sports whereever they were. In 1960, 8-year-old Jonathan Cuneo used this new gadget to listen to the World Series on a school bus.
LBJ & the Helium-Filled Astronaut October 15, 2005 • Producer Larry Massett has been playing a strange piece of tape to people for over 20 years: President Lyndon Baines Johnson talking to a squeaky-voiced Scott Carpenter who was in a special decompression chamber after 30 days undersea.
The Man Who Loves Sound October 8, 2005 • Starting in 1935, Don Hunter made a sonic scrapbook of the Pacific northwest. The 85-year-old Hunter still works out of his basement studio in Eugene, Oregon, where he keeps his discs and tapes as trophies. He shares some of those prize recordings with us.
A Man Tapes His Town October 6, 2005 • Eddie McCoy is an unlikely historian. He grew up and has lived his whole life in Oxford, North Carolina -- a tobacco town of some 10,000 people. When he was injured in a car accident and couldn’t keep working, he found a tape recorder and started interviewing people. His work is a unique window on small town life in the South.
San Francisco's Chinatown Funeral Band October 3, 2005 • Lost and Found Sound looks at the Green Street Mortuary Band from San Francisco's Chinatown. More than 300 Chinese families a year hire the band to give their loved ones a proper and musical send-off through the streets of Chinatown. For more than 50 years, this amateur band performed for its community at nearly every big event.
Fred Friendly's Speech at Quonset October 1, 2005 • Fred Friendly's Speech at Quonset Point Naval Air Station in 1941 Fred Friendly's Speech at Quonset Audio for this story is unavailable.
R.A. Coleman's 'Electronic Memories' September 24, 2005 • The second of the Lost & Found Sound Memphis trilogy presents a glimpse of life through the recordings of African American photographer RA Coleman, making his living by documenting the black community in the 1950s South.
Sam Phillips' Memphis Recording Service September 17, 2005 • We present the first of our Lost & Found Sound Memphis trilogy with this portrait of the early years of Sam Phillips and his legendary Memphis Recording Service. This was before he recorded Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis and Johnny Cash. Interviews with Sam, his family, Ike Turner and others are interwoven with the remote recordings he made of talent shows, funerals and proms to support his passion for recording the raw unrecorded music of the 1950s South.