"Because ignorance of your culture is considered uncool"
1949: Voices And Events For The Year – NBC Radio – December 31, 1949 – Gordon Skene Sound Collection – 1949 – a year in the dim-distant past for most of us, but a year that, not unlike the annual Christmas Fruitcake, was the gift that kept on giving for...
Fred Allen: Town Hall Tonight – December 27, 1939 – Gordon Skene Sound Collection – Fred Allen. If you’re a fan of comedy, study comedy or old enough to remember when Radio was the entertainment medium of choice, because TV wasn’t there yet, the name Fred Allen rings all sorts...
Gregor Piatigorsky in conversation with James Day – Day At Night – May 24, 1974 – Gordon Skene Sound Collection – Gregor Piatigorsky. Without question one of the greatest cellists of the 20th century, and to some the greatest string player of all time. The Ukranian born American cellist settled...
Euell Gibbons – Book Beat – December 16, 1967 – Gordon Skene Sound Collection – Euell Gibbons -Cast your mind back for a moment (if you are of a certain age). It’s the late 1960s and you’re watching TV – a commercial for Grapenuts Cereal comes on. A craggy looking...
James Baldwin – Book Beat program – 1968 – Gordon Skene Sound Collection – James Baldwin has been an enormous influence for writers the past several decades – for Black writers his influence has been profound. His essays, as collected in Notes of a Native Son (1955), explore intricacies of...
Arthur Knight in conversation with René Clair – Recorded November 22, 1958 – WNYC-FM – Gordon Skene Sound Collection – The history of Cinema is a long one – when you think about the technical advances, the changes in style, the milestones that paved the way for new voices and...
1948 Drama Critics Award program – A Streetcar Named Desire – Mutual Special Features – Gordon Skene Sound Collection – A Streetcar Named Desire, as it was first performed with the original cast; Jessica Tandy, Kim Hunter, Karl Malden and Marlon Brando. A run which began in 1947 and in...
Paul Robeson, Richard Wright, Duke Ellington, Eddie “Rochester” Anderson, Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, W.C. Handy, Herb Jeffries, Hattie McDaniel – and many more – Tribute to Canada Lee – June 9, 1941 – Mutual Special Events – Gordon Skene Sound Collection – A rare and special program from 1941 this weekend....
CJVC-Toronto/CBC Dominion Network – Jazz Unlimited – August 1953 – Gordon Skene Sound Collection – The airwaves around the world in the 1950s were filled with concerts and club dates of every kind and type. But what about the disc-jockey programs; the ones where they just played records, those pieces...
The Exurbanities – CBS Radio Workshop – March 30, 1956 – Gordon Skene Sound Collection – As a companion piece to the Urban Sprawl documentary from the early 1970s I ran a few days ago, discussing the rapidly abandoning of American cities, here is a dramatized essay written by Social...
