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Friday

Lost & Found Sound

Lost and Found Sound: Grateful Dead Revived

In today's installment from the Lost & Found Sound series we hear the music of the Grateful Dead re-invented in the studio by the a cappella soul singers, The Persuasions. Their new CD, Might as Well... The Persuasions Sing Grateful Dead, has just been released. (12:30)

Might As Well: The Persuasions Sing Grateful Dead is distributed by BMG and Arista.
Find out more at: http://www.npr.org/programs/lnfsound/stories/001020.stories.html

Lost and Found Sound: Grateful Dead Revived

Audio will be available later today.

Friday

Friday

Friday

Lost & Found Sound

Lost and Found Sound - Voices of the Dustbowl

{LOST AND FOUND SOUND: "VOICES OF THE DUSTBOWL"} -- Today we hear the latest installment the "Lost and Found Sound," series: "Voices of the Dustbowl." In the 1930s, hundreds of thousands of people from Oklahoma and Arkansas traveled to California, in search of better living. Depression-related poverty and a massive drought and subsequent dust storms had made life impossible for them back home. There were no jobs, and the fields were fallow. California held the promise of work and wages, harvesting fruit and vegetables year-round. Sixty years ago, in the summer of 1940, Charles Todd was hired by the Library of Congress to visit the federal camps where many of these migrants lived, to create an audio oral history of their stories, and to document the success of the camp program to the Roosevelt administration back in Washington. Todd carried a 50-pound Presto recorder from camp to camp that summer, interviewing the migrant workers. He made hundreds of hours of recordings on acetate and cardboard discs. Todd was there at the same time that writer John Steinbeck was interviewing many of the same people in these camps, for research on a new novel called "The Grapes of Wrath." Producer Barrett Golding went though this massive collection of Todd's recordings. Together, they bring us this story, narrated by Charles Todd.

Lost and Found Sound - Voices of the Dustbowl

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Friday

Wednesday

Friday

Lost & Found Sound

Lost And Found Sound: Numbers

Producer David Goren has the story of a mystery on shortwave radio. There are a number of stations which transmit nothing but numbers -- a series of numbers, read by an unidentified voice, all day, every day. We hear from several shortwave enthusiasts, and experts on international espionage, who believe that the numbers are encrypted code, delivered by government intelligence agencies to spies around the world. It is a mystery where the transmission come from, and who they are meant for. We hear the transmission of these "number stations" from the CIA , western European countries, and Russia. After the Cold War, many of the transmissions that were originating from Communist countries stopped. Many number stations today can be linked with Cuba, China, and Taiwan. Shortwave experts and code experts continue to be fascinated by the number stations -- the notion that what is coming out of your radio is meant for one person only, in a coded language only he can understand.

Lost And Found Sound: Numbers

Audio will be available later today.

Sunday

Friday

Lost & Found Sound

Lost and Found Sound: Manicurists

The Kitchen Sisters, Davia Nelson and Nikki Silva, with Laura Folger present a sonic montage that allows Vietnamese immigrant women to tell about their experiences in coming to the United States.

Lost and Found Sound: Manicurists

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Friday

Lost & Found Sound

'Lost & Found Sound': The Vietnam Tapes of Lance Cpl. Michael A. Baronowski

In 1966, Michael A. Baronowski of Norristown, Penn., took a tape recorder with him into combat in Vietnam. Lance Cpl. Baronowski was in the demilitarized zone when he captured sounds of jokes, songs, bombs, and bullets. He died later that year in an ambush in a village — but not before sending these recordings home. (Produced by Christina Egloff with Jay Allison.)

'Lost & Found Sound': The Vietnam Tapes of Lance Cpl. Michael A. Baronowski

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Friday

Lost & Found Sound

Lost and Found Sound

In our latest installment of our occasional Lost and Found Sound series, producer Yair Reiner presents Jack Foley: Feet to the Stars. Jack Foley is a Hollywood legend---he did his job best by not letting anyone know he existed. But Foley's legacy lives on in every film and television program we watch---it's there in the footsteps of the star walking down a street, in the rustle of a dress, in the pounding of horse-hoofs. Foley made these sounds and many more on his stage at Universal studios. Foley was there on the studio's maiden voyage into sound pictures. At first, he and his team of sound men had only one chance to get all the sound right. Foley figured out that by projecting the film and recording the sound effects in sync, he would get the best effect---and he would do each effect one at a time, till the various sounds were all put together with the film--a method today called Foley. Foley's stage looked more like a garage than a recording studio---dirt, gravel, and lots of junk everywhere. These were the tools of his trade. Foley's voice was never recorded and there are no pictures of him at his work---but he is remembered by those who worked with him.

Lost and Found Sound

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Friday

Lost & Found Sound

Lost and Found Sound: <I>The House of Night</I>

This year we're continuing our Lost and Found Sound series on an occasional basis. Today's installment, "The House of Night," is the story of the Mojave Indians, their language and their songs and one man who tried to preserve both for future generations. Beginning in the mid-1960's Guy Tyler began making recordings of the Mojave language and of their 525 song cycle, called the Creation Song. This 13 hour song is a map of the tribe's origins. The songs describe celestial cycles, the positions of stars, planets, and elaborate descriptions of migratory birds.

Lost and Found Sound: The House of Night

Audio will be available later today.

Friday

Lost & Found Sound

Lost and Found Sound Finale

Quest For Sound Curator Jay Allison brings down the curtain on our year-long series, Lost and Found Sound, by playing examples of some of the listener calls that came in this year answering our plea for hidden audio artifacts. He laments that we never heard the talking seal, but then plays a short example. Allison takes us on a walk through the various kinds of sounds we learned about: ancestors passing messages to their descendants, voices of youth returning on record in old age, and many more. And, we hear the sound that initiated the series: a mysterious record made to a World War Two solider by his lover or wife back home.

Lost and Found Sound Finale

Audio will be available later today.