Fresh Air

Fictional 'Mothers' Reveal Facts Of A Painful Adoption Process

editor — Wed, 22 May 2013 17:08:00 +0000

After years of trying to conceive, novelist Jennifer Gilmore and her husband decided to pursue a domestic open adoption. They were told they'd be matched within a year; it took four. And along the way they faced complicated decisions and heartbreak.

Gilmore, who has channeled those decisions and heartbreaks into personal essays and articles for outlets such as The New York Times and The Atlantic, has now turned to fiction, her native genre, to explore the experience.

Daft Punk: Accessing Electronic Music's Humanity

Ken Tucker — Wed, 22 May 2013 15:14:00 +0000

I freely admit that, until the new Random Access Memories, I wasn't much of a Daft Punk fan. I could appreciate the craft and imagination that went into creating the French duo's mixture of electronic genres — techno, house, disco — but the mechanical repetitions and heavily filtered vocals didn't turn me on in any other way.

But now, Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo have come up with an album that exposes the human side of their musical impulses.

Soderbergh's Liberace, 'Behind The Candelabra'

editor — Tue, 21 May 2013 16:51:00 +0000

Director Steven Soderbergh had been looking for a way to frame a film about the extravagant entertainer Liberace for years when a friend recommended the book Behind the Candelabra: My Life with Liberace.

The book — a memoir — is by Scott Thorson, who for five years was Liberace's lover, though that wasn't publicly disclosed at the time.

Thorson was 40 years younger than Liberace and still in his teens when they met in 1977.

Brooks: "I'm An EGOT; I Don't Need Any More"

editor — Mon, 20 May 2013 17:40:00 +0000

Over the 60 years that Mel Brooks has been in the entertainment business, his name has become synonymous with comedy.

Sarah Vaughan: A New Box Set Revels In Glorious Imperfections

Kevin Whitehead — Mon, 20 May 2013 17:01:00 +0000

Singer Sarah Vaughan came up in the 1940s alongside bebop lions Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker, starting out in Earl Hines' big band. Hines had hired her as his singer and deputy pianist, while Gillespie praised her fine ear for chords as she grasped the arcane refinements of bebop harmony.

Fresh Air Weekend: Gerwig, Baumbach, Dawes And Polley

editor — Sat, 18 May 2013 17:09:00 +0000

Fresh Air Weekendhighlights some of the best interviews and reviews from past weeks, and new program elements specially paced for weekends. Our weekend show emphasizes interview with writers, filmmakers, actors and musicians, and often includes excerpts from live in-studio concerts. This week:

Jerry Lee Lewis: Live, Singing As If Life Depended On It

Ed Ward — Fri, 17 May 2013 17:40:00 +0000

It was April 4, 1964, and Jerry Lee Lewis had officially bottomed out. He hadn't charted a record in years, and now, on tour in England and Germany, he was getting paid so little that he couldn't afford to bring his own musicians. Instead, he was forced to use pickup bands in England, and then, when he arrived in Hamburg, a British band called the Nashville Teens was waiting for him. The venue was the Star Club, where The Beatles, who had just leaped into stardom in America, had played not long before.

Bill Hader On Sketch Comedy, Classic Hollywood

editor — Fri, 17 May 2013 16:39:00 +0000

This interview was originally broadcast on Aug. 22, 2012.

Comedian Bill Hader is adept onstage and doing live TV. But he's scared to death of standup.

He remembers watching Chris Rock's 1996 HBO special, Bring the Pain, and thinking, "I don't know how people do that."

"I need a character," Hader tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross.

The Tricky Business Of Retirement: Hidden 401(K) Fees

editor — Thu, 16 May 2013 18:04:00 +0000

A couple generations ago, when older Americans retired they could rely on pension plans to support them. Then, in the late 1970s and early 1980s, many companies switched their retirement plans over to 401(k) accounts. The security of workers' retirement savings suddenly became subject to the vagaries of the stock market.

What's more, the financial institutions that manage 401(k)s charge a host of hidden fees to plan participants, says Robert Hiltonsmith, a policy analyst at the New York-based think tank Demos.

100 Years Of Woody Herman: The Early Bloomer Who Kept Blooming

Kevin Whitehead — Thu, 16 May 2013 16:48:00 +0000

Woody Herman, who would have turned 100 on Thursday, bloomed early and late — and then later still. He turned pro by age 9, singing and dancing in movie theaters on summer vacation. He'd perform one song deemed too risqué for radio when he recorded it decades later: "My Gee Gee From the Fiji Isles."

Herman was 17 when he went on the road playing saxophone in traveling bands. Eventually, he joined songwriter Isham Jones' orchestra. When Jones broke it up in 1936, his jazzier guys reformed as a co-op with Herman out front.