Just heard an interview on "Whad'Ya Know?" (http://www.notmuch.com/Show/)
with Studs Terkel about his new interview book, about music.  His
equal-time treatment of opera (Gobbi is one of his great favorites),
symphonic music, pop and jazz is entertaining and admirable.

 From Publishers Weekly: <<In this enjoyable, informative collection of
40 interviews, Pulitzer-winning oral historian Terkel recalls his venerable
radio program, The Wax Museum, which premiered shortly after the end of
WWII in 1945, profiling composers, entertainers and impresarios of nearly
every type of music.  In a stirring introduction, Terkel explains his
love affair with music, which began when he was a boy and culminated
with this daily radio show, where Terkel used a diverse playlist to spark
dynamic chats with opera divas Edith Mason and Rosa Raisa, rockers Bob
Dylan and Janis Joplin, world musicians Ravi Shankar and Andres Segovia,
jazz greats Dizzy Gillespie and Louis Armstrong, folk singers Woody
Guthrie and Pete Seeger, and others.  Insightful and daring, Terkel
always asks the right questions, whether culturally or musically.  Most
scintillating are the occasions when Terkel provokes his subjects to
weigh in on controversial topics (as when composer Leonard Bernstein
comments, "What would American music or culture be like if there were
no black people here?").  Although perhaps not as strong as some of
Terkel's weightier works (e.g., The Good War: An Oral History of World
War II), this volume is nevertheless effective oral history, demonstrating
an expert journalist's ability to let his subjects speak.

Janos Gereben
www.sfcv.org
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