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Friday

Lost & Found Sound

Lost & Found Sound: Portrait of an Artist Through an Answering Machine

Our year-long Friday series listens to the voices of one mans answering machine, painting a picture of him as mirrored in the voices of his friends and acquaintances. We hear pleas from friends for help, offers from agents, and messages from mom. In a century of recording advances, phone mail now is one of the most direct records of how we lead our lives - in this case how a professional performer leads his life in Los Angeles.

Lost & Found Sound: Portrait of an Artist Through an Answering Machine

Audio will be available later today.

Friday

Lost & Found Sound

Lost And Found Sound: The Twitching Finger Of The Telegraph

As part of a year-long collaboration between NPR and independent producers called "Lost and Found Sound," we present two salutes to a nearly extinct communication medium: the telegraph. NPR's Jonathan Kern recalls how the device and Morse Code were an important part of his childhood -- a language that united him with his father. And, producer Gregory Whitehead presents an essay with sound about his grandfather who was a professional telegrapher.

Lost And Found Sound: The Twitching Finger Of The Telegraph

Audio will be available later today.

Friday

Lost & Found Sound

Lost And Found Sound: AT&T Archives

NPR's Art Silverman, as part of our year-long collaborative venture between NPR and independent producers, explores the sonic landscape saved by the AT&T archives. Among the artifacts at the Warren, New Jersey site are thousands of hours of movies, radio shows, and other sound that what was once our nation's near-monopoly telephone company made to portray itself. The strong, confident image of what came to be called Ma Bell was supported by dramatic rendering of service and community service. AT&T Historian Sheldon Hochheiser serves as tour guide.

Lost And Found Sound: AT&T Archives

Audio will be available later today.

Friday

Lost & Found Sound

Lost And Found Sound: The Art Of The Carnival Talker

As part of ALL THINGS CONSIDERED's year-long Friday series, we travel to the world of the Carnival Talker. Many call them "Barkers," but they dislike that term.

Lost And Found Sound: The Art Of The Carnival Talker

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Friday

Lost & Found Sound

Extinct Tongues

A linguist in Flagstaff, Arizona, Bonny Sands, told us about her colleague from South Africa, Tony Traill. Traill took some old wax cylinders and documented a lot of the now extinct languages of South Africa. He has now put out a CD copy of the original, which was recorded in 1936. We hear excerpts.

Extinct Tongues

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Friday

Lost & Found Sound

Lost and Found Sound: Listening to the Northern Lights

We experience the sounds of the Aurora Borealis through the ears of sound recorder Steve McGreevy. Very low radio frequencies accompany the Northern Lights and at the equinoxes, when the signals are strongest, McGreevy heads north to listen. He hears the chirps, pops and choruses that play out when the Earth's Magnetic Field interacts with the Sun.

Lost and Found Sound: Listening to the Northern Lights

Audio will be available later today.

Friday

Friday

Lost & Found Sound

Lost And Found Sound

Our Friday feature LOST AND FOUND SOUND, a collaboration between NPR and independent producers The Kitchen Sisters, Davia Nelson and Nikki Silva, and Jay Allison continues. Today's story was drawn from our listener Quest for Sound telephone line. As Quest curator Allison tells us, listener Jonathan Mitchell called to tell us about a cassette that was sent to him by his grandfather when Jonathan was a child. He never knew his grandfather very well, and listening to the tape evokes some mixed feelings. Grandpa wanted to pass down his knowledge about playing the harmonica, but the young Jonathan didn't care. LOST AND FOUND SOUND is a year-long series which airs every Friday. The Quest for Sound line is 202-408-0300.

Lost And Found Sound

Audio will be available later today.

Thursday

Friday

Friday

Lost & Found Sound

Center of the World

NPR's year-long Friday collaboration with independent producers Jay Allison and the Kitchen Sisters (Davia Nelson and Nikki Silva) -- a series called LOST AND FOUND SOUND. Today we present an item from our QUEST FOR SOUND, in which listeners call 202-408-0300 and tell us about recordings they have - or have stumbled upon. Reverend Dwight Frizzell of Kansas City, Missouri found a recording of the late President Harry S. Truman from 1957 -- five years after Truman left office. The tape is of Truman dedicating a shopping center to be built on the site of his boyhood home. With music Frizzell and a friend added, this remarkable speech winds up being a powerful, and unintended elegy to a passing era.

Center of the World

Audio will be available later today.

Thursday

Monday

Friday

Lost & Found Sound

Dead Media

As our Friday feature, Lost and Found Sounds continues, NPR's Dan Charles visits Dave Morton, a New Jersey man who saves technology for sound recording that came .. and went. We learn about the dictabelts, the wire recorders, the other odd devices that captured sound besides phonographs and tape. We hear Oscar Hammerstein dictating notes on a show, soldiers in the Pacific singing, and samples of eight-track tapes.

Dead Media

Audio will be available later today.