Fresh Air with Terry Gross

Weeknights at 7

The Peabody Award-winning weekday magazine of contemporary arts and issues.

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Music Reviews
7:22 am
Thu March 1, 2012

Hugh Masekela: Wedding Songs That Don't Sound Blue

Credit courtesy of the artist
Hugh Masekela.

In 1968, Hugh Masekela was not quite 30 years old and though he was in exile from his homeland of South Africa, he seemed ready to become at home on the American jazz and pop markets. That summer, he had scored a number one single, "Grazing in the Grass." A year earlier, he'd been one of the few international performers at the 1967 Monterrey International Pop Festival and had appeared in its D.A. Pennebaker documentary. Yet strangely enough, over the next 45 years Masekela never quite found his sweet spot.

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Movie Interviews
10:50 am
Wed February 29, 2012

'Being Flynn': When Dad Needs To Take Shelter

Originally published on Wed February 29, 2012 12:24 pm

Writer Nick Flynn was working in a homeless shelter in his 20s when his father — an alcoholic and self-proclaimed writer who left when Flynn was a baby — showed up as a client. Flynn wrote about the experience in his 2004 memoir, Another Bulls- - - Night in Suck City.

That story is now a movie called Being Flynn, starring Paul Dano as the young Nick Flynn and Robert De Niro as his father, Jonathan.

Flynn and Paul Weitz, the film's director, tell Fresh Air's Dave Davies that the film boils down to a few important themes.

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Book Reviews
11:16 am
Mon February 27, 2012

China On The Court: NBA Meets The 'Brave Dragons'

"Linsanity" is the magical byword of this basketball season. As anyone who is even semi-conscious knows, Jeremy Lin, the NBA's first Taiwanese-American player by way of Harvard, was passed over for college athletic scholarships and ignored in NBA drafts. Then, he landed with the New York Knicks and has since proved to everybody that athletic prejudice against Asians is Lincredibly stupid. Except, as journalist Jim Yardley points out in his new book on basketball fever in China, Chinese players and coaches happen to endorse that prejudice.

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Author Interviews
7:08 am
Mon February 27, 2012

'Tinderbox': How The West Fueled The AIDS Epidemic

Credit Bill O'Leary / The Washington Post
Craig Timberg is the former Johannesburg bureau chief of The Washington Post. He is current the deputy national security editor at the Post.

HIV is a slow-moving time bomb.

Unlike Ebola, which infects and kills people quickly — and then disappears just as quickly — the HIV epidemic has become so good at killing people in part because it moves so very slowly, says journalist Craig Timberg.

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Fresh Air Weekend
8:41 am
Sat February 25, 2012

Fresh Air Weekend: Catherine Russell, Bret McKenzie

Credit Scott Garfield / Disney
The cast of The Muppets includes (left to right) Floyd Pepper, Fozzie Bear, Lew Zealand, Janice, Swedish Chef, Camilla The Chicken, Dr. Bunsen Honeydew, Gonzo, Scooter and Beaker.

Originally published on Sat February 25, 2012 8:43 am

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

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