The Other Wes Moore. Hot Stuff: Disco and the Remaking of American Culture. The life and legend of Willie Mays. How visionary businessman Fred Harvey built a railroad hospitality empire.
The Other Wes Moore
An all-American success story, Wes Moore is a Rhodes Scholar, honored college football player, decorated combat veteran, former White House Fellow and investment banker. But was his success due to chance or choice? That question haunted Moore when he heard about his doppelganger, a young man with the same name now serving life in prison for killing a cop. Fascinated by their similar backgrounds, Moore contacted the other Wes Moore in an effort to find answers to his own life questions. How did two similar boys from the inner city grow up to have such different lives? What can be done to create brighter futures for disadvantaged youth?
Guest:
Wes Moore, author of The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates (Spiegel & Grau). Rhodes Scholar, investment banker and former aide to Condoleezza Rice.
Hot Stuff: Disco and the Remaking of American Culture
Disco music ruled the charts from 1973 to 1979 with slick songs that were catchy, mindless, and self-indulgent. But aside from its musical impact, disco was a driving force of social change for gays, women, and blacks. In "Hot Stuff," Alice Echols chronicles the disco phenomenon, from its origins in 1960's soul through its lasting influence 30 years later- not just on wedding receptions, but on today's music and artists like Madonna and Lady Gaga. Echols and Larry Mantle boogie down and talk about an era when the tunes and the clothes were equally synthetic.
Guest:
Alice Echols, author of Hot Stuff: Disco and the Remaking of American Culture (W. W. Norton). She is a professor of English and gender studies at USC. Echols is a former disco deejay, and the author of the biography of Janis Joplin, Scars of Sweet Paradise.
The life and career of Willie Mays
Some consider Willie Mays to be the greatest baseball player of all time. He started playing for the Negro Leagues as a teen in the nineteen-forties, and went on to become the first black captain in major league baseball history. Larry Mantle talks about the legendary center-fielder with James S. Hirsch who has written a biography of the baseball icon with the full cooperation of Willie Mays himself.
Guest:
James S. Hirsch, author of Willie Mays: The Life, The Legend (Scribner). Hirsch is a former reporter for the New York Times and Wall Street Journal, and he’s the author of four other books, including the bestseller Hurricane: The Miraculous Journey of Rubin Carter.
How visionary businessman Fred Harvey built a railroad hospitality empire
Fred Harvey built eating houses and hotels along the nation’s largest railroad, the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe (including historic lodges still in use at the Grand Canyon). His “Harvey Houses” were patronized by European royalty, American Presidents, rowdy cowboys, and countless ordinary travelers looking for the best cup of coffee in the country. His staff of carefully screened single young women—the celebrated Harvey Girls—were the country’s first female workforce and even inspired an Oscar-winning MGM musical starring Judy Garland. In his new book “Appetite for American” author Stephen Fried documents how Harvey’s legendary company and entrepreneurial vision helped shape American culture and history for three generations—from the 1880s through World War II.
Guest:
Stephen Fried, author of Appetite for America: How Visionary Businessman Fred Harvey Built a Railroad Hospitality Empire That Civilized the Wild West (Bantam)