Customer Reviews

Voices Of Our Time: Five Decades of Studs Terkel Interviews

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Even today, when celebrity revelations droppeth like the gentle rain, Studs Terkel stands head and shoulders above other interviewers. He had a knack. He could get people to say things they hadn't planned on saying. Terkel knew precisely what to ask, and how to ask it. Those are my words - the Chicago Sun Times said it better:

"Studs Terkel (gets) people to say things in such a way that you know at once they have finally said their truth, and said it better than they ever believed they could say it."

Trained as a lawyer, experienced as an actor, and a best-selling author, Terkel spent half a century on his Chicago based Peabody Award winning syndicated radio program. He brought together people from all walks of life, artists, writers, philosophers, inventors, and visited with each of them as they recounted their triumphs and failures.

Now, 48 of these original interviews have been gathered for our enjoyment - it's a treat to hear the stories of those who influenced our world in their own voices. We hear R. Buckminster Fuller, Woody Allen, Gore Vidal, Eudora Welty, Dorothy Parker, Bertrand Russell, Leonard Bernstein, and a host of others.

Exemplary listening pleasure!

- Gail Cooke

Studs Turkel is a wonderful interviewer, and over the past five decades he has interviewed many of the great thinkers, writers, and doers of our time. The ones he chose for this collection include Aaron Copland, Oliver Sacks, Margaret Mead, Daniel Ellsberg, Maya Angelou, Pete Seeger, John Kenneth Galbraith, and dozens of others. All together, they provide a fascinating portrait of the last half of 20th century. Highly recommended!

Having grown up in Chicago and spent a chunk of my adult life there as well, perhaps the thing I miss most is Studs Terkel and WFMT, the best
FM station in the country. I learned as much about life and the never-ending struggle for human rights from Studs' interviews as I did from any
professor or priest. Hearing these wonderful chunks of those conversations again fills me with nostalgia and recharges my batteries for my own twilight struggle against the world's ills.

Studs Terkel is one of the great historians, letting the stories be told by those who actually witnessed the event. Terkel is one of the foremost oral historians, and these interviews are only a mere insight into the amount of work he has done and recorded.

These interviews do NOT disappoint!!! They are concise, interesting and provide a clear crystal-like glimpse into each person Stud's interviews.
I wish there were more. Studs manages to be down to earth yet not fawning.
Charlie Rose, take lesson from Studs! When will there be more???

Celebrity interviews: Studs did it first! Studs may still be the best!

The interviews on this collection do not leave the listener wanting more. Studs does it "just right"! He is the master of the obvious - he asks the questions that we'd ask if the subjects were sitting at our dinner table. On this collection he talks to Gore Vidal, Bertrand Russell, Woody Allen, Dorothy Parker and Pete Seeger, just to name a few.

Studs was non-confrontational though he never failed to ask the hard quesions.

This is a refreshing collection of interviews with important and interesting subjects conducted by a master. Well worth your time and money.....bg

Memorable interviews with the most affable interviewer. A lovely way to spend some time.

For brief periods of time I shared moments with people I've read, saw on TV, film, listened to - some I've admired, some I wasn't too sure of, but these little glimpses into the past, into moments of time are magical - the sounds of everyday life, the coffee being drunk, the cigarette inhaled, an intake of breath, the traffic outside a Manhattan hotel window in a decade long since passed, an interviewee singing a song, telling a story, sharing a joke, moments of sadness, laughter - none of it polished, rehearsed, plastic and perfect, all of it 'real' - it's a wonderful CD and Studs Terkel a Master Interviewer.

I think it's been a year since I've bought this. My only regret is that I can't find more audio interviews. His books are amazing, his audio interviews SING.

These are the voices who shaped much of the latter half of the 20th Century. And Studs Terkel inimitable style of interviewing brings out the human side of those he interviews.