StoryCorps 511: American Talkers Part 1
[MUSIC IN]
Michael Garofalo (MG): Here at StoryCorps, we let everyday people tell their own story, uninterrupted, in their own words, each Friday morning. We’ve been doing that on the radio since 2005 and on this podcast since 2007.
We’ve been doing it so long that we kind of forget that there really wasn’t anything like this on the radio before…
That is, except for a series called American Talkers.
This was produced by Sound Portraits Productions, Dave Isay’s production company before he had StoryCorps… and they featured the voices and stories of people like this…
Virginia Belle Brewer (VBB): The bells come alive and I come alive
Lawrence ”Happy” Davis (LHD): No more work, no more uniform, no more nothin’!
Roz Perry (RP): Everyone, anyone who has to go to the bathroom, please go now!
MG: It’s the StoryCorps podcast from NPR…and over the next three episodes, we’re doing a series of our own, revisiting these classics of public radio. I’m Michael Garofalo and I’ll be joined by Dave Isay to get a little of the history behind these pieces of radio history. That’s coming up, right after this short break.
[MUSIC]
MG: Welcome back to the first episode in our three part series, revisiting the American Talkers radio stories produced by StoryCorps founder Dave Isay. I recently sat down with Dave to talk about these pieces, and the stories behind them. And we’ll go to that conversation now.
Michael Garofalo (MG): So Dave, I guess we’ve played some of your documentaries on the podcast before, and we may have mentioned even Sound Portrait Productions, but I don’t think we’ve ever explained what that is.
Dave Isay (DI): Well, for decades before starting StoryCorps I did radio documentaries. And, it was called Sound Portraits and the mission was to kind of shine a light, to raise the voices, from places that might normally not get heard from. And, you know, at the time these used to air on All Things Considered, a documentary was like 27 minutes long. But, when there was a story that didn’t hold up for that long we would do shorter pieces and some of those would be on Morning Edition, some would be on All Things Considered.
MG: And that’s where the American Talkers Series comes from?
DI: Yeah, I mean, this is almost like an experiment with the form that would later become StoryCorps, which is just letting someone speak. And, I came up with this with Steve Zeitlin, who was a mentor of mine from very, very early on. Probably like the first month when I started in radio, I went to his office — He still runs something called CityLore which is a celebration of kind of urban folk culture in NY, and preserving places that are going out of business, and kind of collecting characters and all that kind of the stuff that I love –The first time that I went in I was given a , which is still hanging in my office now, a list of NY characters that was going to appear in a book by a person who had become my collaborator later, Harvey Wang the Photographer. And, I met Steve Zeitlin and other people at CityLore, and we became friends, and Steve kind of helped me think about Sound Portraits and running a non-profit. And eventually, I don’t know, 10 years later we started these American Talkers, which was just basically to record their stories and just have them play on the radio with no narration, just let them speak. Sound Portraits used to be where I lived, which was a little one bedroom tiny, tiny, almost studio apartment. I slept in the back and in the front was the office. And, Steve would bring these various people to my apartment and we’d record their story and then broadcast some of them on NPR.
MG: So, you mentioned Harvey and this first story we’re going to hear actually comes from a project you did with Harvey, right?
DI: Yeah, so we did a book called Holding On that was the first book I ever did. I was really lucky when I was young to get a grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and that was to do something, we called it the American Folklife Radio Project. And it was these stories of characters across the country celebrating authentic everyday American voices doing kind of remarkable things. At some point in the middle of that series decided, with Harvey, to turn it into a book. I used to do these really insane trips — I mean thousands of miles, doing 2 or three stories a day– not all of them would get on the air but I would prep a region of the country and travel around and I remember meeting Virginia Belle Brewer was the last stop on a Texas trip. It was very early, I think she wanted me to meet her at 6:30 or 7 and I had a plane to catch at like 10. I was so close to not going, and then I showed up and I just fell in love with Virginia.
MG: Okay, let’s listen to that piece now. It’s Virginia Belle Brewer, who founded the Brewer Bell Museum in 1973, and in 1996 an illness forced Virginia to close it down. But you get to visit it now, through this story.
(Sound of bells tinkling.)
Virginia Bell Brewer (VBB): My name is Virginia Belle Brewer and right now we’re at Brewer’s Bell Museum and Gift Shop in Canton, Texas.
(Gong sounds.)
VBB: I’ve been collecting bells for 52 years. Started in the fall of 1940. My sister Helen came in with a Tiffany crystal bell, and said ‘This is a gift of a lifetime to come.’ Little did she realize what she was starting!
(Church bell music begins.)
VBB: All the time I was collecting everybody said, ‘Virginia when you gonna’ get enough bells?’
I said, ‘Well, I’ll never have enough bells!’
‘What are you going to do with them?’
I started to trying to think, and I thought, ‘Yes, a bell museum!’
Well, when I opened up, I thought that when you build a better mousetrap the world will beat a path to your door, is the old saying. And I thought when I moved here ‘build a better mousetrap’ —there was no other bell museum in Texas—and that people would start flocking in. Well it didn’t work out the way I anticipated. People didn’t come to see the bells.
Got a little dog—Sissy Bell. She watches the parking lot for me and tells me when somebody drives up. I had two last week—a couple came. And that was it.
It’s lonely back here, but when someone’s with me and I can tell them some of the stories behind the bells. Well, then the bells come alive, and I come alive.
(Sound of a streetcar bell.)
VBB: Denver street car bell. Up on top of the streetcar and the conductor pulled the cord. Here’s another one here . . .
(Sound of a wooden bell.)
VBB: Cowbell from Bali, Indonesia carved out of a solid piece of wood.
And this one don’t look like a bell . . .
(Sound of a bell.)
VBB: But it’s a bell from China that’s shaped like a big ”O”.
(Sounds of many bells.)
Fancy cars and diamonds and fancy clothes never did stir me, but a bell — oh my.
VBB: It’s good clean entertainment for all ages. But it’s to the spot where I can’t do it anymore.
(Church bell music begins again.)
VBB: Well, I gave it four or five years, you know. They usually say a business first starting, that they have to take care themselves for the first five. So, I decided that we’d have to buckle down, so I had to start saving in every way I could.
Going on food stamps . . . that was very hard to do, but I had to do it.
(Somber church bell music.)
VBB: We’ve found out that things that I thought was necessities really aren’t. You can live without them. And one by one by one . . . so it’s just one of those things.
I feel like the Lord intended me to share the beauty of bells with others. I wish it could have been easier but, gotta keep on . . .
(Church bell music ends.)
MG: That was Virginia Belle Brewer of the Brewer Bell Museum.
Dave Isay (DI): Her birthday was the same birthday as my Mom’s, August 24th, and she was already kind of a little bit infirm when we recorded this and over the next, you know, 15, 20 years she got sicker and sicker and eventually. But, I would talk to her at least once a year on her birthday every year until she died. And, she was really, she was the real deal. I mean one thing you can say about, I think all of these people, all of the way up to StoryCorps, is that they’re not phonies. It’s who they are.
Michael Garofalo (MG): So the next American Talker we’re going to hear from is somebody really who was the last of his kind. His name is Lawrence ”Happy” Davis… and he was a Pullman Porter… and a little history here for listeners… the Pullman Railroad company was one of the largest employers of African Americans in the early part of the 20th century… Pullman cars were these luxury sleepers… and all the porters were African American.
DI: So I just read The Warmth of Other Suns–
MG: –About the Great Migration?–
DI: –About the Great Migration and was thinking a little bit about Happy Davis and the Pullman Porters. It’s a magnificent, really a magnificent book. Everyone should read this book. But yeah, I was interested in Pullman porters and found Happy Davis and had the chance to meet him. My most vivid memory of that story is actually mixing it but I remember the calls of the stations and mixing that with Happy Davis’s voice.
[MUSIC IN]
Lawrence ”Happy” Davis (LHD): Back then only the railroad was it. There were no planes, very few cars, you see, and busses weren’t comfortable like they are now. So, the average American who had money, they’d put you on the pullman. See, the pullman was first class. Pullman cars had some cars that were just like a palace.
(Singing, Drilling, Bells)
LHD: The job, per say, was one of the great experiences a man could have. (Inaudible). The pullman quarters were all over the United States. Every day was something new. Every time you’d get on a pullman car you was coming up for a different experience. I had Miller Huggins, Babe Ruth, (Inaudible). I had a lot of movie stars. I guess I had a good amount of friends out there with those people, you know. And everybody’s the same. They’re plain joes like you and I. Peter Laughlin, he would not tip a porter. Peter Laughlin wouldn’t give a porter a dime. He’d go out the back door on you every time. And Sammy Davis Jr., he’s my buddy, that man paid. He paid.
(Train Whistle)
LHD: I never missed an assignment, never did. So many things happened…
[MUSIC- “Pullman Porter Blues” by Clarence Williams]
LHD: Everybody would call you George or Boy. George for George Pullman. That’s what they’d call you.
LHD: Before the brotherhood you were nothing. You were part of the equipment… like a rag on the floor or something. Anybody could reprimand you for doing anything to it. He had you to say you didn’t smile at me, he didn’t brush my sheets and shine my shoes last night. If he didn’t like you–if a pullman conductor didn’t like you–he’d put the pencil on you. But, when the brotherhood got strong we didn’t have that trouble no more. I enjoyed the railroad, I did. Up until the last four or five days. I never thought that last day would get you. When that last day arrived I was coming from Chicago. I pulled that uniform off and I took a real big piece of rope from the [inaudible] bags. Shoes and all I rolled them up and said does anybody want this uniform. Nobody accepted. I threw it in the Potomac river. No work no more uniform no more nothing.
(Train Whistle)
LHD: Oh my goodness. So many extraordinary experiences out there. Shucks, I couldn’t reminisce enough to tell you all about them.
[MUSIC OUT]
MG: So the last story we’re going to hear comes from New York City and this is maybe one of my all time favorite radio pieces ever. It’s a story form Roz Perry about taking a group of senior citizens to hear a rehearsal of the New York philharmonic conducted by Leonard Bernstein…
Dave Isay (DI): So yeah, this was one of those interviews, if I remember correctly, that happened in my little apartment studio. You’re slightly demented for thinking that this is best radio pieces you’ve ever heard but it is kind of funny.
Michael Garofalo (MG): I didn’t say best.
DI: Okay–
MG: –I said favorite. —
DI: –Favorite, I see, I see–
MG: –I think there’s a difference
DI: Yes, there’s definitely a difference.
[MUSIC IN- “Symphony No. 4 in E Minor, Op 98:1 Allegro Non Troppo” by Leonard Bernstein]
Roz Perry (RP): The orchestra’s tuning up and people are coming and going. The ushers are bringing people in. They look at the balconies and the lights and they’re very quiet. And then, all of a sudden everything gets super quiet in the hall because the concertmaster just came in. And, you know, he puts his violin under his chin and he sounds an A and the orchestra tunes up and then everyone is quiet. Everyone’s waiting for Leonard Bernstein. Those seniors, they’re sitting at the edge of their seats because they have heard so much about this man and now they’re going to see him face to face, arms length away.
(Clapping)
RP: And Leonard Bernstein comes out on the stage with his usual flare, and then he walks to the orchestra and he taps his baton on the podium, and the music begins.
[MUSIC- “Symphony No. 4 in E Minor, Op 98:1 Allegro Non Troppo” by Leonard Bernstein]
RP: Now, I really mean it didn’t take more than about three bars of music before you heard paper crackling in the hall. It was the lunch bags that they were carrying. So, at first it’s a little bit here and there and then more paper started to crackle in the hall and Leonard Bernstein turns his head, looks at the seniors, and he shakes his head like ‘no’ and he turns back to conducting the orchestra. And, for a little while it’s quiet, and then the crackling starts again, and it’s more insistent and it’s louder and it’s all over the place. And, accompanying that crackling is a definite smell of tuna fish. Well, Leonard Bernstein stops the orchestra and he turns around and he comes over to the seniors and he says to them, ‘I know that it’s very late. It’s 10 o’clock in the morning and you must be very hungry but you can’t eat here.’ He says, ‘after intermission you’ll take those little bags that you all seem to be caring and you’ll take them into the lobby and you can eat them in the lobby. But right now I would like very much for you to take those little bags and put them underneath your seat.’ The seniors are embarrassed. They put their little bags underneath the seat. Leonard Bernstein waits and then he goes back to the orchestra and he starts conducting.
[MUSIC- “Symphony No. 4 in E Minor, Op 98:1 Allegro Non Troppo” by Leonard Bernstein]
RP: It’s beautiful music, beautiful. Bronze 4th symphony and it’s played beautifully and I’m just relaxing, you know, listening to it when suddenly I hear a commotion in the back of me and I turn around and I see one of our old gentleman–he’s getting up. He has to go to the john. And, because it’s Lincoln Center he has to be very polite so he says ‘excuse me’ to every person that he passes. Now, all the other guys, you know they’re about the same age, they know why he got up so they’re triggered by the same impulse. So they all start getting up and there’s a real commotion in the back there.
[MUSIC- “Symphony No. 4 in E Minor, Op 98:1 Allegro Non Troppo” by Leonard Bernstein]
RP: Leonard Bernstein turns around. He sees what’s going on, he stops the orchestra, he comes over to center stage, he says ‘what’s going on?’ And you can hear he’s angry. Now the first guy, he’s already in the aisle, he turns around and he holds out his hands like saying ‘I can’t help it’ — you know that gesture. And Leonard Bernstein, he can’t stay angry. He sees all the other men standing up and he says ‘Everyone, anyone who has to go to the bathroom, please go now! We’ll wait.’ And the New York philharmonic waits and they go out. So when they sit down Leonard Bernstein comes back to the center stage and he looks directly at the seniors and he says ‘good,’ and then he goes back to the orchestra and he taps his baton and the music stops, and thank God nothing else happened.
[MUSIC OUT- “Symphony No. 4 in E Minor, Op 98:1 Allegro Non Troppo” by Leonard Bernstein]
[MUSIC IN- “Summer Breeze” by Zetat]
MG: That’s all for this first episode in our 3 part series, looking back on American Talkers by Dave Isay and Sound Portraits productions. We’ll be back next week with more! Until then check out CityLore dot Org to learn about that organization and their efforts to preserve New York City’s folk culture.
We’re at StoryCorps dot ORG and the StoryCorps podcast is produced by me and Elisheba Ittoop. Rate and review us wherever you get the show… and leave a message for one of our storytellers on our listener voicemail line. The number is 301-744 TALK, that’s 301-744 T-A-L-K
I’m Michael Garofalo. Until next time, thanks for listening.
[MUSIC OUT- “Summer Breeze” by Zetat]