RADIO TIMES
Hour 1
MAUREEN FAULKNER, the widow of slain Philadelphia Police officer Daniel Faulkner talks about her new memoir Murdered by Mumia: A Life Sentence of Loss, Pain, and Injustice. Daniel Faulkner was gunned down Dec. 9, 1981. A jury convicted Mumia Abu-Jamal for the murder and sentenced him to death. He has since
appealed through the State and now Federal Courts alleging he got an unfair trial. Listen to this show via Real Audio | mp3
Hour 2
Drexel University student Jocelyn Kirsch and University of Pennsylvania graduate Edward Anderton surrendered to the Philadelphia police last week for charges of fraud, theft, and burglary. We learn more about the story from Philadelphia Daily News reporter REGINA MEDINA, and columnist JILL PORTER. Listen to this show via Real Audio | mp3
FRESH AIR
Drummer Levon Helm once backed Bob Dylan and sang with Van Morrison. Now, 30 years after The Band split up — and 10 years after he was diagnosed with throat cancer — Helm is putting out a solo album. The Washington Post has called Dirt Farmer “an exquisitely unvarnished monument to Americana from a man whose keening, lyrical vocals have become synonymous with it.”
When The Band was backing Bob Dylan in 1965, Time magazine described the combination as “in some ways the most decisive moment in rock history.” The Band went on to record their own highly influential albums Music From Big Pink and The Band in 1968 and 1969, before splitting up in the mid-’70s.
Since then, Helm has performed solo and with other musicians, and has acted as well. (He played Loretta Lynn’s father in the biopic Coal Miner’s Daughter and had a part in The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada.)
For the past several years, Helm has presided over monthly concerts in a barn on his Woodstock, N.Y. property, which he calls Midnight Rambles. The first one featured a performance from the late blues legend Johnnie Johnson and more recent Rambles have brought out musicians like Emmylou Harris, Allan Toussaint, and Elvis Costello.
Helm was diagnosed with throat cancer in 1996. The treatment regimen included both surgery and radiation, and for a time he couldn’t sing.
But his daughter Amy Helm, of the band Ollabelle, moved back to her father’s home, to care for him, and she encouraged him to record once his voice returned. She performs on Dirt Farmer, Levon Helm’s first solo studio album in 25 years.
DYLAN & THE BAND: Like A Rolling Stone
City Hall, Newcastle, England, 1966