Transcript

8.28.25 · Smithsonian Magazine

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Speaker 1: Welcome. This is Rebecca Shore for Radio Eye and to
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day I will be reading content from smithsonianmag dot com.
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As a reminder, Radio I is a reading service intended
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for people who are blind or have other disabilities that
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make it difficult to read printed material. Please join me
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now for the first article titled how Bruce Springsteen created
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the greatest rock album ever? Fifty years ago, the Boss
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was at a pivotal moment in his career. A new
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book details what it took to launch Born to Run
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by Beth Pye Lieberman. In the late summer of nineteen
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seventy five, Bruce Springsteen's third studio album, Born to Run,
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launched to critical acclaim and rapidly climbed the Billboard charts,
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holding at number three. Engraved and vinyl were the masterful
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song lyrics and musical arrangements that played out like a
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tragedy in eight acts. Gracing its iconic cover is the
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oft dated photograph by Eric Neola of Springsteen leaning on
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the back of saxophonist Clarence Clemmons. I can listen to
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it now fifty years later and think that every note
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and word are in exactly the right place, says Peter Ames. Carlin,
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Springsteen's biographer and author of the just released to Night
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in jungle Land, the Making of Born to Run. The
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album continues to draw audiences, with an estimated total of
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seven million copies sold in the US alone over the
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past five decades, and is listed for its cultural Importance
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in the National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress.
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In eight tracks, a quick paced thirty nine minutes, Springsteen's
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raspy vocals and resonant lyrics paint vivid imagery laden with complexity,
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metaphor and poetry. Thunder Road is about the path taken
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to achieve success. Tenth Avenue, Freeze Out, the making of
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a band night, the dreams of a nine to fiver,
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back streets, the loss of friendship, Born to Run, the
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chase for the American dream, She's the One, the broken
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hearted quest for love, meeting across the River, the dangerous
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making of a fast buck, and finally, the noir like
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jungle Land, the Hero's Last Stand. Springsteen has said the
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songs are a series of vignettes taking place during one
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long summer day and night. Carlin says the album continues
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to hold up as unique even now, fifty years after
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its release. I can't think of another album that makes
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me feel like Born to Run, including every subsequent album
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by Bruce Springsteen, which I think is on purpose. He
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set out to make one distinct album, hugely distinctive. The
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mid nineteen seventies was a time of upheaval. The country
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was in an economic recession and facing the political aftermath
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of the Watergate scandal and the Vietnam War. Against that backdrop,
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the twenty five year old New Jersey born musician set
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out to become a rock star. He would succeed in
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a way that he could never have imagined at the time.
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The world renowned performer, musician, and story teller of the
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working class and the oppressed, America's Bard has sold more
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than one hundred and forty million albums. Critics have compared
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him to John Keats, Walt Whitman, and even William Shakespeare.
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A Springsteen portrait by photographer Albert Watson that ran on
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the cover of Rolling Stone in two thousand nine bears
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a similarity to the striking pose Shakespeare takes in the
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circa sixteen ten Chandos portrait. Both men sports scruffy hair,
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high collars, and earrings in their left ears. Like that
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other Bard wrote the literary scholars Roxanne Hard and Erwin Street.
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Springsteen's vision is often turned toward the tragi comic, the
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authentically human. The whole world is his stage, and the
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play and his songs could be any people anywhere. Born
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to Run opens on Mary's front porch with a scene
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that mirrors theatrical stage craft. One can envision her dress
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swaying in the breeze and almost hear the notes of
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a Roy Orbison tune playing on the radio, along with
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the pleas of the young guitarist coaxing her to take
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a chance on the launch of his career and leave
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behind their town full of losers. The album closes on
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a bluesy ballad with an over two minute saxophone solo
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and at the end Springsteen's anguished howls. The tale describes
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in metaphor, the artist's own efforts to make his breakthrough
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as a musician. The players flash guitars just like switchblades,
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hustling for their record machine. Springsteen's alter ego is the
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song's magic rat, chased by the police and gun down
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a dark vision of failure in his own epic quest
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to Crafton album that record stores could and would sell
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the greatest rock album ever, as Carlin puts it into
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Night in jungle Land. This was the goal that the
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ambitious twenty five year old musician, along with his equally
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ambitious producers Mike Apple and John Landau, had set out
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to meet Two years before the release of Born to Run.
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Springsteen's first two albums, Greetings from Asbury Park, New Jersey,
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and The Wild the Innocent and The East Street Shuffle,
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had met with critical success, yet failed to sell. The
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first album stalled somewhere around twenty thousand copies, and the
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second won the same acclaim but also the same week sales.
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Carlin writes his recording company, Columbia Records, had hoped for better.
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A band of executives argued in January nineteen seventy four
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to cut their losses and leave Springsteen behind. He was
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still a cult artist, says Carlin. His shows didn't really
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sell out, and the people who went were super into it,
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but it wasn't like he was a superstar or even
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really a huge star. He was well known and admired,
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but a bunch of people had no idea. Written as
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a thrilling page turner, Carlin's book, which includes new interviews
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with Springsteen, recounts the minute by minute details leading up
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to and immediately following the album's release, lingering on the
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intimate happenings at the recording sessions, Springsteen's perfectionist struggles, and
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the grind to craft and record each note and word.
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It was that period where he had everything to prove
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and it could go either way, says Carlin, adding that
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he wrote the book because he wanted to dig into
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what Springsteen's emotional progress was like, what fueled him, and
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what it was that threatened to undermine him. In the
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late summer of nineteen seventy four, Columbia Records top executives
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appeared most disinterested in promoting his earlier albums. Yet, thanks
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to the scrappy initiative of Apple, who had mailed copies
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of Springsteen's new single Born to Run to djays across
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the country, radio stations started playing the raucous Anthem with
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its heart pounding drum intro. Meanwhile, the players in Springsteen's
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band were reshuffling. In early nineteen seventy four. The band
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included the pianist David Sanctius, the saxophonist Clarence Clemens, bassist
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Gary Tallent, drummer Ernest Carter, and Danny Federici with his
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trademark keyboard Glockenspiel rigged to his Hammond organ. Months later,
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pianist Roy Bettan and drummer Max Weinberg replaced Sanchez and Carter,
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marking the formative beginnings to Springsteen's East Street band that
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would hold up for most of the next five decades.
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Recording sessions got under way in January of nineteen seventy
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five at nine fourteen Sound Studios and Blauvelt, New York. Landau,
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a renowned music critic and new friend of Springsteen's, began
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to make periodic visits and listened in. By April, he
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was the album's third co producer, along with Springsteen and Apple.
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The previous May, at a Springsteen performance at the Harvard
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Square Theater, Landau had published his landmark review for a
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Boston newspaper, I Saw rock and Roll Future and its
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name is Bruce Springsteen. The precient writer would become Springsteen's
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lifelong producer and collaborator. Apple would eventually part ways with
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the musician. Landau moved the band to another studio, the
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Record Plant, in Midtown Manhattan, you're a first class artist.
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You need to work in a first class studio, he
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told Springsteen. The sessions were grueling and many times lasted
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into the early morning hours. I was concerned about one thing,
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which was making an absolutely great rock and roll record,
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Springsteen told Carlin. Whatever happens after that, I don't have
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control over, but I do have an opportunity to make
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a record, and I want to make the greatest rock
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and roll man. I want to make the last rock
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and roll album you're ever going to need to hear.
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Throughout the summer months, the lyrics evolved, the instrumental preambles
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were honed, and the mood and settings of the stories
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took shape, leaning into his musical influences the early rock
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and rollers Chuck Berry, Fats Domino, Bo Diddley, Sam Cooke,
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Elvis Presley and Wilson Pickett, as well as Phil Specter
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and Brian Wilson, and the b movies and noir films
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he enjoyed. Springsteen pushed hard to get the right sounds
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and notes from his musicians. For hours and into the morning,
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Clemens worked and reworked his saxophone solo and She's the one,
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Springsteen recalled to Carlin his state of mind, I've felt desperate,
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you know, that was who I was. I was that
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desperate character, desperate to be recognized, to be heard, to
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be seen, just to transcend what I felt were the
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awful beginnings of my life. So I was chasing this transcendence,
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and my vehicle for that was the music I was
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writing and the shows I was performing. The deadline for
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the album July twentieth loomed. The record needed to be
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in the stores for the back to school college crowd
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in September, and the band needed to be on the
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road for their promotional tour. They took it right to
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the wire all night and into the morning of the twentieth.
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Carlin details the final hours in his book. The work
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spread across the record plants, studios and floors, with mixing
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going on in one room, the jungle Land saxophone work
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in another, the rest of the band rehearsing for the
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tour in a third. When Bruce finally walked into the
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rehearsal room, strapped on his telecaster and took his place
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at the center, the recording of Born to Run was
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officially finished. The album was released on August twenty fifth,
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nineteen seventy five. By October, album sales had reached gold status,
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with five hundred thousand copies sold. Later that month, on
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October twenty seventh, nineteen seventy five, Springsteen did what he
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had set out to do, achieve rock star status by
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landing the cover stories on the national news magazine's Newsweek
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and Time. The original artwork for the Time cover, a
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graphic rendering of Springsteen with his telecaster guitar by artist
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Kim Whitesides, is now part of the collections of the
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Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery. Looking at the portrait five decades
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after it was made, the museum's historian Nindi Farmer notes
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the musician's signature hat, charming smile, facial scruff, and guitar,
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and how the artist chose a deep red to highlight them.
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She says the image mirrors visually how Time editors characterized him.
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They describe him as primal, says Farmer. You can see
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that in this portrait we don't even know if he's
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wearing clothes or not. All we know is that he's
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wearing his guitar. We have to remember that newspapers and
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television played a really important role in how you came
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to know about certain trends and people. She adds, so
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to be on both was remarkable. Newsweek doesn't review his
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work particularly well, but the Time article is much more glowing. Definitively,
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the Time article proved to be more prophetic to Carlin.
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The image reflects Springsteen's enthusiasm and joy the artist, he says,
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captures the Jersey boardwalk beach rat that he was in
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those days. He's radiating the Jersey shore. In his book,
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Carlin describes what happened the day the two magazines hit
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the newstand. Guitarist Stephen Van's aunt, who'd joined the band
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during the recording sessions, was the first to retrieved copies
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for the touring members and brought them to Springsteen at
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the hotel room where they were staying in Los Angeles.
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He leaped up from his chaise, sprinted into his room,
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and slammed the door. Carlin writs. It just freaked him out.
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Says Carlin, in Time, he's rock's new sensation, and the
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newsweak one was far more skeptical. They focused on all
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the kind of industrial work that went into making him
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a rock star. How could this kid who grew up
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in Nowheresville, New Jersey, be this smart and sophisticated and accomplished,
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like it doesn't make sense, which is also what's happening
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in the back of Bruce's head. One of the interesting
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things about Bruce, says Carlin, he is torn between two
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visions of himself. On the one hand, he felt faded
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to be this iconic character. On the other he was
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terrified that he was really a phony, that people would
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decide that he was a bunch of height. Fifty years
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have proved otherwise. To date, Springsteen has released more than
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twenty studio albums and numerous boxed sets, compilations and live albums.
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In June, he released Tracks two The Lost Albums, a
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set of archival recordings and rare versions of his previous songs.
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He's earned twenty Grammys, an Academy Award, two Golden Globes,
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a Tony, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. This October,
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a biopic starring Jeremy Allen White Springsteen Delivered Me From
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Nowhere debuts and theaters every August. On the anniversary of
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Born to Run, Springsteen told Carlin he gets in his
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car and plays the album as he drives around the
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New Jersey Town, where he was living when he was
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making it. When he hears the opening notes to jungle Land,
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he drives to and parks in front of the Little
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Long Beach Cottage where he wrote the songs. He says,
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he just sits there and listens to all of jungle Land.
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Carlin says when the final notes over, then he drives
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away next to combat summer reading slumps, This timeless children's
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television show tried to bridge the literacy gap with the
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magic of stories. With the charismatic host and charming book
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readings and reviews, The hit series Reading Rainbow stands as
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a beacon of children's literature by Kayla Randall for generations
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of readers, or words convey what it means to love books,
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Butterfly and the Sky. These are the opening lyrics of
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the famous theme song for the beloved children's program Reading Rainbow,
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hosted by actor LeVar Burton. PBS premiered the show in
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nineteen eighty three, and it ran for twenty three years,
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received twenty six Emmy Awards, and won the hearts of millions.
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The series, like the song, encouraged young readers to take
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a look because whatever knowledge they sought it's in a book.
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As those who want the show know, Butterfly in the
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Sky became the words that always preceded a good story.
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The words are so significant to the legacy of Reading
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Rainbow that they serve as the namesake for the twenty
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twenty two documentary about the cult classic program Butterfly in
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the Sky, The Story of Reading Rainbow. In recent years,
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numerous reports have warned of a national literacy crisis for
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children and adults alike. Reading Rainbow is the essential example
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of a show about the importance of literacy, reading comprehension,
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and the joy of storytelling, loved by viewers of all
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ages and from all backgrounds. In terms of child literacy
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rates going down, that was really what Reading Rainbow was
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designed in response to, and in particular the summer slide
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they call it, which is when students are out of school,
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their literacy levels slide backward, says Ryan Lintelmann, entertainment curator
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at the Smithsonian's now National Museum of American History. Lentilman
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says plenty of research confirms that when students come back
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to school in the fall, teachers need to take some
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time to bring them back up to speed. To the
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levels of literacy and reading comprehension that they were at
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when they ended the previous school year. Reading Rainbow was
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made to bridge this reading gap for children and improve
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their reading skills, and to be a show that kids
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wanted to watch. It was known that kids were watching
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TV all summer, Lentleman says, so why not do something
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with it. On each half hour episode of Reading Rainbow,
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Burton introduced the real world subject matter of a children's
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book through field trips, from going to the barber shop
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to visiting an orchestra in a concert hall, and then
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the book itself was read by a performer. Ruby d
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Helen Merrin, Keith David ed Harris, Gregory Hines, Jeff Bridges,
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and Pete Seeger are just a few of the actors
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and musicians who have graced the show with their voices.
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The chosen books are childhood staples such as If You
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Give a Mouse a Cookie by Laura Numrov, Amazing Grace
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by Mary Hoffman, and Stella Luna by Janelle Cannon. The
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program mixes the calm, steady presence of Burton with the
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warmth and coziness of getting wrapped up in a book,
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and at the end of the show kids review books
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they've read. For over two decades, the show achieved its
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goal of not only reading to kids, but also making
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kids want to read. In nineteen ninety seven, the Corporation
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for Public Broadcasting released a study about the use of
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television and video in classroom instruction. Current, a news outlet
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covering public media, reported that teachers responding to the survey
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rated public TV programs as the best they'd used for
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educational purposes in nineteen ninety six to ninety nine eighty seven.
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Reading Rainbow was named by a higher percentage of teachers
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than any other program. I think it's been shown to
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be super successful, Lintelman says, adding that the show inspired
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a lifelong love of reading in its audience. People who
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have been interviewed for this documentary talk about how Reading
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Rainbow was such an important part of their lives and
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the entire generation. I count myself among them of people
19:27
who grew up watching that show and learning about new
19:30
books through it. The curator notes that The Reading Rainbow
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was unique in how it spoke about books, showing both
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the featured books illustrations and Burton's real adventures, seeing the
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people and places represented by the books. The show also
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made its host Burton, who had been known for his
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role as Kuta Quinte in the nineteen seventies mini series Roots,
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into an icon of education. He later went on to
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star as Geordie LaForte in another beloved show, star Trek
20:02
the Next Generation, which ran from nineteen eighty seven to
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nineteen ninety four. Hearing the story from the people who
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made the show, and hearing their evident passion and commitment
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to doing this children's television show, every person feels like
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they were making a significant contribution to culture, Burton told
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the Associated Press in twenty twenty four. And they care
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deeply about what we were doing. I get it. I
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understand the importance that y'all have placed on this part
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of your lives, your childhoods, and I'm proud, genuinely proud
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to be a part of your lives in this way.
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During the a P interview, Burton was asked if he
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ever thought that his most meaningful legacy, despite all his
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acting work in film and television, would be tied to
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reading Rainbow. I'm good with that, Burton said, as a
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son of an English teacher, as a black man coming
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from a people for whom it was illegal to know
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how to read, not that long ago. I'm good with that.
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The story of Reading Rainbow begins in Buffalo, New York
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as a w n E D t V program idea
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before it made its debut on p b S. Three
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people who worked on and helped make the show, Tony Bettino, Senior,
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Barbara Erwin, and Pam Johnson collaborated on a twenty twenty
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four book about the process called Creating Reading Rainbow, The
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Untold Story of a beloved children's series. Working with educators
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and librarians on summer reading programs, Buttino led w n
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E D t v's Educational Services department at the time.
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Johnson was the liaison with the executives working on the show,
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and Irwin was an intern in that department at w
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n E D. Working alongside Bottino and Johnson. She worked
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on community outreach and on production of the book review
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segments of the show that were done in Buffalo for
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the first several years. Buttino, as director of the department,
22:03
led in the creation of the show and searching for
22:06
a Reading Rainbow host. Irwin says, Tony knew that he
22:10
wanted some one like mister Rogers. He wanted a real person,
22:14
somebody who could really communicate well with children. Burton was
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mostly known then for being on Roots. Erwin says the
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team at w n e D, who recognized his capability
22:26
as a magnetic speaker and reached out to him about
22:29
the job, which he had accepted, had found their host.
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To day, Bino is retired from his role at w
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N e D, Erwin is retired from her work as
22:39
a communications scholar at Canisius University, and Johnson is the
22:44
executive director of the Corporation for Public Broadcastings Ready to
22:48
Learn Education initiative. The trio speaks fondly of their time
22:53
working on Reading Rainbow. Erwin says the first proposal that
22:58
w n e D submitted to the Corporation for Public
23:01
Broadcasting for the show was for one season's worth of episodes.
23:06
That proposal was rejected, but the team was funded and
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then shot in November nineteen eighty one, says Erwine. After
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the pilot, the team did more research to put together
23:17
a new proposal to get the show made. W N
23:21
e D partnered with Great Plains National in Lincoln, Nebraska
23:25
to submit the new proposal to the Kellogg Company and
23:28
the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. That proposal was his success,
23:33
and Buffalo and Nebraska test audiences got to see the
23:37
show before it made its national debut on p b S.
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This was intended to be a summer series, Bettino says,
23:44
but of course it ended up transcending that people loved
23:48
the program like the fans who watched Reading Rainbow. Erwin, Bottino,
23:53
and Johnson have their own favorite episodes and books among
23:57
the one hundred and fifty five total. The book that
24:00
I really love is called Enemy Pie, Johnson says. The
24:04
two thousand book by Derrick Munson tells the tale of
24:07
a boy befriending a peer whom he didn't like at
24:10
first after eating pie with him. It's a beautiful theme
24:14
about welcoming in others, she says. Boutino and Irwin both
24:18
appreciate tight times, and Irwin ads bringing the rain to
24:22
Kapiti plains another special book read by James Earl Jones
24:27
on the show. Stories and story telling are so important
24:31
to the human experience, Erwin says, in the case of
24:34
Reading Rainbow, those stories open diverse worlds of possibilities for children,
24:40
offering these opportunities to meet different kinds of people, to
24:44
travel to different places, to experience different things, to go
24:48
back in time, to go into the future. That's the
24:51
power of story telling, Erwin says, and no series did
24:54
it any better than reading Rainbow did. Finally, de Lulu, skibbeity,
25:01
and tradwife are among more than six thousand words added
25:05
to the Cambridge Dictionary by Ella Feldman. No, You're not delusional.
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Delublu is now an official word and the Cambridge Dictionary
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a popular online language resource. The buzzy shortening of delusional
25:20
is one of six thousand, two hundred and twelve new
25:23
entries to the dictionary. Among them are tradwife, a portmanteau
25:28
of traditional wife that describes a controversial subculture of submissive,
25:32
domestic married women who promote their lifestyles online, roligarchy, which
25:38
describes wealthy men who usually work in tech and wield
25:42
or seek political influence. And skibbety, a gibberish viral word
25:46
that Cambridge's own definition says can have no real meaning.
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Viral Internet moments can be fleeting, but Colin Macatosh, the
25:55
lexical program manager at Cambridge Dictionary, says experts select words
26:01
that they think will have longevity. We only add words
26:04
where we think they'll have staying power, Macintosh says in
26:07
his statement, Internet culture is changing the English language and
26:12
the effect is fascinating to observe and capture in the dictionary.
26:17
Not every word in the latest round of editions is
26:20
as novel as skibbety, which is derived from an uncanny
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animated YouTube series called Skibbety Toilet that dates back to
26:27
twenty twenty three. The word look l e w K
26:32
was added to Cambridge this year, three years after it
26:35
was added to Miriam Webster and more than a decade
26:38
after it was popularized by fashion influencers and drag queens.
26:43
Another edition was enspo, a term that has referred to
26:47
inspirational online images since the early days of Instagram. Even
26:52
words like de lulu have been around longer than people
26:55
might think. Christian Ilbury, a socio linguistic lecturer at the
27:00
University of Edinburgh, tells the associated presses lydia doya, it's
27:06
really just the increase in visibility and potential uptake amongst
27:10
communities who may not have engaged with those words before.
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Ilbury says of the addition of viral words to dictionaries
27:16
like Cambridge, some of the dictionary's newest words reflect shifts
27:21
in human behavior and culture. A mouse jiggler is defined
27:25
as software that makes it look like you're online and
27:28
working even if you're not. A product of the post
27:32
pandemic surge in remote work environments. A new definition for
27:36
snackable describes Internet content that is short enough to keep
27:40
up with shrinking attention spans. The term forever chemical is
27:45
now in the dictionary, reflecting ongoing concern over damaging artificial
27:50
chemicals found in consumer products. A dictionary should be a
27:55
public record of how people use language, Ilbury tells the AP.
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This includes readings from smithsonianmag dot com. For to day,
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your reader has been Rebecca Shore. Thank you for listening,
28:09
and have a great day.