Program Highlights

Friday - 1/18

7 pm: FROM THE TOP
This week, from the Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, From the Top celebrates the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. through the eyes of today's teenagers. You'll hear the superb Boston Children's Chorus sing several inspiring pieces and meet a 17-year-old bassoonist whose path parallels Coretta Scott King's early years in music.

10 pm: JAZZ SHACK
During the WWII era, when money and musicians were scarce, the jukebox industry really took off. We’ll begin tonight with some sides from one of the most prolific bands from this era: Louis Jordan and the Tympani Five from 1946. Also scheduled are sides from the age of the “vipers,” a colorful, free-wheeling era when there was no law against the use of marijuana. Louis Armstrong said, “It’s the musician’s best friend.”

Saturday – 1/19

7 am: SELECTED SHORTS
John Lithgow hosts a program featuring E. Nesbit's witty modern fairy tale Melisande, read by Jane Curtin, and Barbara Kingsolver's wry tale of a widow learning to cope, Fault Lines, read by Jill Eikenberry.

12 pm: THE SPLENDID TABLE
We're looking at willpower with John Tierney, co-author of Willpower, Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength. Jane and Michael Stern are breakfasting at Green Salmon in Yachats, OR, and we learn what it takes to be a cheesemonger with Steve Jones, proprietor of The Cheese Bar in Portland, OR

1 pm: MARKETPLACE MONEY – This weekend on Marketplace Money, guest host David Lazarus discusses common myths about the flu shot that cause people to avoid getting the vaccine. We also acknowledge the swearing-in of Barack Obama for a second term as President with a reflection from someone who was born on inauguration day years ago. Plus, we'll take a hard look at federal spending in Washington, DC and what budget cuts could mean for government employees at every wage level. Reporter Vanessa Romo takes us inside the world of quinceaneras and how the cultural tradition can mean steep costs to celebrate your daughter's 15th birthday.

3 pm: KING'S LAST MARCH
A documentary from American Radioworks - In the spring of 1968, Martin Luther King, Jr led a disastrous demonstration of striking garbage workers in Memphis. When he was killed shortly afterwards, King was trying to prove the power of non-violence.

4 pm: THIS AMERICAN LIFE – “Three Kinds of Deception”
A story of self-deception, a story about deceiving others, and a story about accidental deception, and how one type of deception can easily turn into another.

6 pm: A PRAIRIE HOME COMPANION
Coming to you this week live from ASU Gammage in Tempe, Arizona, it's A Prairie Home Companion with Garrison Keillor. With special guests, songwriter and cowboy poet Gail Steiger and old-time bluegrass outfit Run Boy Run. Also with us, the Royal Academy of Radio Actors, Tim Russell, Sue Scott, and Fred Newman, The Guy's All-Star Shoe Band, and the latest News from Lake Wobegon.

Sunday – 1/20

7 am: ON BEING
Poetry is something many of us seem to be hungry for these days. We're hungry for fresh ways to tell hard truths and redemptive stories, for language that would elevate and embolden rather than demean and alienate. Elizabeth Alexander shares her sense of what poetry works in us – and in our children – and why it may become more relevant, not less so, in hard and complicated times.

11 am:  A PRAIRIE HOME COMPANION
Coming to you this week live from ASU Gammage in Tempe, Arizona, it's A Prairie Home Companion with Garrison Keillor. With special guests, songwriter and cowboy poet Gail Steiger and old-time bluegrass outfit Run Boy Run. Also with us, the Royal Academy of Radio Actors, Tim Russell, Sue Scott, and Fred Newman, The Guy's All-Star Shoe Band, and the latest News from Lake Wobegon.

2 pm: FROM THE TOP
This week, from the Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, From the Top celebrates the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. through the eyes of today's teenagers. You'll hear the superb Boston Children's Chorus sing several inspiring pieces and meet a 17-year-old bassoonist whose path parallels Coretta Scott King's early years in music.

6 pm: KING'S LAST MARCH
A documentary from American Radioworks - In the spring of 1968,Martin Luther King, Jr led a disastrous demonstration of striking garbage workers in Memphis. When he was killed shortly afterwards, King was trying to prove the power of non-violence.

9 pm: THIS AMERICAN LIFE – “Three Kinds of Deception”
A story of self-deception, a story about deceiving others, and a story about accidental deception, and how one type of deception can easily turn into another.