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Radio Diaries

A Guitar, A Cello and the Day that Changed Music

Radio Diaries

Radio Diaries & Radiotopia

Documentary, Society & Culture

4.61.3K Ratings

🗓️ 23 November 2022

⏱️ 16 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

November 23, 1936 was a good day for recorded music. Two men, an ocean apart, sat before a microphone and began to play. One, Pablo Casals, was a cello prodigy who had performed for the Queen of Spain. The other, Robert Johnson, played guitar and was a regular in the juke joints of the Mississippi Delta. These recordings would change music history.

This episode originally aired on NPR in 2011.

Transcript

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0:00.0

While we've got you, we want to tell you about a radio-topia show with some news to share.

0:04.8

Your hustle is celebrating its 100th episode.

0:08.1

This season, the show will be revisiting its very first episode,

0:12.4

a listener favorite called Sellies, about the relationships formed inside a prison cell.

0:18.2

But this time, there's a twist.

0:20.4

The whole episode takes place inside a women's prison.

0:24.2

And the show checks in on one of its producers, Roshan New York Thomas,

0:28.9

who was recently released from prison for an inside look at life on parole.

0:33.8

And producers spend a marathon 14 hours out on the yard at Sam Quentin,

0:38.8

from dungeons and dragons to dominoes,

0:41.2

gospel, to geese, weightlifting, to just waiting.

0:44.5

They've got the sounds and stories to prove it.

0:47.2

Radio-topia.

0:51.3

From PRX.

0:52.8

You're listening to Radio Diaries, I'm Joe Richmond.

0:56.0

On November 23rd, 1936, two men sat down in front of a microphone and began to play.

1:10.7

These two men couldn't have been more different.

1:12.8

One was a celloprology who had performed before the Queen of Spain.

1:16.6

The other played guitar in the Duke joints of the Mississippi Delta.

1:19.6

This is the sound of one of the world's greatest classical cellists,

1:27.9

and probably the most legendary blues guitarist of all time, jamming together.

1:43.6

Of course, it didn't really happen, not like that anyway.

...

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