Re:sound #59: The Music and Memory Show

This hour: music, memory, lost love, and John Denver.

Rocky Mountain High
by Ann Heppermann, Kara Oehler, and Rick Moody (Weekend America, 2006)
Jeffery Carpenter loved John Denver and, as a young man, played "Rocky Mountain High" again and again and again on his record player. Then one summer at Christian camp, an older counselor revealed some shocking secrets about the musician.

Something You've Got
by Ann Heppermann, Kara Oehler, and Rick Moody (Weekend America, 2006)
In the 1970s, Jules Shear was the lead singer of the cult band Jules and the Polar Bears. And in the 1980s, he wrote hit songs for the likes of Cyndi Lauper. But this story is about his first taste of stardom: singing three part harmony for Mrs. Pardini.

The Busker and the Diva
by Judith Kampfner (Soundprint, 2006)
Margaret Leng Tan and James Graseck met at Juilliard, where Margaret studied piano and James studied violin. Decades after they graduated, they met again. James was playing his violin in the subways of New York and Margaret was a toy piano diva: famous, critically acclaimed, and nicknamed the "sorceress of the avant-garde."

For the Record
by Gwen Macsai (NPR, 1995)
We reached deep into our archives for this story. It's an essay Gwen did for NPR back in 1995, right after she'd relocated to Minneapolis, capping off an impressive number of moves in her nomadic young adulthood. All the moves meant much schlepping. Overflowing suitcases. Piles of boxes. Heavy boxes, containing things like LPs -- as in actual vinyl, long-playing albums. But she had learned that some things can't be winnowed down, no matter how much they weigh.

This episode of Re:sound was produced by Roman Mars.