Remembering Architect Frank Gehry

Summary

Fresh Air – Remembering Architect Frank Gehry

Date: December 12, 2025
Host: Terry Gross (with commentary from David Bianculli)
Guest: Frank Gehry (archival interview from 2004)
Duration of Gehry segment: ~00:14 – ~00:19

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Overview of the Episode's Main Theme

This episode of Fresh Air commemorates the renowned architect Frank Gehry, who passed away at the age of 96. Host Terry Gross revisits her 2004 interview with Gehry, exploring his innovative approach to architecture, his development of signature forms, and personal stories that shaped his work. The segment deeply examines Gehry's design process, artistic influences, early life, and the controversies and philosophy behind his most iconic projects.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

Gehry’s Approach to Architecture & Movement in Form

• Modernist Beginnings

  • Gehry entered architecture during the height of post-war modernism, a period marked by an emphasis on "purity" and "functionalism."
    • "Decoration was a sin, purity, functionalism, all of that stuff." (Frank Gehry, 01:30)
  • He found that the movement’s purity became "cold and inhuman and lifeless." Instead, he sought to find expressive and humanistic qualities within the modernist aesthetic.

• Inspiration from Movement – The Fish Motif

  • Gehry was inspired by objects and art that suggested motion, such as Shiva dancing figures from India and Japanese woodcuts of carp by Hiroshige.
    • "I was fascinated with that sense of movement...our culture when I started making my work was a moving environment, planes, trains, cars..." (Frank Gehry, 02:04)
  • Fish became a recurring motif, both as a tongue-in-cheek response to trends ("if you're going to go back, you might as well go back 300 million years before man to fish") and as a genuine exploration of movement and abstraction.
    • "I made a 35 foot wooden fish ... When you stood beside [it], had the same character that the Shiva dancing figure." (Frank Gehry, 04:12)

• From Motif to Building – The Development of Form

  • Through abstraction—removing literal details from the fish form—Gehry discovered shapes that evoked movement and incorporated these into his architectural language.
    • "I cut off the tail and I cut off the head and I cut off the fins and I started to abstract it..." (Frank Gehry, 05:51)
  • His experiments led to floating, billowing forms seen in the Guggenheim Bilbao, Disney Concert Hall, and Chicago’s Pritzker Pavilion.

Material Choices and Technical Innovations

• Working with Steel and Titanium
  • Gehry discussed experimenting with various metals for external cladding, aiming to blend structure and skin—a radical departure from traditional distinctions between walls and roofs.
    • "I started to take the roofing material down and make the walls part of the roofing material. So it all was one material." (Frank Gehry, 08:01)
  • Stainless steel was often chosen for its durability, but in gray conditions, it became "dead" or muted, leading Gehry to use titanium for the Guggenheim Bilbao to achieve a "golden" reflection even during overcast skies.
    • "I found titanium by accident that in a gray sky, it turns golden and shines." (Frank Gehry, 10:03)

Iconic Building Descriptions and Their Reception

• Terry Gross reads vivid and imaginative journalistic descriptions of the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao—from "Marilyn Monroe's wind-assisted skirts" to "an explosion in a sardine factory."
  • Gehry responds: "Yeah, it's fine. You know, I try to describe it, but not in those kind of terms. No." (Frank Gehry, 11:23)

Personal History and Identity

• Childhood in Canada and Artistic Exposure
  • Gehry reflects on growing up around slot machines and pinball machines, appreciating their graphic design but prefers not to dwell on that period due to family hardships.
    • "They were always in the basement somewhere in my house. And I used to play with them and help them fix them and stuff like that..." (Frank Gehry, 12:00)
• Changing His Name
  • Gehry candidly explains altering his name from Goldberg in the context of enduring anti-Semitism, and the mixed emotions that followed.
    • "I was so embarrassed. Every time I met somebody, I told them." (Frank Gehry, 14:10)

The Controversial Gehry Residence

• Gehry’s own Santa Monica house—an assemblage featuring corrugated metal, plywood, and chain-link fence—was both inventive and controversial.
  • The chain-link fence initially served to protect his two-year-old son, but became a pivotal material in Gehry’s experimental palette.
    • "Chainlink is the most despised material ever. People hate it and yet they use it so prevalently all over the world." (Frank Gehry, 16:32)
  • He continued to reflect on and research its properties, but rarely used it beyond that experiment.

Vision for Future Homes

• Gehry shared plans for a new home in Venice, CA, prioritizing a large garden and modular pavilions—a more outdoor-centric design inspired by Philip Johnson’s New Canaan home.
  • "I'd like to live in the garden...More outdoors. You can do that in L.A." (Frank Gehry, 19:27)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

"I thought it was possible within the aesthetics of the day to find a way to express feeling and humanistic qualities in a building. And I got interested in movement, the sense of movement having a humanistic effect on an inert building."
— Frank Gehry, 01:57

"If you're going to go back, you might as well go back 300 million years before man to fish."
— Frank Gehry, 03:53

"I found titanium by accident that in a gray sky, it turns golden and shines."
— Frank Gehry, 10:03

"Chainlink is the most despised material ever. People hate it and yet they use it so prevalently all over the world. And I was trying to figure out how it could be so despised and yet so used..."
— Frank Gehry, 16:32

"I was so embarrassed. Every time I met somebody, I told them." (on changing his surname from Goldberg to Gehry)
— Frank Gehry, 14:10

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Timestamps for Significant Segments

| Time | Segment/Topic | |-----------|---------------------------------------------------------------| | 00:14 | David Bianculli introduces Frank Gehry and memorial segment | | 01:30 | Gehry on entering architecture amid modernism | | 03:25 | Discussion of fish as architectural inspiration | | 05:50 | Evolution of fish form into abstract architectural language | | 07:16 | Process of working with titanium, steel, and other metals | | 10:39 | Gehry reacts to Guggenheim Bilbao’s various descriptions | | 11:32 | Gehry recounts his childhood and influences | | 13:16 | On changing his name from Goldberg to Gehry | | 14:48 | Designing and reimagining his own Santa Monica home | | 17:57 | Continued relationship with chain-link material | | 18:43 | Gehry’s plans for a new house and design priorities |

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Tone and Style

• The interview maintains Terry Gross's characteristic warmth and curiosity, with Gehry responding candidly, often with dry humor, reflective pauses, and thoughtful asides.
• Gehry balances technical detail with personal anecdote, making the complexities of his architecture and design philosophy accessible and engaging.

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Summary: For Those Who Haven't Listened

This Fresh Air episode is both a celebration and a deep, introspective exploration of Frank Gehry’s life and visionary work. Through a wide-ranging conversation, listeners gain a unique window into how Gehry’s fascination with movement, materials, and abstraction led to some of the most iconic buildings of our time. Gehry’s reflections on childhood, identity, and the unlikely inspirations behind his creations underscore the deeply personal nature of his architectural innovations. The segment serves as both a fitting tribute to Gehry’s enduring impact and a portrait of the restless curiosity that defined his career.

Transcript

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[David Biancooli]

I'm David Biancooli. Today we're going to commemorate Frank Gehry, who was one of the most famous and influential architects in the world. He died last week at the age of 96. Frank Gehry designed the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, which architect Philip Johnson described as the most important building of our time. He also designed the Disney Concert hall in LA and Seattle's Experience Music Project, a music museum inspired by Jimi Hendrix. Gary's work has been described as looking more like sculptures than buildings. When Scott Pelley of 60 Minutes profiled him in 2002, Peli said, Gary is to architecture what Einstein was to physics, what Picasso was to painting, what Jordan is to basketball. We're going to listen Back to his 2004 interview with Terry Gross. At the time, his latest project was the Music Pavilion at Chicago's new 24 and a half acre Millennium Park. Like his Guggenheim Museum, the exterior of his music Pavilion has curving, billowing, floating shapes, shapes that actually are made of heavy, hard steel. Terry asked him how he started working with those steel forms.

[Frank Gehry]

I came into architecture at the height of modernism after the war. Decoration was a sin, purity, functionalism, all of that stuff.

[Terry Gross]

So it was an era of purity and functionalism. A lot of glass and steel, high rises, right.

[Frank Gehry]

And it became very cold and inhuman and lifeless. Probably some people yearned for bringing decoration back and they tried it for a while. I went a different route. I thought it was possible within the aesthetics of the day to find a way to express feeling and humanistic qualities in a building. And I got interested in movement, the sense of movement having a humanistic effect on an inert building. And there are examples in history of that I've alluded, I've talked about it before, the Shiva dancing figures from India that a multi armed dancer in bronze. And the best ones, when you look at them and turn away and look back, you're sure they moved. I was fascinated with that sense of movement. And since our culture when I started making my work was a moving environment, planes, trains, cars, whatever. I talked about it and I thought about it, but I wasn't clear about it until I started experimenting quite accidentally with fish forms.

[Terry Gross]

Let me ask you about fish. I mean, fish, as we all know, they have spines, but they're so flexible and they can bend and curve. What was the parallel you saw between fish and what you wanted to do in your architecture.

[Frank Gehry]

I was interested in movement and I loved the drawings of Hiroshige and the Japanese woodcuts of carp, and I loved the quality of them. And I always thought they were very architectural. I also thought of fish as being on Earth 300 million years before man. And when my brethren started to regurgitate the past in the postmodern movement, as it was called, the past they were regurgitating was anthropomorphic. And I said, well, if you're going to go back, you might as well go back 300 million years before man to fish. And, you know, it was a sort of a sarcastic remark and kind of, I didn't even realize what I was talking about when I said it. And I started drawing. Whenever I saw one of those postmodern buildings, I would angrily sketch in my book pictures of fish. And I made a 35 foot wooden fish for the fashion house in Italy for an exhibit. And the 35 foot wooden fish was very kitsch and very embarrassing looking object. But when you stood beside had the same character that the Shiva dancing figure, you turned away and looked and you thought it move. And so quite accidentally, I found myself into a language that I was really looking to, to find. And like everything else, it happens by accident.

[Terry Gross]

So you were looking to find a way of making something very stable that expressed movement. That expressed movement. And you found it through the form of the fish. And how does that connect to the forms that you've used in recent architecture?

[Frank Gehry]

Well, I then made shapes. I started to say, what could I do to this wooden fish that would make it less embarrassing as a piece of kitsch? And I cut off the tail and I cut off the head and I cut off the fins and I started to abstract it and I made a shape, an abstracted, let's call it a filet of fish that I used in a show, an exhibit I did at the Walker Art Museum. And it still had that quality of movement when you look back and looked around. And I made that out of a wooden frame and covered it with metal. And so that was the beginning of a language. And Ayik took that language into the buildings.

[Terry Gross]

But, you know, in some of your buildings, including the new Pritzker Pavilion in Chicago and the Disney Concert hall and the Guggenheim Museum, those kinds of curving shapes, they're not made out of wood. I mean, they're made out of steel or titanium. And how did you realize that that would be. How did you start working with titanium as a medium? For something that would be really firm and stable, strong, but also moldable. Not moldable. I guess it's more. I don't know. Are you molding it or are you. How are you getting the shape?

[Frank Gehry]

Okay, here's how you do it. I do maybe 50 models. They look. Sometimes they look like crumpled paper. So people think I crumple up paper, and that's how they. How they get there. And I do. I analyze the shapes as though they're structures with the computer to determine whether I'm within the budgetary constraints. And over time, I slowly evolved these shapes and refine them. And then you gotta decide what skin to put on it. The exterior surface. A long time ago, you know, buildings are a wall and a roof, right? And usually the wall is a different material than the roof. And I wanted, a long time ago, tried to make the buildings into one shape. I thought if I could make it one piece, that I would have a lot of flexibility. So I. Metal roofing is tradition for centuries. And there's a tradition, and there's a detailing tradition, and there's a performance tradition so that you can rely on it not to leak, not to get you in trouble if you follow the rules of it. I started making the whole building. I started to take the roofing material down and make the walls part of the roofing material. So it all was one material. And the choices then were copper. And then you have stainless steel, and you're pretty much limited to a palette like that. Now, copper, when you put it on a building, turns very dark for about 10 years, and it's kind of morose. So it's. Unless you pre green it, and when you pre green it, it looks kind of phony to me. So I reject that. And I started using stainless steel. And when you go to Bilbao and you use stainless steel, Bilbao is a city that has a lot of rain and a lot of gray skies. And stainless steel in gray skies goes dead. You'll see that the stainless steel in Millennium park will go quiet. When it's cloudy, it won't shine because it's so reflective.

[Terry Gross]

So it can reflect the sky.

[Frank Gehry]

Yeah, it reflects the sky. And if the sky is gray, it reflects the gray sky, and it goes gray. In Bilbao, that would have been difficult. And I found titanium by accident that in a gray sky, it turns golden and shines. And so I used it in Bilbao. It's very expensive. The reason I didn't use it here, it would have increased the budget by a lot of money. And since these shapes were not it Wasn't one whole building, they were mostly vertical. I think they'll be okay.

[Terry Gross]

I want to read you a list of descriptions of the Guggenheim museum that you built in Bilbao, Spain, as written by journalists. A pile of improbably huge fish. Fractured tinfoil flowers. A fantastic dreamship, all sails full sweeping upstream. Marilyn Monroe's wind assisted skirts. An exploded artichoke heart. Vast hulls of a ship that used to loom over a shipbuilding town. A prehistoric beast advancing with leg and foot toward the water. An explosion in a sardine factory. A monstrous flower. A fairy tale castle. What do you think?

[Frank Gehry]

Yeah, it's fine. You know, I try to describe it, but not in those kind of terms. No.

[Terry Gross]

You were born in Toronto and for four years you moved with your family to a small mining town in Canada.

[Frank Gehry]

Called Timmons, Timmins, Ontario.

[Terry Gross]

Yeah. Where your father worked for the distributor of slot machines and pinball machines. And boy, old pinball machines were so great. I mean they had. They were so. They were kind of like billboards or neon sides. They were like things that would light up and all kinds of like pictures and stuff. Did you love the design of those pinball machines?

[Frank Gehry]

They were always in the basement somewhere in my house. And I used to play with them and help them fix them and stuff like that. Yeah, I guess so. You know, when you go through a childhood like that and it was a tough one because there were tough times for the family and you tend to want to cut that part of your life off.

[Terry Gross]

So you don't think about it very.

[Frank Gehry]

Much, forget about it. But he was involved with the carnival business in a way and used to bring those kind of people home. And I met as a kid, I met a lot of them. And there was a blind boxer black guy that used to babysit me. I remember. The good thing about it all was the mix of people that I was exposed to as a kid which. Which has helped me in life, I mean.

[Terry Gross]

Well, one thing I think you have not forgotten about from that period. You've said that you were exposed to a lot of anti Semitism in this small mining town. And did that contribute to the fact that you changed your name when you became an architect from Goldberg to Gary?

[Frank Gehry]

Well, it was a factor in allowing myself to be convinced by my ex wife that it was the most important thing to do. I guess I didn't like the idea of changing it.

[Terry Gross]

Why was it so important to her?

[Frank Gehry]

We were going to have our first child and there had been a lot of anti Semitism. I experienced. She experienced and she Said she didn't want to bring a kid into the world to go through that. The name at that time was a caricature. There was a radio program called the Goldbergs, sort of caricatured. And so. And I took a lot of heat for it and, you know, I didn't want to do it. My father hated me for letting her do it. My mother went along with it. And when after she did it, I was so embarrassed. Every time I met somebody, I told them.

[Terry Gross]

So. But you wouldn't go back to Goldberg now? Too late. Right.

[Frank Gehry]

Well, I'm married to a Panamanian girl, Berta, who threatens to go back to. She'd like to be Berta Goldberg, she says, but I doubt if we'll do it.

[Terry Gross]

Well, you've made the Gary name too famous.

[Frank Gehry]

I think my kids. My son Sam flirts with it because he wants to be an architect. So he may just want to get rid of the Gary name for a while.

[Terry Gross]

Your first building that really got a lot of attention and that ended up being pretty controversial was your own home. You had moved into a small two story cottage. Is that a fair word for it? And you kind of designed a new home around it. And if you look at it like in a photograph, you have this like two story building. And then around that you have there's sheet metal and plywood.

[Frank Gehry]

Corrugated. Corrugated metal.

[Terry Gross]

Corrugated metal. And then on the second story, there's like chain link fencing around it. And it almost looks more like an assemblage, you know, like an assemblage sculpture than architecture because there's so many. It's so mixed media and the textures all seem to be kind of conflicting. And you're not really sure what is the purpose of the chain link fence on the second floor. Is there a purpose for it? Is it just there as like another material to contrast with the other materials?

[Frank Gehry]

Well, there was a purpose when I did it.

[Terry Gross]

What was the purpose?

[Frank Gehry]

The kid was 2 years old and his room had a door to the outside, to the terrace. And the first day I was there, he started climbing down the wall. And so we put up the chain link fence with the idea that it would be safe. It'd be like a safety place for him to play on the top, on the upstairs outdoors of his room. And then once I started committed myself to doing that, I then started to do things with the way it looked, I guess, and proportioned it, but.

[Terry Gross]

Yeah, with some pretty odd angles, right?

[Frank Gehry]

Yeah, yeah, Well, I started doing that, but I had played with it because chainlink is the Most despised material ever. People hate it and yet they use it so prevalently all over the world. And I was trying to figure out how it could be so despised and yet so used and so much denial about it that people use it. And then they say, well, no, no, that's a tennis court, but it's a damn chain link fence. So I decided to study. I liked that idea of things that people deny exist and tried to see if I could figure out a way to make it better or usable. Since they were going to use it anyway, maybe I could help them make it look prettier. And I started to explore the qualities of it that I thought were as a material. Like, it works like a scrim. If you look at it straight on, you look through it. If you look at it on the angle, it closes up like a scrim does. And there are different weights of it and different coatings on it. And so I did a whole lot of research on it. By the time I got to the house, I was playing with it. I had the beginning of a language with it.

[Terry Gross]

Do you still live in that house?

[Frank Gehry]

Yes.

[Terry Gross]

Still have the chain link fence on the second floor?

[Frank Gehry]

Yes.

[Terry Gross]

Even though there's no baby?

[Frank Gehry]

He climbed over the chain link. It didn't work. He climbed over it when he got a little older? No, right away he was up over it and out.

[Terry Gross]

That's some athletic baby you had there.

[Frank Gehry]

Yeah, he was something.

[Terry Gross]

So do you still. What are your gut feelings now about chain link?

[Frank Gehry]

Well, I don't use it very much. Even though I figured out how to use it. People sometimes ask me to use it and I refuse. But I've done some things with it. I'm not against it. I haven't been too interested in it. We are designing a new house, though. I am.

[Terry Gross]

Oh, you're designing a new house for yourself?

[Frank Gehry]

Yeah, from scratch in Venice, California. And I'm working on it now.

[Terry Gross]

What's the most important thing you want that you don't have now?

[Frank Gehry]

A garden. I bought a piece of land that'll give me a garden.

[Terry Gross]

That's nice. And will there be a kind of architectural design around the garden or.

[Frank Gehry]

Yeah, I'm doing. It's a half acre lot. And so I'm building several pavilions. More like the Philip Johnson house in New Canaan, where there's a living room and then there's a separate room. A building for bedrooms and stuff.

[Terry Gross]

Huh. So it'll be like two separate houses?

[Frank Gehry]

Yeah.

[Terry Gross]

Why do you want that?

[Frank Gehry]

I'd like to live in the garden.

[Terry Gross]

Okay.

[Frank Gehry]

More outdoors. You can do that in la.

[Terry Gross]

Yeah, I guess so. I guess so. Well, thank you so much. Congratulations on the completion of the Pritzker Pavilion and thank you so much for talking with us.

[Frank Gehry]

Thank you very much.

[David Biancooli]

Frank Gehry speaking to Terry Gross in 2004. The world famous architect died last week. He was 96 years old. After a break, we remember Raoul Malo, lead singer of the Mavericks, who died this week at age 60. And Justin Chang reviews the newest movie in the Knives out franchise. Wake up dead man. David I'm David Biancooley and this is FRESH Air.

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[David Biancooli]

Weekend, Raul Malo and his veteran roots music group the Mavericks were scheduled to play at a tribute concert in their honor at the famed Ryman Auditorium in Nashville. The concert was held as planned, and among the other genre artists taking part were Steve Earle, Patty Griffin and Jim Lauderdale. But Raul Malo himself wasn't there. Fighting cancer for the last few years, he watched from his hospital room last weekend as a special feed of the concert was streamed to his bedside. Raul Malo died Monday at age 60. Raul Malo was born in 1965, the son of Cuban immigrants in Miami. In his early 20s, he became the guitarist and lead singer for the Mavericks, a genre bending band that lived up to its rebellious name. They played punk clubs in Miami beach, but with a mixture of music that embraced not only Latin rhythms, but roots music, rock and roll and country. The Mavericks recorded such popular hits as Here comes the Rain and All you ever do is bring me down. Their most recent studio album was last year's Moon and Stars, and their eclectic LPs over their four decade career included an all Spanish album and a tribute to motley cruel. In 1995, the Mavericks released Music for all Occasions, which included the hits all you ever do is bring me down and Here comes the Rain and the opening track, foolish Heart. Terry Gross spoke with Raul Malo when that album was released. She began by playing the opening song, foolish Heart.

[Raul Malo (singing)]

Foolish heart, Foolish heart, you who made me weak. Foolish heart. Heart, I'm your horse to keep. You're the one that's still with me. Foolish heart, don't set me free. There was a time.

[Terry Gross]

Raul Mala, welcome to FRESH air.

[Raul Malo (speaking)]

Thank you.

[Terry Gross]

Some people, I imagine, might think it's incongruous for a Cuban American to be a country singer. Did it ever seem that way to you?

[Raul Malo (speaking)]

Sure, it still does sometimes, but.

[David Biancooli]

You.

[Raul Malo (speaking)]

Know, I never gave it a second thought. I mean, it is what I love to do and my parents, you know, certainly have supported me in doing so. And, you know, I grew up in a pretty musical household, so there was all kinds of music around always. I mean, we, we listened to everything from Hank Williams to Celia Cruz to Sam Cooke to Bobby Darin. It didn't matter.

[Terry Gross]

What was your neighborhood like when you were growing up?

[Raul Malo (speaking)]

It was a good neighborhood, you know, but it's Cuban immigrant neighborhood and not very rough, but hard working people, blue collar people working every day for a living, you know, just trying to, you know, just trying to stay in the game.

[Terry Gross]

So what was the club scene like in Miami when you started playing in bands?

[Raul Malo (speaking)]

It was, it was, it was pretty wild, actually. You know, there wasn't a lot of country music to say the least. I think we were the only country band actually playing in these clubs. They were original music clubs, which was the good thing.

[Terry Gross]

What do you mean, original music clubs?

[Raul Malo (speaking)]

Well, they were clubs that allowed the bands to come in and play their original music instead of, you know, instead of bands coming in and doing like four sets of covers, you know, all night. So at the time, you know, we were allowed to certain creative freedoms, you know, where you could basically go on stage and play whatever you wanted. And sometimes it led to interesting nights because we'd be right on after, you know, some punk rock or some heavy metal band. And here we were playing, you know, I fall to pieces or Crazy Arms or something, you know, just something that sounded old and country and. And, you know, they didn't quite know what to do with us, but they found themselves having a good time and digging it. And that was the whole point, you know, that we were trying to do, that we're still trying to do, is to bring people in that, you know, would normally turn away from country music. You know, we want them to go, well, no, you know, this is cool. I want to go buy a Patsy Cline record. I want to go buy a Hank Williams record and that kind of thing, you know, and listen and listen to the music and, you know, it was an interesting time because it really allowed us to do whatever we wanted.

[Terry Gross]

Now, all the country people who you've mentioned, you know, Hank Williams, Patsy Cline, they're among the early country performers when country was still not dressed up in a lot of studio accoutrements.

[Raul Malo (speaking)]

Right.

[Terry Gross]

Is that. That's what you prefer?

[Raul Malo (speaking)]

Well, you know, that's not only in country music. I mean, in pop music as well, you know, basically you have.

[Terry Gross]

True enough.

[Raul Malo (speaking)]

Yeah, we have people now that, you know, you don't even have to be a good singer. You don't have to be a musician, you don't have to be anything. You know, you just gotta be this little image with long hair and ripped up jeans and throw a flannel shirt and we'll make you sound good, kid. You know, don't worry about it. And that's the way it goes in all kinds of music. I mean, so, you know, there is something to be said about the old way of like just going in and actually having to sing. What a concept. And actually having to play your instruments. You know, that's the problem I have with a lot of today's music.

[Terry Gross]

What year did you actually move to Nashville?

[Raul Malo (speaking)]

I think I moved here. I'm trying to think. I'm going on three years that I've actually been living in Nashville.

[Terry Gross]

Did you go into culture shock at all? Was it a very different place than what you were used to?

[Raul Malo (speaking)]

Well, it certainly is a different place. I mean, you know, Miami and Nashville, there's a big difference. Number one, you know, you don't have the big Latin influence that you do in Miami. So that's a big part of the change. But quite honestly, I've really enjoyed living here and I call it home now, and I do like it a lot. And I do miss certain things from home. You know, the coffee, the people talking about Fidel, you know, the old men playing dominoes at the park and talking about how they're going to do this and they're going to do that to Fidel and. But so I do miss a lot of that, you know, But I'm gone all the time and I'm on the road, so you don't really have time to even think about it, you know, when you get home, if, you know, my parents just moved up to Nashville as well.

[Terry Gross]

Oh, really?

[Raul Malo (speaking)]

Yeah. So that's a little bit of Miami moving up, you know, a bunch of Cubans moving up to Nashville. So I like that. You know, that's fun. Now.

[Terry Gross]

Now you're talking about the different influences that you've drawn on and all the different kinds of music you listen to on your new cd, Music for All Occasions. You do a song that I know from my past. This is Something Stupid that Frank Sinatra. I mean, the song isn't stupid. The song is called Something Stupid. And Frank and Nancy Sinatra recorded it back in 1967. It rose to the top of the charts. You do a duet of this with Trisha Yearwood. What inspired you to record this? Oh.

[Raul Malo (speaking)]

You know, I don't know. It's just one of those songs that I grew up listening to. And we wanted to do a duet with Tricia, and, you know, we start going through all the different kinds of scenarios. What kind of song can we do? And we didn't want to do the typical country music duet. You know, we didn't want to do a George and Tammy Wynette song. We didn't want to do a John Cash and June Carter song. So we just. We found this one and. And we. We gave it a shot. You know, we. We just thought, well, you know, we'll just. We'll see how it goes. We'll give it, you know, worse comes to worst, we'll have a laugh. And when we were done with it, we really. We really liked it and we kept it on the record.

[Terry Gross]

I like it, too. Before I play it, I just want to ask you one thing. Didn't you always think when Frank Sinatra and his daughter Nancy sang this together? I mean, don't the laws of God and man prohibit a father and daughter from singing a love duet like this?

[Raul Malo (speaking)]

Yeah, but it's Frank Sinatra. The rules don't apply to him.

[Terry Gross]

Okay, so here it changes them, baby. So here's the Mavericks recording of Something Stupid from their new album, Music for All Occasions, with my guest singer, Raoul Malo.

[Raul Malo (singing)]

I know I'd stand in line until you think you have the time to spend an evening with me.

[Raul Malo (speaking)]

And if.

[Raul Malo (singing)]

We go someplace to dance, I know that there's a chance you won't be leaving with me. And afterwards we drop into a quiet little place and have a drink or two. And then I go and spoil it all by saying something stupid like I love you. I can see it in your eyes that you despise the same old lies you heard the night before. And though it's just a line to you, for me it's true and never seems so right before. I practice every day to find some clever lines to say to make the meaning come true. But then I think I'll wait until the evening gets late and I'm alone with you. The time is right, your perfume fills my head, the stars in red and all the night so blue. And then I go and spoil it all by saying something stupid like I love you.

[David Biancooli]

That's Raoul Malo and Trisha Yearwood from the Maverick CD Music for All Occasions. Raoul Malo spoke with Terry Gross in 1995. More after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

[Brittney Loose]

Hey. Hey, it's Brittney Loose from It's been a minute. Your voicemail box is full. Okay, I'll admit it. So is mine. So I'm leaving this for you here. I wanted to say thank you for supporting NPR this year. And if you haven't given yet, it's not too late. Give me a call back when you can visit donate.NPR.org this message is sponsored.

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[Terry Gross]

Had an earlier album, I Believe, independently released in which your songs were some of them were more political, Is that right?

[Frank Gehry]

Mm.

[Terry Gross]

Were you writing different kinds of songs then?

[Raul Malo (speaking)]

Um, no, I wasn't writing different kinds of songs. Well, I guess in a way I was. I mean, you know, part of that that whole the whole the feelings behind all those songs is that, you know, you basically have your whole life to write your first record. So these were songs that I had written, you know, in all my years there in Miami, since I started writing songs, you know, and. And they were. They happened to touch, you know, political, social nerves, you know, and there's still songs that I. That I play live. You know, we still sing these songs live, and they're important to us. But I realize now that at that point in time, you know, those songs were written from a real personal point of view. And to tell you the truth, I had a problem at the time wanting to put those songs on the record. I was outvoted by everybody else. I don't regret that they're on the record, and I don't regret the record that was made, but I always felt that they were a little too personal, you know, the album was very much about the life and times of the mavericks in Miami. And I always thought that, well, you know, the people around us know what these songs are about, but, you know, the rest of the world or the country won't know unless we go out and explain it to them. And then, you know, we go out and play and it's that whole scenario. But that's, you know, that's my take on it, you know.

[Terry Gross]

G, could I ask you for an example of a lyric that was very personal?

[Frank Gehry]

Sure.

[Raul Malo (speaking)]

You know, in hell to Paradise. The song about my aunt leaving Cuba and coming over here was inspired by her. But anybody who's been in Miami knows somebody who's been through this, because we all came over from somewhere. And the funny thing was, when we were touring this song, this album, I remember going to all parts of the country and playing the song and explaining it. There's a little part, and on the show where I explained the song. And I remember having all kinds of people, all walks of life coming up to me after and going, wow. You know, I remember older generations. I remember, you know, seeing the Statue of Liberty when I came over from Poland or from Czechoslovakia or from other parts of Europe, you know, and so it touched. It touched a lot of people's nerves, you know, in that it not only dealt with the Cuban immigrants, but I think we're all immigrants in this country, and we all came over from somewhere. So it was neat that it affected other people. And one of the lyrics is, this 90 mile trip has taken 30 years to make. They tried to keep forever what was never theirs to take I cursed and scratched the devil's hand as he stood in front of me One last direct from his big cigar and he finally set me free. That's the last verse on the song From Hell to Paradise.

[David Biancooli]

Raul Malo speaking to Terry Gross in 1995. The guitarist and lead singer of the Mavericks died this week. He was 60 years old. Coming up, film critic Justin Chang reviews the newest film in the Knives out murder mystery series. This is FRESH air.

[Terry Gross]

Evergreen trees are Pacific Northwest icons in journalism. An evergreen story isn't tied to one news cycle.

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[Terry Gross]

The Evergreen is also a podcast from OPB about the Northwest. I'm Jen Chavez. Listen to the Evergreen podcast from OPD.

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[Terry Gross]

During the holidays, there's a lot of pressure to make things perfect, but that.

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Can actually make the season less merry and bright.

[Terry Gross]

And I remember thinking, oh my gosh, in all the doing, I am not here. I'm not present.

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I am missing being.

[Terry Gross]

This week on the Life Kit podcast.

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[Terry Gross]

Listen in the NPR app or wherever.

[Brittney Loose]

You get your podcasts this week on Up First. Affordability is the latest buzzword in politics, so President Trump is hitting the road to tout his economic record. His message? The economy is thriving, but will Americans buy it? We'll bring you the latest this week on Up First Now, a Golden Globe nominee for best podcast. Listen on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.

[David Biancooli]

Our film critic Justin Chang recommends Wake Up Dead man, the latest film in the Knives out murder mystery series. Like its predecessors, it's written and directed by Rian Johnson and stars Daniel Craig as Detective Benoit Blanc. In the new film, Josh o' Connor plays a Catholic priest who teams up with Blanc to solve a whodunit in his parish. Wake Up Dead man also features Jeremy Renner, Kerry Washington and Glenn Close and is streaming now on Netflix. Here is Justin's review.

[Justin Chang]

When I was in my early teens, I was both a devout churchgoer and an avid reader of mysteries. One of my favorite writers was P.D. james, whose Anglican faith informed her fiction in subtle ways. For James, the plotting and solving of murder was a grisly yet profoundly moral undertaking. A detective story, she wrote, confirms our hope that despite some evidence to the contrary, we live in a beneficent and moral universe in which problems can be solved by rational means. The new movie, Wake Up Dead man, rian Johnson's latest whodunit, after Knives out and Glass Onion, is too funny and slyly over the top to feel like a Petey James story. To my knowledge, James never incorporated body dissolving acid or the old poison beverage switcheroo trick. But in his own crafty way, Johnson is also using mystery conventions to open up a spiritual inquiry. The story takes place in and around a Catholic church at a small town in upstate New York where a junior priest named Judd Duplentisi, played by a terrific Josh o', Connor, has been assigned to serve. Unfortunately, he's forced to work under Monsignor Jefferson Wicks, whom Josh Brolin plays as an angry fundamentalist firebrand spewing hatred and contempt for gay people, single moms, and the entire hellbound secular world. Although Wick's behavior has reduced church attendance, he surrounded himself with a small group of loyalists. The most devoted is Martha, who keeps the church running. She's played by an amusingly nosy Glenn Close. There's also Kerry Washington as a sharp witted attorney and Jeremy Renner as a Sad sack alcoholic. Dr. Cailee Spaeny plays a famous cellist who donates large sums to the church in hopes that God will heal her chronic pain. Two characters feel like sharp, cynical jabs at American conservatism. One is a formerly liberal writer played by Andrew Scott, who since drifted rightward. The other is a failed young Republican politician turned aspiring YouTuber played by Darrell McCormick. With the best of intentions, Judd tries hard to break Wicks hold on his flock and lead them into deeper faith in God. But he succeeds only in making an even greater enemy of the monsignor. And when Wicks is fatally stabbed in the church, and on Good Friday, no less, suspicion immediately falls on Jud. But Jud insists that he's innocent. And before long, the private investigator Benoit Blanc, played once again by Daniel Craig with a courtly Southern drawl, comes knocking.

[Frank Gehry]

Oh, I'm sorry.

[Raul Malo (speaking)]

Are you open? Always.

[David Biancooli]

You all right?

[Frank Gehry]

Yeah. Huh.

[Capital One Announcer]

Sorry.

[Raul Malo (speaking)]

There is no Easter mass, so I'm.

[Frank Gehry]

I'm sorry. You're welcome.

[Raul Malo (speaking)]

Come in.

[Frank Gehry]

Thank you.

[Terry Gross]

Come in.

[Frank Gehry]

Thank you. I don't want to take you away from your priestly duties now, do I? Well, in this subject. Right.

[Raul Malo (speaking)]

It's hard to be in here and not feel his presence.

[Frank Gehry]

Whose? Oh, God. Oh, yeah, yeah. You're not a Catholic.

[Raul Malo (speaking)]

No, very much not, no.

[Justin Chang]

Blanc believes that Jud is innocent and enlists him to help solve the murder, which won't be easy. Wicks is the victim of what is known in detective fiction as an impossible crime, one that seems to defy rational explanation. At one point, Blanc gives Judd and the audience a crash course in the work of John Dixon Carr, the undisputed master of the impossible crime novel. Since Carr is another of my favorite writers. Johnson's next level genre geekery almost had me levitating out of my seat. Wake Up Dead man may not be the best movie I've seen this year, but in some ways, and I don't often say this kind of thing, it feels like the movie that was made most for me. That goes for its ideas as well as its genre trappings. Just as the first two Knives out movies skewered racism, classism, billionaires and tech bros, Wake Up Deadman takes sharp aim at what it sees as the intolerance and insularity of the Christian right. The political jabs aren't always subtle, and sometimes the petty, ill tempered parishioners sound too alike in their strident bickering. But that just makes Father Judd all the more appealing a character as he sets out to humbly yet radically love his community. Given how good o' Connor has been lately in movies like Challengers and the Mastermind, it's saying a lot that this is one of his best performances and one that elevates this snarky satirical murder farce to a genuinely contemplative plane. Even as tensions mount, there's more than one victim and possibly more than one killer. The movie becomes a kind of theological debate, pitting Judd the earnest believer, against Blanc, the fierce skeptic who emerges the winner. Let's just say that with a puzzle as satisfyingly constructed as Wake Up Dead Man, God really is in the details.

[David Biancooli]

Justin Chang is a film critic at New Yorker magazine. He reviewed Wake Up Dead man, now streaming on Netflix. On Monday's show, Zadie Smith, her critically acclaimed best selling first novel White Teeth was published when she was 25 in the year 2000. Now she's 50 and is looking at life as a middle aged woman and is thinking about the current generation gaps including between millennials and Gen Xers. Hope you can join us to keep up with what's on the show and get highlights of our interviews. Follow us on Instagram prfresh air. You can subscribe to our YouTube channel at YouTube.com this is FRESH AIR. We're rolling out new videos with in studio guests, behind the scenes shorts and iconic interviews from the archive. Let's close with some more music by the Mavericks.

[Raul Malo (singing)]

Walking down the boulevard I don't need no lucky charm today, not today.

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Cause.

[Raul Malo (singing)]

I got a rhythm in my feet I got my pockets full of dreams today I just can't wait I'm gonna see my little girl before the sun goes down there there's nothing left to do but to do the town today what a day I'm on a meteor as a station at a quarter to three Cause she's finally coming back Coming back to.

[David Biancooli]

Fresh Air's executive producer is Danny Miller. Sam Brigger is our managing producer. Our senior producer today is Roberta Shurrock. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham with additional engineering support by Joyce Lieberman and Julian Herzfeld. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Anne Marie Baldonado, Lauren Krenzel, Teresa Madden, Monique Nazareth, Thea Chaloner, Susan Yakundi and Anna Bauman. Our digital media producer is Molly Seavey Nesper. Hope Wilson is our consulting visual producer for Terry Gross and Tanya Mosley. I'm David Bean Cooley.

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[David Biancooli]

Podcast regular insurance is great for your standard day to day risks, but for those once in a generation catastrophes, Countries like Jamaica have made other preparations. We already realized that hurricanes are inevitable.

[Brittney Loose]

And we can't just sit here and hope.

[Frank Gehry]

We had to be proactive on Planet.

[David Biancooli]

Money how Jamaica weathered the worst hurricane in the country's history with a bet. Planet Money Listen on the NPR app.

[Terry Gross]

Or wherever you get your podcasts.