Remembering War Correspondent Rod Nordland

Summary

Fresh Air: Remembering War Correspondent Rod Nordland

Release Date: June 27, 2025

Overview In this poignant episode of Fresh Air, hosted by NPR's Terry Gross and Tonya Mosley, the program pays tribute to the late Rod Nordland, a celebrated war correspondent renowned for his fearless reporting in some of the world’s most volatile conflict zones. The episode delves into Nordland's illustrious career, his battle with glioblastoma, and the profound insights he shared in his memoir, Waiting for the Monsoon.

Introduction The episode opens with an introduction by David Biancooli, setting the stage for remembering Rod Nordland. Biancooli highlights Nordland's extensive career spanning four decades, covering significant events such as the Three Mile Island accident, conflicts in Bosnia, Somalia, Kosovo, Iraq, Yemen, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Syria, Congo, and Cambodia. Nordland's dedication and bravery earned him accolades, including a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on the Three Mile Island incident.

Rod Nordland's Optimism in the Face of Mortality Rod Nordland engages in a heartfelt conversation with Terry Gross, discussing his diagnosis with glioblastoma, a terminal brain tumor. Despite a grim prognosis of 1 to 1.5 years, Nordland survived six additional years through experimental treatments. When asked why he remained optimistic despite the dire prognosis, Nordland attributes his resilience to his inherent optimism. He explains:

"I've always been an optimist and, you know, a very upbeat person. So I think that has been, maybe doctors have even said it to me. It's my greatest strength in fighting this disease." ([03:12])

He further emphasizes the psychological benefits of maintaining hope:

"Those that said they thought they would survive, even though they had a diagnosis that medically had doomed them, had better outcomes than people that just said oh well and sat back and let it do its thing." ([03:38])

Experiences as a War Correspondent Nordland reflects on his time in war zones, contrasting his approach with that of his peers. He advocated for safety, often staying away from the front lines to protect himself and his team. A notable incident recounted by Nordland involves a harrowing experience in Cambodia:

"I was standing shoulder to shoulder with one of these militiamen, and there were bullets whizzing over our heads... one of those bullets hit the guy next to me and blew his brains out, quite literally." ([05:57])

Despite such close encounters with death, Nordland continued his work, driven by a commitment to report the truth while minimizing personal risk. This approach not only preserved his life but also allowed him to return to the field repeatedly, witnessing and documenting the human cost of conflict.

Facing Death as a Patient vs. a Correspondent Terry Gross probes Nordland on the emotional differences between facing death as a war correspondent and as a patient battling cancer. Nordland notes that both roles require immense emotional control and a steady demeanor:

"The first thing you had to be sure to do was to stay calm and not lose control of your emotions and just stay calm no matter what." ([10:53])

However, he distinguishes the two experiences by highlighting the unpredictability of war versus the clinical reality of his illness. In war zones, survival often felt like a "coin toss," whereas with glioblastoma, the prognosis was unequivocally terminal:

"With glioblastoma, there's no coin to us. It's incurable, it's terminal, and it can be treated, but it can't be cured." ([12:15])

Acceptance and Personal Growth Confronting his mortality led Nordland to profound personal growth. He became more reflective, prioritizing meaningful relationships and personal healing over past grievances:

"It made me look back on my life and things that had happened in my life and think about what was most important... I felt a lot of love from them, which was very heartening." ([13:20])

Nordland also discusses the concept of grieving for the life he had envisioned, rather than the imminent death itself, fostering a deeper connection with his loved ones:

"I think it made us even closer than we were already." ([17:03])

Philosophy on Life and Death Nordland explores his philosophical inquiries into the meaning of life, drawing parallels between his journalistic curiosity and his introspective questions as a patient. He shares an insightful exchange inspired by Eleanor Roosevelt and Raymond Carver:

"The purpose of life is to live life to the fullest and to enjoy everything about it." ([14:35])

"I think the meaning of life is, as Raymond Carver said, to feel yourself beloved on this earth." ([14:54])

Relationships and Legacy A significant portion of the conversation centers on Nordland's relationships, particularly with his partner, Lela, a poet and human rights activist. Their bond was tested by his diagnosis, yet their mutual support and shared grief strengthened their connection. They engaged deeply with literature and discussions around death, drawing inspiration from Frank Ostoeski's The Five Invitations:

"It really changed our lives. We read the book out loud to each other and for days on end sometimes." ([17:16])

Nordland emphasizes that repairing and nurturing his relationships was his primary method of preparing for the inevitable:

"I think by repairing my relationships more than anything else and working hard on those..." ([19:17])

Final Reflections As the interview concludes, Nordland reflects on his journey, both as a correspondent who chronicled death and as a patient confronting it personally. His unwavering optimism, dedication to meaningful relationships, and philosophical insights leave a lasting impression on listeners, underscoring a life lived with purpose and resilience.

Conclusion Rod Nordland's legacy as a distinguished war correspondent and his courageous battle with cancer serve as powerful reminders of the human spirit's capacity to endure and find meaning amidst adversity. Fresh Air honors his contributions, capturing his reflections and the wisdom gleaned from a life marked by both professional bravery and personal introspection.

Notable Quotes:

• Rod Nordland [03:12]: "I've always been an optimist and, you know, a very upbeat person. So I think that has been... my greatest strength in fighting this disease."
• Rod Nordland [05:57]: "One of those bullets hit the guy next to me and blew his brains out, quite literally."
• Rod Nordland [10:53]: "The first thing you had to be sure to do was to stay calm and not lose control of your emotions and just stay calm no matter what."
• Rod Nordland [14:54]: "I think the meaning of life is, as Raymond Carver said, to feel yourself beloved on this earth."

Additional Resources Listeners are encouraged to explore Rod Nordland's memoir, Waiting for the Monsoon, for a deeper dive into his experiences and reflections. Subscribe to Fresh Air Plus for bonus episodes and sponsor-free listening at plus.npr.org/freshair.

Transcript

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[David Biancooli]

I'm David Biancooley. If there was ever a life designed to teach one how to face death, mine was it. Rod Nordland wrote that while facing death from a glioblastoma, a lethal brain tumor, life Expectancy is between 1 and 1 and a half years. But with experimental treatments, he survived for six more years. He died last week at age 75. Nordland was used to facing mortality from decades as a war correspondent for the New York Times, Newsweek and the Philadelphia Inquirer. In 1979, Nordland was part of the reporting team that covered the Three Mile island accident, including visiting the site of contamination, a risk he was willing to take. That coverage won a Pulitzer Prize for the Inquirer. While there were wars and conflicts in Bosnia, Somalia, Kosovo, Iraq, Yemen, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Syria, Congo, Cambodia, he was there. Nordland wrote about his life as a war correspondent and as a patient and how both extremes affect his relationships and family life. His 2024 memoir, Waiting for the Monsoon, is a reference to his first seizure while he was in India filling in for the New Delhi bureau chief of the New York Times. That seizure led to his diagnosis in 2019. A recent review of Waiting for the Monsoon in the Guardian said, quote, this is a gripping memoir of a consummate foreign reporter and an inspiring journal of self discovery when the cold breath of mortality is on the neck, unquote. We're going to listen back to Terry's interview with Nordland from last year when his memoir was first published.

[Terry Gross]

Rod Nordland, welcome to FRESH air. We spoke years ago. Welcome back.

[Rod Nordland]

Yeah, thank you.

[Terry Gross]

Terry, the neurologist who is your brain surgeon told you that this tumor would kill you and that you needed to come to terms with that and that you needed to be Honest with your loved ones about it, you were reasonably confident that you'd be among the 6% of people who survive more than five years. Why were you so optimistic? And are you still? I mean, I tend to see worst case scenarios, so I'd love to hear how you manage to see best case scenario.

[Rod Nordland]

Well, I've always been an optimist and you know, a very upbeat person. So I think that has been, maybe doctors have even said it to me. It's my greatest strength in fighting this disease. There have been studies done of terminal patients with terminal diseases in which they asked the people if they thought they would survive. And those that said they thought they would survive, even though they had a diagnosis that medically had doomed them, had better outcomes than people that just said oh well and sat back and let it do its thing. So that gives me a lot of hope.

[Terry Gross]

You were confident in war zones that you aren't going to get killed, even though you knew fellow journalists who'd been killed. You had some very bad close calls with death yourself. So what made you think that you were going to survive? I never understand this about war correspondence that I think you have to believe that you're being careful enough that you can survive, but it's a war and anything can happen. So what made you confident that you would survive? Some of the evidence to the contrary.

[Rod Nordland]

Because I am the most careful person around. And no matter what conflict I was covering, I was always very conscious of putting safety of myself and the people that worked with me, putting that first. I like to say that I preach the virtues of cowardice when covering wars. I never go to the front line. I think the front line in a conflict where there's a lot of explosions and high speed projectiles flying around, I think that's a very dangerous place and you have to be either an idiot or completely deluded to go there. Much more productive is to go say to the headquarters or to the nearest hospital and talk to witness and survivors. And I've always made that my mantra.

[Terry Gross]

Kind of you face down death several times in war zones. Tell us about one of the close calls and I know you have several to choose from.

[Rod Nordland]

You know, when I began working as a war correspondent, I was still 20 something and still in many ways an adolescent. And I think like a lot of young people, I really didn't believe in my own mortality. And I think that's true of a lot of people who do that kind of work because otherwise who would do it? I mean, who would jump out of an airplane into a parachute if they didn't have some belief in their own immortality. So I lost that arrogance very profoundly when I was on a front line against my own roles. And Cambodia, on the outskirts of a refugee camp where there was a nasty little internecine war going on between factions that ran the camp and that lived off of the proceeds of the food and supplies they could steal. So those creeps were, you know, in constant conflict with themselves. And I found myself on the front line with a couple of them. I was standing shoulder to shoulder with one of these militiamen, and there were bullets whizzing over our heads. That expression, by the way, is quite accurate. That's what it sounds like, something whizzing over your head. And we just stood there like idiots. And one of those bullets hit the guy next to me and blew his brains out, quite literally. His comrades. Then I had a rental car, and they ordered me to put him in the car and take him to the hospital. I mean, he was clearly brain dead. He was convulsing and bleeding kind of all over the avis upholstery.

[Terry Gross]

He was Rent a car.

[Rod Nordland]

Yeah. As we used to say, what's the best Austrian vehicle to use in a war zone? And, sir, A rental car.

[Terry Gross]

Right. Okay. So you just told us about when you were a young war correspondent and the person next to you had his brains blown out, and then you were forced to take him to a hospital even though you were sure he was dead. And I think there was a gun to your head while you were doing this, and you certainly continued to be a war correspondent for many years after that. That was an early warning that, you know, you would be surrounded by the threat of death. Why did you keep doing it? Why did you keep staying in war zones after that?

[Rod Nordland]

Well, I started doing it really differently. That taught me that I was, in fact, mortal, which is an important lesson that all young men should learn as soon as possible. After that, I never went to front lines anymore, especially with Irregulars, and I stayed as far away from him as I could.

[Terry Gross]

There were other times when you faced the possibility of death. You were in a Holiday Inn in Sarajevo during the conflict there, and you were staying on what was called Sniper's Row in the Holiday Inn because there was so much sniper fire there firing at everybody. And you were told you had someone bang on your door and say, get out of the room and into the hallway right now, because they're coming down the street with mortars. And sure enough, as soon as you got into the hallway, your room was mortared and you probably would have died there. Your bed was basically exploded when you got back in.

[Rod Nordland]

Yeah, the whole room was rubble and shards of shells. Yeah, that was another warning.

[Terry Gross]

And another time was when you were scheduled to be executed with several other journalists the next day, and a delegation from the international red cross happened to come by and rescue you. So, I mean, you had a lot of brushes with death. What are some of the differences in terms of your emotional state and your understanding of death between facing the possibility of it, doing your job in war zones as a correspondent, as a foreign correspondent, and facing it because of your brain cancer?

[Rod Nordland]

Well, there are a lot of similarities. One of the most important things I learned as a war correspondent was that the first thing you had to be sure to do was to stay calm and not lose control of your emotions and just stay calm no matter what. And I think that's been a really good lesson for dealing with cancer, too.

[Terry Gross]

Now that you've faced mortality as a war correspondent and as somebody, you know, battling brain cancer, a very deadly form, has your acceptance of mortality changed? Like when you were in conflict zones, did you accept the fact that you thought you wouldn't die, you thought you wouldn't be killed, but did you accept the fact that you might be? Did you reconcile with the possibility of death? And now, as a cancer patient, even though you've survived longer than the odds would have given you, this is a deadly form of cancer, and even if you go into a remission, it's likely to come back. So what's your level of acceptance of mortality now and again, how does that compare to what it was in war zone?

[Rod Nordland]

Well, I think in war zones, it was much more of a coin toss. And I think I became very good at playing the odds and weighing the risks and moderating them by, you know, the way I approach my work. But with glioblastoma, there's no coin to us. You know, it's incurable, it's terminal, and it can be treated, but it can't be cured. And I've had some good treatment, but the treatment's also been sometimes really difficult and devastating. So, I mean, I had to face reality that my death was within a fairly short time span, highly probable. That had never been the case before. And I think it made me a better person for that.

[Terry Gross]

In what way?

[Rod Nordland]

Because it made me look back on my life and things that had happened in my life and think about what was most important. And it also made me want to, instead of being angry at my kids for siding with their Mother against me in our divorce. Instead of being angry at them, I was accepting and just, you know, they also came to my bedside and I felt a lot of love from them, which was very heartening.

[Terry Gross]

When you're a journalist, you have license to ask anything that you wouldn't normally ask people. And the way you describe it, that's also true for you with the brain cancer, because you feel like having a terminal illness allows you to ask things that you normally wouldn't ask about the meaning of life or about death. Do you see a similarity between those two licenses as a journalist and as somebody with a terminal illness?

[Rod Nordland]

Yeah. And I played that for all it was worth. I asked everybody I met what the meaning of life was. I even asked Alexa, who had a pathetic.

[Terry Gross]

Sure, she had the best answer. What was the answer?

[Rod Nordland]

The answer was to quote Eleanor Roosevelt that the purpose of life is to live life to the fullest and to enjoy everything about it. That's somewhat of a lame answer, but at one time I asked that question of a nurse, and she turned it around on me and said, what do you think the meaning of life is? So I said, well, I'm sorry, I'm going to have to punt on that, but I think the meaning of life is, as Raymond Carver said, to feel yourself beloved on this earth. And that was my answer then, and it's my answer in the book, too.

[Terry Gross]

You met your partner, your current partner, in 2016. She's a poet and a human rights activist. You had planned a life together, and then, you know, about three years after you became a couple, your relationship was tested because of the brain cancer diagnosis, you know, and it's a form of brain cancer that's lethal. And she has been with you the whole time, overseeing your health care, making all the arrangements that need to be made when someone is seriously ill. You had planned.

[Rod Nordland]

She's been amazing.

[Terry Gross]

Yeah, she sounds amazing in the memoir, I have to say. And you were so upbeat about what you expected your outcome to be. You expected to be one of those survivors, one of the small percentage of survivors. But you were given the advice to grieve for you and Lela, to grieve not necessarily to grieve for imminent death, but to grieve for the kind of life you had planned that you could no longer have. Because what you can do now has been compromised, places you can go to or travel to. So tell me about what it means to have grieved for the life that you could no longer have and to do that together.

[Rod Nordland]

I think it made us even closer than we were already.

[Terry Gross]

Was there a process? Were there things that you talked about that were helpful?

[Rod Nordland]

Yeah, I think there's things we decided to do together. There are books that we read that we both found very moving, books on dying and death and on facing death, especially a book called the Five Invitations, by an American Buddhist monk, Frank Ostoeski, his name I usually mangle. He ran a hospice, a Zen Buddhist hospice in San Francisco at the height of the AIDS epidemic. The hospice was for people dying of HIV and for homeless people, people who had no one to care for them or be with them. And he writes so movingly about how these people faced the awful ordeal of dying. And it's really inspiring. We recommend it to anybody who's got a friend with a serious illness. It really changed our lives. We read the book out loud to each other and for days on end sometimes.

[Terry Gross]

How are you mentally preparing yourself for death? Because you know that this is a terminal illness and you never go into total remission. This is a cancer that recurs even if you're in remission. So far, you've really beat the odds. But, you know, somewheres along the line it's inevitable. I mean, it's inevitable one way or another, but it's inevitable sooner. There's more of a deadline. So how are you mentally preparing yourself for that?

[Rod Nordland]

I think by repairing my relationships more than anything else and working hard on those, both my relationships with my friends and with my family and especially with my partner.

[Terry Gross]

Well, Rod Nordland, thank you so much for talking with us. And, you know, I wish you more life.

[Rod Nordland]

Thanks. I plan to have some war correspondent.

[David Biancooli]

Rod Nordland, who covered four decades of war for the New York Times, Newsweek and the Philadelphia Inquirer. He spoke with Terry after the publication of his 2024 memoir, Waiting for the Monsoon. He died last week at age 75. After a break, we'll listen to Terry's 1993 interview with legendary guitarist Buddy Guy, who has a cameo in Sinners, now streaming on various platforms. And I'll review the latest season of the Bear, now streaming on Hulu. I'm David Biancooli, and this is FRESH air.

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[David Biancooli]

This is FRESH AIR. I'm David Biancooli, professor of Television studies at Rowan University. Buddy Guy was one of the first blues guitarists to use electronic feedback and distortion, and his technique is legendary. In 1986, Eric Clapton called him the greatest guitarist of all time. Guy has a cameo in Sinners, Ryan Coogler's hit movie. Set in 1932 in the Mississippi Delta during the Jim Crow era, Twins, both played by Michael B. Jordan, open a juke joint and try to keep the business going despite unexpected obstacles including evil vampires. Buddy Guy plays the older version of blues musician Sammy Moore. Guy was born in rural Louisiana in 1936, the son of sharecroppers. He set out for Chicago as a young man and quickly became a central part of that city's blues scene. In 1989, he founded his own club there, Buddy Guy's Legends, which is still going strong. Buddy Guy has won eight Grammy Awards and a Lifetime Achievement Award. In 1985, he was inducted into the Blues hall of fame. And in 2005, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll hall of Fame. Guy was one of the first guitarists to use electronic feedback and distortion before Hendrix and other rock guitarists. Terry asked how he developed that technique.

[Buddy Guy]

Accidentally, actually, in Chicago. There we didn't have stages. We'd always go in the corner and play. And they had jukeboxes during the breaks, and they would play tunes. And that's how I learned, by listening to other people. Great smutty Walter Wolf and so on. And I forgot to turn my guitar off one day, and a lady passed by and her dress tail hit the G string, and it just stayed there with an extortion for about 20 minutes. And I said, I'll never forget that. And I went up, and it worked with me. And I've been doing it ever since.

[Interview Participant]

Explain this again. Her dress touched the G string.

[Buddy Guy]

Yeah, I forgot to cut it off. And it was lying against the amplifier, you know. And as I said, we didn't have a stage. We were just in the corner playing. And she'd get up from my table to probably go get a drink or use the bathroom or something like that. And I said, wow, I forgot to cut my guitar. It was right in tune with the particular tune I was playing on the jukebox.

[Interview Participant]

So then how did you start using that yourself intentionally?

[Buddy Guy]

Well, after I found out, it would stay there and extort that long. I just went up one day and played and stood right there where it was. And it works.

[Interview Participant]

Now, when you were recording for Chess Records back in the first part of the 60s, you were already doing some of this on stage, I think. But you've said that Leonard Chess didn't like that.

[Terry Gross]

He wouldn't let you cut loose.

[Buddy Guy]

Well, first of all, you know, Leonard had gotten to the point that, you know, for an example, if you had went in there and said, I want to do some rapping now, they would have shot you with a shotgun, you know. But if you was in the streets, you know what the young people was asking for, and they was reacting to what you was playing. And I was, like, throwing the guitar down, missing notes, and it was ringing out with extortion and stuff. And people just going crazy saying, look at that. Listen to that. And I would try to take it back and say, this is what's out there. And they would say, get out of here. You know, And I'm like, saying, okay. And later on in his life, I think it was like three, four, Six months before he passed away, he called me in and said, I want to talk to you. And he had found out because that was a Hendrix, Eric and the Cream and so on playing that, he looked at me and said, how dumb could I be? You've been trying to give me this stuff for so long. And I was calling it noise, not selling any millions. I said, you're kidding me, you know, and it was just like a joke to me.

[Interview Participant]

Well, buddy Guy, I want to play one of your first records with Chess Recordings. And you were saying that Leonard Chess wouldn't let you do what you really wanted to. But this is a really pretty good recording. It's called First Time I Met the Blues. It was recorded in 1960. Little Brother Montgomery's at the piano. Do you remember this session?

[Buddy Guy]

Yes, that's little brother Montgomery Tune. Him and Willie Dixon got me together on that because I was with Cobra Records before that. And I got with chess in the 60s, and that's the tune they brought me first. And I was more of a student, a listener, whatever you might say at that time. And I was doing whatever they thought was best for me in order for me to get a record. Chess people. Because otherwise, if I'd went in there and said, look, I'm doing it my way, I would have been. You probably wouldn't be talking to me now. Because that was the confident in at the time to try to get recorded with.

[Terry Gross]

Okay, well, let's hear it.

[Interview Participant]

Recorded in 1960, my guest buddy Guy on guitar and vocals.

[Buddy Guy]

The first time I met the blue he knew I was walking I was walking down through the woods.

[Rod Nordland]

Yes, the.

[Buddy Guy]

First time the first time I met you dude, don't you know I was walking I was walking down through the.

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Wood.

[Buddy Guy]

Yeah, I found my own way through.

[Rod Nordland]

Blues.

[Buddy Guy]

You know, you dug me, you dug me all the good and blues got after me.

[Terry Gross]

Let'S go back to your very early years. Your father was a sharecropper.

[Interview Participant]

Did your parents want you to get off the plantation? Were you brought up with the sense of, when you get old enough, you should really get out of here?

[Buddy Guy]

My parent was like, I got two sisters and two brothers, five of us. And they was like sharecroppers. And they would teach us all that when we got grown. If you go away, I want you to go away. Do better than we did. And if you marry an elephant, if you love him, we have to like him. And that's just the way they was until he passed away. They never was the type of people that tried to chose what we should do or what not. They just told me, son, don't be the best in town, Just be the best until the best come around.

[Interview Participant]

Were there any musicians on the plantation.

[Terry Gross]

Where you grew up?

[Buddy Guy]

Not really. Was a distant guy. My dad brought the first guitar for me from. And his mother, my grandmother. And if she was living, I was talking to you today and 10 minutes conversation with her, she would figure out that we was related in some kind of way or another sooner or later, if you think back real deep, religious wise, I guess we are in a way of speaking, but she could figure that out. And this guy was supposed to be some kind of distant relative of ours. And that's just the way they had me feeling. And I kind of feel that way now with the music I'm playing and going and traveling around the world. Everybody I see looks and smiles the same, you know, I just see you bigger, taller, smaller, different colors, but we still walking around on two legs, drinking water and eating food and sleeping and talking.

[Interview Participant]

So she got this guy to give you a guitar or.

[Buddy Guy]

No, my dad. My dad played 2.2 bucks for it, and it had two strings on it. No place he liked his guitar. I saw his lightning slam and I gave him my weekly allowances, which is 35 cents.

[Interview Participant]

Oh, you heard him playing and you.

[Buddy Guy]

No, he came through on a Sunday evening, plugged up on the stove, front porch and played Book of Chilla.

[Interview Participant]

Mm. So how did you get your first amplifier?

[Buddy Guy]

A stranger bought my first real guitar and my first real amplifier. He bought it for me, actually. I was sitting on my sister's porch with the two strings, trying to get in my first year in high school. My mother had had a stroke and a stranger passed and said, son, I bet if you had a guitar, you would learn how to play. And this is a Thursday evening. I said, probably so. And he said, what are you doing tomorrow? I said, I sit here every evening. And the next evening he came by and said, let's go. And I said, why? He said, I'm going by your guitar. And he went and took me downtown, bought the guitar, and my sister came in and we was laughing, they was drinking the quarter beer and said, well, let's go in the country where my mom and dad at. And the country boy with a country guitar. And the guy followed us out. And strangely enough, him and my dad talked for 10 minutes. And they grew up together as boys.

[Terry Gross]

So who was he?

[Buddy Guy]

The guy name was Mitchell. He grew up as a boy with my dad. And after he borrowed the guitar, my dad Tried to trace him down, which he moved to Chicago and became a preacher. And we never could track him down because I still owed him the money for the guitar. Still do.

[Interview Participant]

So do you feel like you still owe him a lot of thanks? Do you feel like you were able.

[Terry Gross]

To express a lot?

[Buddy Guy]

A lot. And I'm sure wherever he is at this point, if there's any way that he should know, he should know. I want to thank him and I owe my whole career to him.

[Interview Participant]

You left the plantation when you were 21, you went to Chicago?

[Buddy Guy]

No, no, no, no. I left the plantation trying to get to one year high school and went into Baton Rouge.

[Terry Gross]

Oh, I see.

[Buddy Guy]

And then I Left Baton Rouge September 25, 1957, 8:40am in the morning.

[Interview Participant]

Wow, you really remember exactly the moment.

[Buddy Guy]

I can't forget that.

[Interview Participant]

Tell me about that moment.

[Buddy Guy]

My mother was sick and she had had a stroke, and she kept telling me, if you don't live my life around her, because we were very close. And I figured that, you know, I should stay. And she said no. And she learned how to make us understand some of the things she was saying because of the effects of speech. And she said, go, you know, And I said, okay, if you happy, I'm gone. And she smiled and said, go. And when she heard the first record I made, they tell me she gave me a big smile.

[Interview Participant]

Did you see her again after you left?

[Buddy Guy]

Oh, yeah. I went to see her every year until she passed away. She passed away April 16, 1968. I had been jamming with Hendrix when she passed away. Oh, yeah.

[Interview Participant]

So you went to Chicago. Why did you choose Chicago?

[Buddy Guy]

I didn't go to Chicago to be a musician. I went there looking for better common labor, employment. And I got there and got stranded and wind up being forced to play guitar because at one point in my life, I was too shy to even talk. You wouldn't get the answers you get now from me when I was about 20 years old, I can tell you that.

[Interview Participant]

So were you playing on the street for money?

[Buddy Guy]

No, no. This stranger met me on the street and led me. And I played a Jim Reed song for him and he led me to this famous club was the 708 Club, and that's the 708 E 47th St. And that was Otis Rush on stage. And he went on stage and I played a song and somebody went and called Muddy and he come out and I was telling him I was trying to get back to Louisiana because I was busted, hungry and had an eight going on the third day. And he come and brought the salami and the loaf of bread and said, don't think about going back to Louisiana.

[Interview Participant]

Muddy Waters said that?

[Buddy Guy]

Yep.

[Interview Participant]

So what happened next? And you started getting bookings?

[Buddy Guy]

No, they start coming. Yeah, well, the local clubs. It wasn't no such thing as booking and traveling. But I got to work in that club and a few more. I had a million clubs in Chicago that time and 2 million musicians. And you had to play the top 10 on the jukebox, at least some of them to get in the clubs. And fortunately I could do that. I had to play the Ray Childs. What I say, I had to play BB King, I had to play Muddy Waters, I had to play Bobby Bland. And I had the advantage of some of the guys because some of them would just want to be Muddy Waters or Howlin Wolf, a Little Walter. And I didn't stare at that. I tried to learn them all, Lightning Hopkins and everybody. And so I had a little advantage to that because I learned how to copy all of their music.

[Interview Participant]

Tell me more about what the blues scene was like in Chicago when you started playing there.

[Buddy Guy]

For six and a half or seven years, I didn't know what was the weekend. I had to go back and ask somebody when was Sunday, because we even had jam Sessions start at 7 o' clock on Monday morning. You couldn't get in the place.

[Interview Participant]

Were there like blues cutting contests?

[Buddy Guy]

Yes. That's what it was all about. It was so many clubs till after someone decided to hire me in a club. Junior Otis, Freddie King, Magic Sam and Earl Hooker, just to name a few of us. We all had gigs each night. Each club was packed. A lot of people was working at a big stockyard to steal a mill. And the shift was 11 o' clock, 7, 8 o' clock in the morning. That's why the Blue Monday could work. And in order for us to get together and play, we had to all say, let's start playing at 7 o' clock on Monday morning. Didn't nobody have a gig at night. And that's how we got to really jam together with Muddy, Wolf, Otis, myself, Junior and everybody else. And this is why so many people would be there in the morning. Because they say, man, you go to this club with a blue Monday that you see Muddy, you see Sonny boy, you see Little Walter. Man, what a jam.

[David Biancooli]

Blues guitarist Buddy Guy speaking to Terry Gross in 1993. More after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

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[David Biancooli]

This is FRESH AIR. Let's get back to Terry's 1993 interview with legendary blues guitarist Buddy Guy, who has a cameo at age 88 in Ryan Coogler's supernatural horror film Sinners.

[Interview Participant]

I saw you in Buffalo at the state university there. I guess it was the late 1960s and the way I remember it, you started off on stage, but midway through the concert you were like down the aisles, out the door, through the other end of the student union. And I think you maybe let us all outside and then back in again. I don't remember if I've exaggerated or not over the years, but you led us pretty far on that.

[Buddy Guy]

Well, that's the same thing was happening in Chicago. I had sense enough to know I couldn't challenge Muddy Waters, Howlin Wolf or some of those great giants who I was learning from. And I was just trying to get some attention to let someone know that I had something that they were always sitting in chairs. Matter of fact, the blues BB King does it now. He was doing it the other night. He said, we're not tired, we're just sitting down to let you know our blues was played 42 years ago. And I was like, I saw guitar slam, which I mentioned earlier. I said, well, look, they can outplay me, but they can't outdo me. So I just started jumping up, laying out on my back with the guitar under my back. And all you got to do is like an exercise, you know, you raise your back up off it and just pick the strings. If you can find a way to put your fingers in the right place, you can play it anywhere.

[Interview Participant]

Did you have to get really, really, really long guitar wires from your guitar to the Amplifier in order to walk as far as you did.

[Buddy Guy]

Well, actually, I saw Guitar Slim with that. First of all, when I first got to Chicago. I would go to the shop to have this wire made. They wouldn't make it because they'd tell me it wasn't going to work. I said, well, give me the wire. I'll make it. And I learned how to solder my own end zone there. And finally one of the technicians came out and said, this guy's crazy. I don't believe this thing is coming through. And they used to examine my wire. One guitar player cut it in half one night. Because he figured I had somebody else behind the curtain playing.

[Interview Participant]

You know, it's funny. You've gone from being a younger person. Trying to establish himself.

[Terry Gross]

And trying to figure out who he is.

[Interview Participant]

And what makes him different from everybody else. To being now one of the blues legends that everybody wants to emulate. You've talked a lot about how you felt like you really had to work hard and outdo everybody else. To call attention to who you were. Do you still. Does that still motivate the kind of show that you do? I mean, because now you're a buddy guy.

[Terry Gross]

I mean, everybody knows who you are.

[Buddy Guy]

Not quite everybody. You know, I'm not as well known as some people who play the guitar out there. I wish I were. You know, then maybe I wouldn't have to work so hard. But in another sense, maybe I don't want to be like that. It might stop me from working as hard as I do. Because if you come and see me, I want you to have 110, 20% of other guy, nothing less. Because if I get to the point, I start taking that from me. I don't think I want to play anymore.

[Interview Participant]

Do you still have the energy to do the kind of show you used to do?

[Buddy Guy]

I don't know if I have as much as I had. I'm not going to lie to you and tell you. I feel like I was when I was 17 years old. But when I pick up my guitar, I feel like I'm 14.

[Interview Participant]

Let me ask you about the influence of BB King on your playing. And what the influence has been. And where the point of departure is. You've known him a long time. You've been on stage with him a bunch of times. Tell me a little bit about his influence on you. And also how you feel very different from him.

[Buddy Guy]

Well, let me put it to you like this. His influence should be on every guitar player that picks up a guitar. Because he told me when I first met him, he didn't learn how to use the slide. And we all Eric Stevie, myself, Albert King, Albert Collins, we all squeezed the strings. And I tell him every time I get a chance to talk with him, he's the one that invented that, squeezing the string and bending it the way we do. And on tour with him now, it's like Buddy Guy's going to school in his first year. And in grade school, I'm still learning from him. And as long as he's around, I still think his name should be on every guitar that's put out there.

[Interview Participant]

Oh, yes, Buddy Guy, I have one last question for you. We started recording this interview at 9:30 in the morning and there are very, very few music who will wake up to do a 9:30 in the morning interview? You're on the road, you're in the.

[Terry Gross]

Middle of a tour.

[Interview Participant]

How the heck did you get up this early?

[Buddy Guy]

Well, honestly, I'm still a country farm boy and I don't want to change that all of my life. I don't care how late I stay up or what I still get to sleep that I think I need. But it's just the thrill of my life. I love this as well as I do my get time. I get up at 5:30, maybe even at 5 in the morning and go out and take a big deep breath of fresh air and say, I remember when I had to get up like this and go feed the hogs, chickens and cows, and I still get the fresh air and I got two little dogs whenever I'm at home and I don't need alarm clock.

[Interview Participant]

Buddy Guy, thank you so much. It's really been such a pleasure to talk with you.

[Buddy Guy]

Well, thank you very much and I enjoyed every minute of it. Don't wait so long next time.

[David Biancooli]

Blues guitarist Buddy Guy speaking to Terry Gross in 1993. He has a cameo in Ryan Coogler's supernatural horror film Sinners, now streaming on various platforms. His new album, ain't Done with the Blues, is scheduled to be released on July 30, Buddy's 89th birthday. Coming up, I review the latest season of the Bear, now streaming on Hulu. This is FRESH air.

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[David Biancooli]

This is FRESH AIR. I'm TV critic David Biancooli. The Bear is back. This week, the Hulu streaming service launched season four of the intense and astoundingly excellent series about a talented chef trying to launch a successful high end restaurant in Chicago. Jeremy Allen White stars as Carm, who returns home after his brother Mike's death to save the family's beef sandwich shop, then expand it into something more grand. The creator of the Bear is Christopher Storer, who won an Emmy for directing the show's hectic holiday dinner flashback episode called the Fishes. The series has an especially talented cast and even a deep bench with lots of guest actors and regulars racking up Emmy nominations and wins. At the most recent Emmys, the bear won 11 awards, the most ever for a comedy series in a single season, and that beat the awards set by the Bear at the previous Emmys where it won 10. That's an amazing accomplishment. It's also a somewhat bizarre one because, and I say this every time I review this show, the Bear is not a comedy. I've seen all 10 episodes of the new fourth season, and the first genuine comedy style dialogue exchange didn't happen until episode five. But that's my one and only complaint about the Bear, that it should be winning all these Emmys as a drama, not a comedy. But the quality and the artistry and the ambition, those are givens. Most impressive, perhaps, is that Christopher Storer and his writing staff are playing the long game and have a clear idea where they're going. Last season ended on a cliffhanger, with the restaurant staff awaiting its first influential review. This season charts the staff's ups and downs, but as much off the job as on it. And there are constant callbacks to everything from a chicken wishbone to the movie Groundhog Day and its intentional monotony. The restaurant staff is working to meet and exceed expectations, while the show's writing and production staff is working just as hard to defy them. So much happens to so many characters in this season of the Bear, dealing with the past as well as the future, that I don't want to play any excerpts that could reveal any secrets. Rest assured though, that this season includes one expanded episode that finds a reason to reunite the show's extended cast of guest players, including Bob Odenkirk, John Mulaney, Brie Larson and Sarah Paulson. And as this season gains momentum, there are shared scenes between key characters that once again are sure shots to gain Emmy nominations. Scenes between Jeremy Allen White as Carm and Jamie Lee Curtis as his mom, and between Carm and IO Edebari as his head chef Sydney Eben, Moss Bachrach as Richie, Liza Colon Zayas as Tina, John Bernthal as Carm's late brother Mike. All of them already are Emmy winners for their work on this show, and all of them shine brilliantly once again. But the only Season 4 Taste of the Bear I'm willing to present is from the very first scene of the very first episode. It's a flashback with Carm and his brother Mike in a kitchen stirring some tomato sauce and talking about food as a radio plays in the background. Carm is visiting after working successfully at a Michelin starred California restaurant and is explaining to his brother why he's so passionate about his chosen vocation.

[H]

Okay, every one of our good memories, they happen in restaurants, right? Like the Homer's ice cream after Baseball Omega after that weird birthday party with mom, you know, we couldn't stop laughing, look like all this good had happened to us in restaurants. Because restaurants are special places, right? And people go to restaurants to be taken care of, right? They go to restaurants to celebrate, to relax, to not have to think about anything else for a minute. People go to restaurants to feel less lonely.

[David Biancooli]

This new season of the Bear is all about turning Carm's new restaurant into just such a place. There's a lot of pressure, financial and otherwise, and it's all depicted so you feel every bit of it. Sometimes there are rapid fire montages of food prep, other times, lots of times there are lengthy dialogue scenes between two people shot in extreme close up. I should mention how unusually emotionally real all of these characters seem and how much you end up caring about them. Abby Elliot as Carm's sister, Oliver Platt as his uncle, and even some new cast additions like guest star Rob Reiner as a potential investor. Finally, the choice of music on the soundtrack is inspired songs by Paul Simon and Lou Reed, Van Morrison and Rem Bob Dylan and the who are played in ways and in spots that make you respond to the lyrics in a new context. Call the Bear a comedy if you must, but I won't. Watching this new season, I cried more times than I laughed. Yet, however you characterize it, the Bear right now is the best series on television.

[Buddy Guy]

Water when the fever runs high. You got the look of love light in your eyes. I was in crazy motion till you calm me down. It took a little time, but you calmed me down.

[David Biancooli]

To keep up with what's on the show and get highlights of our interviews, follow us on Instagram at nprfreshair. On Monday's show, Terry talks with Jeffrey Seller, who played a key role as a producer of the Broadway musicals Rent, Hamilton in the Heights, Avenue Q and the revival of Sondheim's Sweeney Todd that starred Josh Groban. His new memoir, Theater Kid, is about his life and offers a behind the scenes look at what it's like to produce a Broadway musical. I hope you can join us. Fresh air's executive producer is Danny Miller. Sam Brigger is our managing producer. Our senior producer today is Thea Chaloner. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham, with additional engineering support by Joyce Lieberman, Julian Herzveld and Adam Stanischewski. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Roberta Shurrock, Ann Marie Baldonado, Lauren Krenzel, Teresa Madden, Monique Nazareth, Susan Yakundi and Anna Bauman. Our digital media producer is Molly Seavey Nesper Hope Wilson is our consulting visual producer for Terry Gross and Tonya Moseley. I'm David Biancooli.

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