Black Radio: Telling It Like It Was
SelectsForty years of radio history spread across six one-hour specials. This documentary is best mainlined - binge the whole thing and let it fully transport you through a generation of Black radio stations and creators. Through interviews, historical airchecks, comedy, drama and music, this series draws a clear line between milestones in Black radio programming and African American culture in the United States. How it draws these lines is what makes this documentary incredible and a clear choice for Selects.
Contemporary American approaches to limited audio series tend to be linear. This happened, then that happened, and finally that. Add two bonus interview episodes and we’re done. The genius of Black Radio is its blend of linear and anthology structure. The series sets the stage in the 1920s and 30s, but then each episode takes on themes and explores how Black radio adapted over time. Of course, anthologies are not new. But deploying that structure in a small ecosystem allows us to hear characters wrestling with change. Each episode takes the listener from 1920 to 1980, and we hear an ensemble cast of disc jockeys, executives and historians building a universe. Or as Black radio legend Frankie Crocker calls it: The Total Black Experience in Sound.
The first thing to remember about archival audio is that it’s not searchable. You have to listen to it, log it, and then, maybe, you can use it. But even then, to find that perfect piece of tape to complement your interview or tracking, you kind of have to just remember that it exists. So Jacquie Gales Webb and her team went deep to sift through over 400 hours of archival audio and interviews to establish the ensemble that listeners hear. Moreover, the use of host-read advertisements to complement the airchecks and interviews is undeniably genius. They add pacing and personality while simultaneously offering the listener an anchor to a specific point on our forty-year timeline. his series offers a master class in the use of archival audio and it truly delights the theater of the mind.
This series is also a political act. PRX and the Smithsonian made it in 1996. At the time, the FCC had adopted a duopoly rule that threatened to (and in fact did) undermine Black station ownership. And with diminished Black ownership, the Black listener was quickly relegated. Fast forward 20 years to Chenjerai Kumanyika’s essay The Whiteness of Public Radio Voice and another ten to Grace Lee’s podcast Viewers Like Us, and you can hear how little has changed and how radical this series actually is. At its most simple, Black Radio: Telling It Like It Was can serve as a compelling primary source recounting the untold history of a quintessential part of American culture. But a more dynamic approach can be derived from the series itself. This is a work of audio that reflects a moment in culture and progress. It was and will be heard by a new generation of podcasters, radio makers, and listeners alike that will hear inspiration and opportunity.
Awards: Peabody Award (1996)
Forty years of radio history spread across six one-hour specials. This documentary is best mainlined - binge the whole thing and let it fully transport you through a generation of Black radio stations and creators. Through interviews, historical airchecks, comedy, drama and music, this series draws a clear line between milestones in Black radio programming and African American culture in the United States. How it draws these lines is what makes this documentary incredible and a clear choice for Selects.
Contemporary American approaches to limited audio series tend to be linear. This happened, then that happened, and finally that. Add two bonus interview episodes and we’re done. The genius of Black Radio is its blend of linear and anthology structure. The series sets the stage in the 1920s and 30s, but then each episode takes on themes and explores how Black radio adapted over time. Of course, anthologies are not new. But deploying that structure in a small ecosystem allows us to hear characters wrestling with change. Each episode takes the listener from 1920 to 1980, and we hear an ensemble cast of disc jockeys, executives and historians building a universe. Or as Black radio legend Frankie Crocker calls it: The Total Black Experience in Sound.
The first thing to remember about archival audio is that it’s not searchable. You have to listen to it, log it, and then, maybe, you can use it. But even then, to find that perfect piece of tape to complement your interview or tracking, you kind of have to just remember that it exists. So Jacquie Gales Webb and her team went deep to sift through over 400 hours of archival audio and interviews to establish the ensemble that listeners hear. Moreover, the use of host-read advertisements to complement the airchecks and interviews is undeniably genius. They add pacing and personality while simultaneously offering the listener an anchor to a specific point on our forty-year timeline. his series offers a master class in the use of archival audio and it truly delights the theater of the mind.
This series is also a political act. PRX and the Smithsonian made it in 1996. At the time, the FCC had adopted a duopoly rule that threatened to (and in fact did) undermine Black station ownership. And with diminished Black ownership, the Black listener was quickly relegated. Fast forward 20 years to Chenjerai Kumanyika’s essay The Whiteness of Public Radio Voice and another ten to Grace Lee’s podcast Viewers Like Us, and you can hear how little has changed and how radical this series actually is. At its most simple, Black Radio: Telling It Like It Was can serve as a compelling primary source recounting the untold history of a quintessential part of American culture. But a more dynamic approach can be derived from the series itself. This is a work of audio that reflects a moment in culture and progress. It was and will be heard by a new generation of podcasters, radio makers, and listeners alike that will hear inspiration and opportunity.
Awards: Peabody Award (1996)