Transcripts

WILLIAM ACKERMAN: What I'm seeing is that in reading the LA Weekly or San Francisco Weekly or Boston Phoenix, every club now has a spoken word night. People like Exene Cervenka, some of the people from rock and cutting-edge rock are doing spoken-word nights.

I even saw an ad for the Gap where they were using poetry reading as a hip thing to do. The clubs now have spoken-word nights, et cetera. So, I mean, I feel that there's definitely something afoot. It's already a movement that's taking place artistically, and it's really only a matter of identifying it for the industry.

SPEAKER 2: So seeing it out there, is that what convinced you that the time is ripe for a revival in spoken word?

WILLIAM ACKERMAN: Well, you know, it was really much more innocent than that. It really was just a matter of my having enjoyed Garrison Keillor particularly and wanting to know who else was doing that sort of work that brought this all about.

I don't know that I saw it as some big business opportunity in the beginning, although now I'm convinced that it really is very much an opportunity, especially with the growth in books on tape and that sort of thing that's going on. One of the few growth markets that really exists in audio right now.

SPEAKER 2: Describe for us the different forms of narrative that we hear on First Words.

WILLIAM ACKERMAN: Well, it's all over the place. I mean, you have someone like Peter Matthiessen, an established author, who we went to and said, despite the fact that you are 65 years or thereabout of age and you have achieved all this, we don't want you to read anything. We just want you to talk.

So extemporaneousness has a lot to do with this. We're not really interested in being a label of books on tape. We want people who can do first-person narrative, really convey something about their lives. I mean, here's Matthiessen, a guy who has traveled extensively, who've seen the world in a way that very few people do. See the world through the eyes of a writer, an editor, and an artist. So, I mean, really, he has so much to impart.

In the case of Spalding Gray, of course, he's a performer and already performing his shows. Some of these people, as you well know, are from NPR. We're working with Richard Stolley, the editorial director of Time Magazine, who has never thought of himself as a performer before, but frankly, has seen so much.

He was the guy who obtained the Zapruder film, just getting people to share their observations about life and do it in a very, very entertaining fashion. I think it's really important that we not talk about this as some sort of effete academia. It really isn't that at all. I see this as principally entertainment and a really viable entertainment medium.

SPEAKER 2: As you've mentioned, we've heard from many of the folks included on the disk in the past, Linda Barry, Andrei Codrescu, and Spalding Gray. Let's take a listen to some of the clips from some of the others.

BAILEY WHITE: My name is Bailey white. I'm a first-grade school teacher in South Georgia, and I make a little extra money making fun of my relatives on National Public Radio.

TOM BODETT: Hi, this is Tom Bodett here all the way from Homer, Alaska, with a rather weepy subject for your consideration.

MARIAN WINIK: Hi, I'm Marian Winik. I live in Austin, Texas. I have two children under the age of 4 and a day job writing computer manuals. But let's not talk about me, let's talk about you.

HUGH GALLAGHER: Two years ago, I decided to apply to college. In each application I filled out, there was an essay section at the very end in which the admissions staff tried to get a personal line on the applicant and decide if they were worthy of their school. This is mine,

SPEAKER 2: Of course, those are the introductions to some of the stories included on the disk. The story, "Three A essay" from that last voice. Hugh Gallagher was one of my favorites. In fact, I listened to it a couple of times. Tell us about him and some of the lesser known artists on First Words.

WILLIAM ACKERMAN: I'm going to turn you over to my partner, Janet Rienstra, for that.

JANET REINSTRA: Well, actually, Hugh Gallagher is now known as Hugh Brown Shu. We've just recorded his first album with him. That was the essay that he submitted to get into NYU, which was picked up by-- was it John Kennedy JR., and passed on to Jann Wenner at Rolling Stone.

He is now writing regularly for Rolling Stone's back to school issues. He's just completed an article for Playboy Magazine on sex on campus, and he's really taking off as a writer. He's a really exciting person to have on our label. We're going to probably be doing, I think, around seven records with him.

SPEAKER 2: How did you go about selecting the pieces to include on this debut release?

JANET RIENSTRA: I would say that, for the most part, a lot of them were suggested by friends of ours, and they were just people that we would come across somehow. Richard Stolley, interestingly enough, we were doing a drive across the US collecting stories for a program with the working title of Road Gang. And we decided to take a break from the whole thing.

And we pulled into this hotel in Memphis, and right there was the inauguration of the Martin Luther King Museum taking place. And we ran into Richard Stolley there and went back to work.

WILLIAM ACKERMAN: We really didn't know what we were looking for. Janet and I went to traditional storytelling festivals. We went to coffeehouses, went all over the place. And it seems like there's this unique set of talents that exist. Somebody has to be a writer probably because they have to be able to put this down in edited, cogent form, but they also have to be performers.

They have to have a wonderful voice. They have to be able to talk in a way. I mean, a stilted reading, for instance, we're not interested in. And frankly, I cannot answer your question. I just don't know. Either it works or it doesn't. But frankly, the whole process has been one of having a piece of granite in front of you and chipping away at it until you find out what it is.

I've only really recently started objectifying really what is going on, what is taking place here, what is it that works for us. Maybe Janet, you can say something about how you've observed it. I really don't have anything intelligent to say about it.

JANET RIENSTRA: Well, I think it's very subjective, I mean, just as Will was saying. And usually what we're lucky about is if we like it, a lot of other people do too.

SPEAKER 2: How do you expect the CD to be used?

WILLIAM ACKERMAN: In what way?

SPEAKER 2: Well, it seemed to me, say, someone-- well, actually, when I think of children listening to stories, they like to hear something over and over again. But for me, I question whether adults would like to do that. Do you expect people to go out and buy it? Do you expect it to be used by radio stations? What's your thought on that?

WILLIAM ACKERMAN: Well, I actually would take exception with the assumption that it isn't something that people would listen to again. I've listened, for instance, to Barry Morrow's "Bill for Short" probably 60 times. And I had just finished the final edits of the program and was driving back from the studio in San Francisco and honestly had to pull over at a certain point to listen to an inflection that I heard in Barry's voice that I'd never heard before.

I think while some of the material may not be as durable, I think there's an awful lot of material that we're going to be doing for Gang of Seven that really is going to be able to withstand repeated listenings.

SPEAKER 2: Several of the folks on the label it says we'll be coming back on their own CD. What's the future plan for the Gang of Seven label?

JANET RIENSTRA: Well, many of the artists on First Words will be or have completed full programs. Spalding Gray's actually doing several with us. Let's see, Tom Bodett and Rick Reynolds.

WILLIAM ACKERMAN: Andrei Codrescu, of course, from NPR.

JANET RIENSTRA: That's right.

WILLIAM ACKERMAN: "No Tacos for Saddam," definitely the winner of the best title.

JANET RIENSTRA: And last week, we just recorded "The Fever" with Wally Shawn. So that'll be due out in a couple of months too.

WILLIAM ACKERMAN: We're beginning to do cabdriver stories, how we met stories. Really much more man on the street sort of thing. And then there are some thematic samplers that we're beginning to develop as well for next year.

JANET RIENSTRA: "The Naturalist," that's the working title that we have right now for a program coming out. I believe that'll be out in January. Obviously, we have very well-known authors on there, such as Peter Matheson and Barry Lopez, Terry Tempest Williams, Diane Ackerman.

But we also have, I guess, I'd have to say, regular people who are very involved in the environment. Gerard Rahhal here in New York City started the Miracle Gardens. And Nona Amore in Marin, California, is very active with the Wildlife Center. So we're getting some people who have amazing stories to tell that we're including on our next samplers.