Please check out my new website...

March 3, 2011

This blog is no longer being updated. If you are interested in my current work, or would like to see my portfolio, please visit www.richardziglar.com .

Thank you!

Richard

New Website

For my current collaboration with Barry Yeoman, I have created a website called http://stillsingingtheblues.org/. Any documentary news I have in the next month or so will probably be posted there. I'm also creating a new website for myself called, drum roll, www.richardziglar.com. At this time I am so busy keeping the former site updated, that the latter site must remain "under construction" for the time being. This is a real case of the cobbler's children having no shoes.

So please join us at http://stillsingingtheblues.org/.

"Still Singing the Blues is a two-part, two-hour radio documentary series featuring musicians in New Orleans and South Louisiana who continue to perform both traditional blues and more commercial rhythm-and-blues. Part 1, which debuts June 1, burrows into the lives of three outstanding older performers: Carol Fran of Lafayette, Harvey Knox of Baton Rouge, and Little Freddie King of New Orleans. Part 2, which debuts in July, takes listeners into the handful of neighborhood clubs in New Orleans that keep the blues alive."

You can also find us on FB: http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Still-Singing-the-Blues/123544507675680

And stay tuned for information concerning our new zydeco research project... news on that to come in August.

Thanks for your patience...

It has been a busy few months in audio doc land. Here are a few of the things I've been up to:

1) The War Stories of Happy Valley did get published to a CD. You can buy a copy here,

http://ncculturaltrails.org/happyvalley/contact/happyvalleycd.aspx

This was a work-for-hire piece so I am not making any money on the sale of the CD; however, it has quite a few interesting stories, including one about the legend of Tom Dooley. So definitely check it out.

2) Barry and I made our second interviewing trip to New Orleans, which he has blogged pretty extensively: http://stillsingingtheblues.blogspot.com/. Sadly, it was our last extended trip down to Louisiana, for a while anyway. Most of the interviews are done. For the next few months I will be logging tape and, with Barry, creating the script and producing two one-hour radio docs on South Louisiana blues.

3) You may have gotten to this blog (well, actually an archive) by seeing the link at AARP's Truckin' My Blues Away . Barry and I co-wrote and co-produced that piece and it is the first major feature-length work we have produced together. From the blurb:

"This music-rich hour-long special introduces listeners to the stories and sounds of four older Southern bluesmen—and to the efforts of Tim Duffy, founder of the Music Maker Relief Foundation, to help lift these musicians from poverty and obscurity.

The musicians cover a wide swath of the South: Boo Hanks from Virgilina, Va.; Captain Luke from Winston-Salem, N.C.; Eddie Tigner from Atlanta; and Little Freddie King from New Orleans. In their own words and performances, these men bring us the story of a music, an era and a culture that are uniquely American."

The program is co-produced and co-written by Richard Ziglar and Barry Yeoman, who traveled around the South collecting interviews and field recordings of the musicians. Yeoman, who co-produced our Gracie Award-winning program "Picking Up the Pieces," narrates."

If you have not heard Truckin', please take some time to listen to it and let me know what you think: http://www.aarp.org/content/aarp/en/home/aarp/broadcast/aarp_radio/radio_prime_time/articles/truckin_special.html

Please check out the new blog Barry Yeoman started about our Louisiana blues project:

http://stillsingingtheblues.blogspot.com/

We are currently in the middle of producing two one-hour documentaries on Southern blues artists. This blog documents some of our adventures on the way to researching the one based in Louisiana.

I apologize for not posting more frequently. This has become more of an archive than a blog. I hope that is OK.

The Civil War podcast for the NC Arts Council is finished but they have not posted it yet. I will post an update here when that happens.

Currently Barry Y and I are collaborating on two different one-hour documentaries on the blues. One is a commission from a national magazine; the other is funded, in part, by a generous grant from the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities. These will both be done by the first and second quarters of 2010. Again, when they air I will post an update! We will be spending a lot of time in New Orleans for our first round of interviews in October. When we get back I will create a blog for the Louisiana project so you can keep up with our progress and by early next year we should have a full-blown website for the New Orleans blues doc.

Thanks for checking in...

New Pieces on Oprah.com

Here are a few more collaborations with Barry Yeoman. At the links below you will find four slideshows we did together. They complement an article Barry wrote for O, The Oprah Magazine. He also did the reporting and photography for the slideshows. I produced/edited the audio and mixed the sound track. Barry created the slideshows with Soundslides.

http://www.oprah.com/article/omagazine/200906-omag-abused-dogs-saved

http://www.oprah.com/article/omagazine/200906-omag-abused-dogs-saved/2

http://www.oprah.com/article/omagazine/200906-omag-abused-dogs-saved/3

The music for the third piece is from the band Sequoya.

http://www.oprah.com/article/omagazine/200906-omag-abused-dogs-saved/4

Life as a freelancer

Here is something I have done recently in collaboration with Barry Yeoman:

Captain Luke

When you access the link above you will see a slide show. The slide show audio is not the broadcast piece, although I edited it also. To hear the broadcast, please scroll to the bottom where you will see a link that says "Download MP3."

Dec

Since Nov 5 I have been working as a full-time freelance producer at WUNC for The Story ...so I have not had as much time as I would like to update this blog.

Here are links to a few pieces I have produced at WUNC:

Proof of Citizenship

The Forest Hill Fiasco

Eloisa's New Wall

Proof and Forest Hill are C segments, meaning they start half way through their respective shows.

Pesach with Manfred

Gabcast! Radio Free Richard #4 - Pesach with Manfred

I was trying to find someone to interview for a piece on Passover for WXDU and I found this most amazing person, Manfred Katz, who changed the direction I was heading in. Manfred speaks about living in eastern Europe during the Holocaust. He is a survivor of the Riga Ghetto. This piece is long but stick around; the ending might surprise you.

Shirlette

Gabcast! Radio Free Richard #3 - Shirlette

This piece is about Shirlette, a poet. Besides being a poet she is also a talented musician and lyricist who fronts her own band, called Mosadi. As she talks about what being a poet means to her, you will hear some mellow tunes in the background. Those songs were written by her and are performed by her friends from Tres Chicas, The Carolina Chocolate Drops and other great bands from the area.

Royce

Gabcast! Radio Free Richard #2 - Royce

This is a portrait of Royce, a former horticulture extension agent who is losing his memory. He wanted me to record the encyclopedic knowledge he has of native plants but the project expanded to include other memories that are important to him.

Sheila Frye, Champion Hollerer

Gabcast! Radio Free Richard #1 - Sheila Frye, Champion Hollerer

This was a short interview I did for an audio doc class a while back. Sheila won the hollering contest at Spivey's Corner several years. In this piece she talks about why hollering is important too her culture.

Third Coast Audio

I spent a long weekend in October at the Third Coast Audio Festival. It thinks of itself as the Sundance Festival of innovative audio... and that is not far from the truth. Third Coast offers a lot of learning opportunities. Besides attending some great break out sessions (editing with Deb George!) I also got the chance to practice my pitching skills in front of about 80 people at the pitch session. Peter Clowney at Weekend America gave me some very useful advice on a piece I'm putting together. But the pitching also increased my confidence. When I got back home The Story with Dick Gordon asked me to come in and pitch some ideas. They liked them enough to ask me to come in and freelance for them starting in November.

Anyone who is interested in public radio or audio documentaries or audio art should really think about attending Third Coast next year. Information on this year's conference can be found here:

http://thirdcoastfestival.org/annual_conference_2008_info.asp

I want to thank Roger Fraser for letting me crash with him while I was at the conference. THANK YOU!