John Kellerondrick – Sustaining Enthusiasm
June 3, 2011
“Success is going from failure to failure without a loss of enthusiasm.” – Winston Churchill. A young puppeteer from East Nashville, who has remained faithful to what many would consider a lost cause, lives out the adage in WPLN’s latest installment of Upon First Meeting .
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FaSoLa Singing
January 21, 2011
We continue our series Upon First Meeting with a look at a form of American music that predates both jazz and the blues: fasola (fa-sol-la). More than two hundred years after its birth, the stylings of this a capella music are still being enjoyed across the country from Manhattan to Northern Alabama to San Diego. WPLN’s Kevin Bouldin has this story about fasola and its connection to Music City.
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The Strong Brothers
September 20, 2010
Eighteen years ago, Junior B. Strong, had his picture taken with the Queen of England. Just recently a copy of the photograph appeared in a book entitled A Stone’s Throw, which tells the story of how Strong won the World Marbles Championship in the U.K. After reading the book, WPLN’s Kevin Bouldin traveled to Moss, Tennessee, to meet the accomplished marble player and his brother, Malcolm, and has this story.
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Mrs. King of Nashville
August 30, 2010
In 1917, H. L. Mencken, the writer, infamously declared that the South was about as artistically, intellectually, and culturally sterile as the Sahara Desert. Two years later, in 1919, Hazel King was born. And for the past ninety-one years, she has been a living rebuttal to Mencken’s claim. WPLN’s Kevin Bouldin introduces us to King as part of our occasional storytelling series Upon First Meeting.
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Close the Bible, Open the Bar
February 24, 2010
This morning we continue our occasional series Upon First Meeting, storytelling focused on the people and places of Middle Tennessee. Today, WPLN’s Kevin Bouldin invites us into the Gospel Hour at Robert’s Western World. It’s a Sunday morning church service in the unlikely venue of a downtown Nashville honky-tonk.
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Arborist to Artist
February 5, 2010
This morning we begin a new series of storytelling focused on the people and places of Middle Tennessee. Upon First Meeting begins with today’s subject: a man who was crushed by a nine hundred pound falling branch. WPLN’s Kevin Bouldin introduces us to Ethan Swiggart, a tree surgeon who possesses the skills of an ax man and the eyes of an artist.
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