The Midnight Special (radio)
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The Midnight Special (radio)
''The Midnight Special'' is a syndicated radio show broadcast on Chicago, Illinois radio station, WFMT- FM (98.7 MHz) since 1953.''‘Midnight Special’ going like 60'' By Robert Feder December 13, 2013 ''The Daily Herald'' https://www.robertfeder.com/2013/12/29/midnight-special-going-like-60/ Retrieved August 17, 2020 It is a showcase for folk and roots music from historical and contemporary artists. The show also features comedy sketches and show tunes. The official description is: "folk music & farce, show tunes & satire, madness & escape." The show is named after the well known folk song of the same name, which is often associated with Lead Belly, whose version of the song is used as the show's opening theme. The show title also tied into its time slot, as it was broadcast on WFMT near midnight every Saturday. it begins at 9 p.m. and ends at midnight and is Chicago's longest running radio program. In 1953, Mike Nichols (later notable as a comedian, writer, actor, and d ...
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Folk Music
Folk music is a music genre that includes traditional folk music and the contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be called world music. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted orally, music with unknown composers, music that is played on traditional instruments, music about cultural or national identity, music that changes between generations (folk process), music associated with a people's folklore, or music performed by custom over a long period of time. It has been contrasted with commercial and classical styles. The term originated in the 19th century, but folk music extends beyond that. Starting in the mid-20th century, a new form of popular folk music evolved from traditional folk music. This process and period is called the (second) folk revival and reached a zenith in the 1960s. This form of music is sometimes called contemporary folk music or folk rev ...
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Americana (music)
Americana (also known as American roots music) is an amalgam of Music of the United States, American music formed by the confluence of the shared and varied traditions that make up the musical ethos of the United States, specifically those sounds that are emerged from the Southern United States such as Folk music, folk, gospel music, gospel, blues, Country music, country, jazz, rhythm and blues, rock and roll, Bluegrass music, bluegrass, and other external influences. Americana, as defined by the Americana Music Association (AMA), is "contemporary music that incorporates elements of various American roots music styles, including country, roots-rock, folk, bluegrass, R&B and blues, resulting in a distinctive roots-oriented sound that lives in a world apart from the pure forms of the genres upon which it may draw. While acoustic instruments are often present and vital, Americana also often uses a full electric band." Americana as a radio format had its origins in 1984 on KCSN in Nor ...
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American Music Radio Programs
American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, people who self-identify their ancestry as "American" ** American English, the set of varieties of the English language native to the United States ** Native Americans in the United States, indigenous peoples of the United States * American, something of, from, or related to the Americas, also known as "America" ** Indigenous peoples of the Americas * American (word), for analysis and history of the meanings in various contexts Organizations * American Airlines, U.S.-based airline headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas * American Athletic Conference, an American college athletic conference * American Recordings (record label), a record label previously known as Def American * American University, in Washington, D.C. Sports teams Soccer * B ...
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Robert Falls
Robert Falls (born March 2, 1954) is an American theater director and the current artistic director of the Goodman Theatre in Chicago, Illinois. Biography Early years Falls was born in Ashland, Illinois to Arthur Joseph Falls and Nancy (Stribling) Falls. He received his BFA in Directing and Playwriting at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, after which he studied acting with Edward Kaye-Martin in New York. His career as a theater director was launched with his 1985 production of ''Hamlet'' at the Wisdom Bridge Theatre, where he served as artistic director from 1977 to 1985. Since 1986, he has served as the artistic director of Chicago's Goodman Theatre, where he has directed more than 30 major productions and produced/co-produced more than 200 plays and 100 premieres. In September 2021 Falls announced that he would step down as Goodman's artistic director at the conclusion of the 2021/22 season. Career During Falls' two decades at the Goodman, the largest not-for-pro ...
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Frank Galati
Frank Joseph Galati (November 29, 1943 – January 2, 2023) was an American director, writer, and actor. He was a member of Steppenwolf Theatre Company and an associate director at Goodman Theatre. He taught at Northwestern University for many years. Early life Galati was born in Highland Park, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. He attended Glenbrook North High School in Northbrook, Illinois, where he competed in speech, winning a state championship in the Original Comedy event in 1961."Illinois High School Association Speech Records"
accessed January 3, 2023
He attended for one year before transferring to

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Tom Paxton
Thomas Richard Paxton (born October 31, 1937) is an American folk singer-songwriter who has had a music career spanning more than fifty years. In 2009, Paxton received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.Power Of Just Plain Folk, Tom Paxton Humbly Garners Life Grammy
J. Freedom du Lac, '''', February 7, 2009, p. C01
He is a music educator as well as an advocate for folk singers to combine traditional songs with new compositions. Paxton's songs have been widely recorded, including modern standards such as "

Norman Pellegrini
Norman Pellegrini (July 18, 1929 – July 2, 2009) was an American radio executive, producer, and personality. He was the program director for WFMT radio in Chicago from 1953 to 1996. On air he led WFMT's internationally syndicated broadcasts of live performances from the Lyric Opera of Chicago from 1971 until his retirement. He was also the co-host of '' The Midnight Special'', a folk and humor program which ran for years and was syndicated widely. He also hosted the station's broadcasts of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra's performances beginning in 1976. In 2006 his book ''150 Years of Opera in Chicago'' (co-authored with Robert C. Marsh) was published in Chicago by the Northern Illinois University Press Northern Illinois University Press is a publisher and part of Northern Illinois University. The press publishes about twenty new books per year in history, politics, anthropology, and literature, with about 400 books currently in print.http://www. .... References 1929 bir ...
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West Side, Chicago
The West Side is one of the three major sections of the city of Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, along with the North Side and the South Side. The West Side consists of communities that are of historical, cultural, and ideological importance to the history and development of Chicago. On the flag of Chicago, the West Side is represented by the central white stripe. The Chicago West Side has gone through many transitions in its ethnic and socioeconomic makeup due to its historic role as a gateway for immigrants and migrants as well as its role for funneling poorer African-American residents away from the wealthier lakeside neighborhoods and central business district. Today, the West Side consists of large mixed communities of middle class, working class, and low-income African American, Puerto Rican, and Mexican residents; some small communities of blue-collar, lower middle class and middle class white residents of historically Polish, Italian, Czech, Russian Jewish, and Gree ...
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Big Bill Broonzy
Big Bill Broonzy (born Lee Conley Bradley; June 26, 1903 – August 14, 1958) was an American blues singer, songwriter, and guitarist. His career began in the 1920s, when he played country music to mostly African American audiences. In the 1930s and 1940s, he navigated a change in style to a more urban blues sound popular with working-class black audiences. In the 1950s, a return to his traditional folk-blues roots made him one of the leading figures of the emerging American folk music revival and an international star. His long and varied career marks him as one of the key figures in the development of blues music in the 20th century. Broonzy copyrighted more than 300 songs, including adaptations of traditional folk songs and original blues songs. As a blues composer, he was unique in writing songs that reflected his rural-to-urban experiences.Barlow, William (1989). ''"Looking Up at Down": The Emergence of Blues Culture''. Temple University Press. pp. 301–303. . Life and ca ...
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Win Stracke
Winfred "Win" J. Stracke (February 20, 1908 – June 29, 1991) was an American folk musician and co-founder of the Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago, Illinois. Stracke was a Chicago fixture in music, theater, and television in the 1940s and was known for his booming bass voice. Nationally he was known as "Uncle Win" to viewers of his syndicated children's television show on NBC until it was canceled in the wake of the 1950s blacklist. Early life Stracke was born in Lorraine, Kansas but grew up in Chicago's Old Town neighborhood, and had ties to the area his entire life. He was the son of German immigrants and his father was a preacher. He discovered his singing talent while still in high school. Stracke had some operatic training, but his interests in the labor movement and American frontier history would draw him towards American folk music. He began his folk singing career in Chicago in 1931, when WLS hired him as a bass singer on their ''National Barn Dance'' progr ...
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Fleming Brown
Fleming Brown (March 1, 1926 – 1984), born in Marshall, Missouri, United States, was an American banjo player and one of the early teachers at Chicago's Old Town School of Folk Music. As an artist, Brown specialized in traditional songs of the Southern Appalachians. He was influenced by old-time banjo players such as Uncle Dave Macon and Dock Boggs. Brown supported himself as a graphic artist and as such never performed widely outside of Chicago. Brown learned the banjo from Doc Hopkins, an old-time singer who hosted a morning radio show on WLS in Chicago. He would have his lesson at the studio after the show daily. As a banjo player Brown traveled much learning technique from other banjo players like Doc Hopkins, Bascom Lamar Lunsford, Grandpa Jones, Hobart Smith, Frank Proffitt. In 1963 Brown recorded the banjo player Hobart Smith for a record released as ''The 1963 Fleming Brown Tapes''. In 1953 he joined the " I Come for to Sing" group with Studs Terkel, Larry Lane, ...
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Lead Belly
Huddie William Ledbetter (; January 20, 1888 – December 6, 1949), better known by the stage name Lead Belly, was an American folk music, folk and blues singer notable for his strong vocals, Virtuoso, virtuosity on the twelve-string guitar, and the folk standards he introduced, including his renditions of "In the Pines", "Goodnight, Irene", "Midnight Special (song), Midnight Special", "Cotton Fields", and "Boll Weevil (song), Boll Weevil". Lead Belly usually played a twelve-string guitar, but he also played the piano, mandolin, harmonica, violin, and diatonic accordion, windjammer. In some of his recordings, he sang while clapping his hands or stomping his foot. Lead Belly's songs covered a wide range of genres, including gospel music, blues, and folk music, as well as a number of topics, including women, liquor, prison life, racism, cowboys, work, sailors, cattle herding, and dancing. He also wrote songs about people in the news, such as Franklin D. Roosevelt, Adolf Hitl ...
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