You clever listeners no doubt figured out that I was away for the whole month of August.  It was the first vacation I've had since I joined XM in August of 2004.  It was not quite a real vacation, however, as I never left my house. I used the time to finish off a memoir that I've titled A Voice in the Box, which is what I longed to be as a wee boy and eventually became.  I've sent the manuscript off to an agent and maybe it will be a book someday.  Ideally, memoirs should be written by old people--and that certainly excludes me, right?  Hah!   I'm sorry to say that my little project got a new sense of urgency with the deaths of my journalistic colleagues Tim Russert and Tony Snow, both of whom were younger than my 61 years.   Both of those guys planned on being around much longer and didn't make it.   We don't know what fates await us, so I decided I'd better get my story out there while I still could.  Just for the record, my health is fine, but the Supreme Court has killed Washington, DC's ban on guns, so who knows what risks I take going to work there everyday. 

In my absence we gave you our very best of the program's first four years and I loved re-hearing Stewart Udall and Greg Boyle and Stetson Kennedy, and the award-winning  documentaries.  This week, we went back to original programming and took you to Mississippi with swamp-rocker Jim Dickinson and then to New York's upper west side with 101-year-old Ruth Smith, champion of women's rights for all of her long life.  Next, a session with the incomparable guitar virtuoso Stanley Jordan and we closed out the week with a wonderfully endearing African-American couple from New Orleans' 9th ward who made home movies of their survival of Hurricane Katrina.  Just like New Orleans, The Bob Edwards Show serves up a wonderful gumbo of stories.  And there are many more wonderful tales to come.  Thanks for being there to share them with us.

Bob

For me, Trouble the Water is not really a documentary about Katrina the hurricane. It’s not about breeched levees or the ruined Superdome. Instead, it’s a fiercely personal and honest portrait of a young couple trying to turn their lives around. Filmmakers Tia Lessin and Carl Deal followed Kim and Scott Roberts through the aftermath of Katrina. Kim and Scott lived in the Ninth Ward, and the storm hit them hard, just like it did everyone in that neighborhood. But for all they lost, Kim and Scott survived, and when they realize that themselves, it’s an amazing moment. They think about how they were living their lives, what they’d like to change, how they’d like to start over. Trouble the Water does a good job of portraying the ridiculous governmental negligence and bureaucracy after Katrina, but what it does best is tell this human story. And as you watch, you can’t help but ask yourself, would I have the strength of character to see the positive side of that personal tragedy? Heck, would I have even been smart enough to figure out how to escape a forgotten, flooded city?

- Geoffrey Redick, producer

Link to Kimberly and Scott Roberts’ record label, Born Hustler:

http://www.bornhustlerrecords.com/

And here’s a link to Trouble the Water’s website:

http://www.troublethewaterfilm.com/ 

There are lots of talented people in the world, just as there are a lot of curious people. But when you combine prodigious talent, insatiable curiosity and sharp intellect, you get someone special. Put a guitar in his hands, and he could be Stanley Jordan.

Jordan started out playing piano as a child, and it was this piano experience, and the temporary lack of a piano, that inspired him to develop a technique of playing piano parts on guitar. That practice eventually morphed into the guitar style called tapping, and then Stanley Jordan got even more creative. He began to play two parts at once on the same guitar, then, two parts at once on two separate guitars. Now, he can even play keyboard with one hand, and guitar with the other, switching hands when necessary.

Aside from being a tremendous musician, Stanley Jordan is a great learner and thinker. Jordan records albums and tours the world.  He's a long-term masters student in Music Therapy at Arizona State University. He's a father, an environmentalist and a recreational computer programmer. He's a truly inspirational person and basically the greatest guitar player imaginable.

Stanley Jordan shares his creative philosophies on music and plays beautiful tunes, in hour two of Bob Edwards Weekend.

-Dan Bloom

Stanley Jordan's official website

Stanley Jordan's new album, State of Nature

Stanley Jordan on tour