"If this Revolution falls, what we will have here in Cuba is a hell. Hell itself." - Fidel Castro.

This is the full, 35-minute unedited interview with Fidel Castro in 1959. 

An editor for U.S. News and World Report interviewed Castro weeks after the fall of Batista. No one has heard the tape. Until now.

Watch the animated version of this episode from our PBS Series to the story behind the interview:
youtube.com/blankonblank

Full transcript and translation available:
http://blankonblank.org/interviews/fidel-castro-1959-lost-interview/

Fidel Castro 1959: unedited interview

"If this Revolution falls, what we will have here in Cuba is a hell. Hell itself." - Fidel Castro. 

In 1959 an editor for U.S. News and World Report interviewed Fidel Castro weeks after the fall of Batista. No one has heard the tape. Until now. 

Hear the story behind the interview and why Castro said he wasn't a communist and why it was a problem when American sailors went looking for entertainment in Guantanamo.

Watch the animated version of this episode from our PBS Series
youtube.com/blankonblank

The full, unedited, 35-minute interview is available here: 
http://blankonblank.org/interviews/fidel-castro-1959-lost-interview/


Fidel Castro 1959: the lost interview

"I even thought that I was gay. I thought that might be the solution to my problem." - Kurt Cobain

Interview by Jon Savage
July 22, 1993
Cassette tape

Profile appeared in The Observer
Hear the full interview at http://RocksBackpages.com

Watch this episode as part of our animation series with PBS -->>
http://blankonblank.org/interviews/kurt-cobain-on-identity/

Kurt Cobain. The lost interview

"When we fell in with the Acid Tests we a started having the most fun we had ever had."
- Jerry Garcia

Interview by Joe Smith
May 23, 1988 
Cassette Tape

Recorded during the writing of Off the Record
Hear the full interview catalog at The Library of Congress

Watch this episode as part of our animation series with PBS -->>
http://blankonblank.org/interviews/jerry-garcia-on-the-acid-tests/

Jerry Garcia on the Acid Tests

"If I was white I would have been like John Wayne... I feel like a tragic hero in a Shakespeare play" - Tupac Shakur

Interview by Benjamin Svetkey, March 1994
Microcassette recorder. Related profile appeared in Entertainment Weekly

Watch the animated version of this episode in our PBS seres: 
http://blankonblank.org/interviews/tupac-shakur-on-life-and-death/

Tupac Shakur on Life and Death

"When a man is making love, the last thing he thinks about is war" 
- Barry White

Interview by Joe Smith. April 3, 1987, Los Angeles
Tape recorder

Watch the animated version of this episode in our PBS seres: 
http://blankonblank.org/interviews/barry-white-on-making-love/

Interview recorded during the writing of Off the Record
Hear the full interview catalog at the Library of Congress

Barry White on Making Love

"My nervous energy is usually the easiest form of energy to tap into" 
- Heath Ledger

Interview by Christine Spines
Fall 2005, Cassette Tape

Watch the animated version of this episode in our PBS series:
http://blankonblank.org/interviews/heath-ledger-on-role-playing/

Heath Ledger on Role Playing

"I just hope and pray I can die with my boots on"
- Johnny Cash, 1996

Interview by Barney Hoskyns
Hear the full interview @ Rocksbackpages.com

Watch the animated version of this episode in our PBS seres:
http://blankonblank.org/interviews/johnny-cash-gospel/

Johnny Cash on The Gospel

"It's all true folks.  All you need is love."
- John Lennon, 1969

Interview by Howard Smith
Hear the full interviews @ TheSmithTapes.com

Watch the animated version of this episode in our PBS seres:
blankonblank.org/interviews/john-lennon-love/

John Lennon and Yoko Ono on Love

"The only way you can be a mark is if you want something for nothing. If you’re greedy, you’re set up." - Maya Angelou in 1970, as told to Studs Terkel

Watch the animated version from our PBS series here:
http://blankonblank.org/interviews/maya-angelou-con-men/

Maya Angelou on Con Men

"A lot of people are kind of depressed. I'm happy some of the time, and some of the time I'm not."
- Elliott Smith in 1998, as told to Barney Hoskyns

Watch the animated version in our PBS series:
http://blankonblank.org/interviews/elliott-smith-freaks/

Elliott Smith on Freaks

"I don't like to feel that I owe anything. I like to feel that I pay my own way, no free lunch." - B.B. King as told to Joe Smith in September 1986.

Watch the animated version in our PBS series:
http://blankonblank.org/interviews/bb-king-talks-about-the-blues-naming-lucille/

B.B. King on The Blues

"I WRITE A SONG CALLED ‘HEROIN’, YOU WOULD HAVE THOUGHT THAT I MURDERED THE POPE OR SOMETHING" - Lou Reed, as told to Joe Smith in 1987.
Watch the animated version from our PBS series:
http://blankonblank.org/interviews/lou-reed-guns-ammo-the-velvet-underground/

Lou Reed on Guns & Ammo

"The key was somehow to know what was important and what was not important, what was exciting, because I can’t learn everything" - Richard Feynman in 1966

Watch the animated version of this episode here:
blankonblank.org/interviews/richard-feynman-physics-interview-lecture/

Richard Feynman on What It Means

In the fall of 1966, John Coltrane was living on Long Island. He had a modest house on a quiet, tree-lined street with his wife Alice, and their children. One afternoon, Frank Kofsky took the train out to interview Coltrane. Coltrane picked him up at the station. They drove around town. They stopped to talk. Here’s the tape from the Pacifica Radio Archives.


John Coltrane on Giant Steps

"I have no faith at all. I only hold convictions." - Ayn Rand from her 1959 conversation with Mike Wallace.

More from the interview and the animated version of this episode from our PBS series: http://blankonblank.org/interviews/ayn-rand-love-marriage-religion-faith-business/

Ayn Rand on Selfish Love

"I didn’t like the sound of people gasping at the mere mention of my name. It horrified me." - Joni Mitchell in 1985. 

Hear the full interview and watch the animated version from our PBS Series here: http://blankonblank.org/interviews/joni-mitchell-interview-laurel-canyon-painting-health-music-songwriting/

Joni Mitchell on Illusions

"I keep my mouth shut now. I’ve turned into a professional coward." - Hunter S. Thompson as told to Studs Terkel in 1967. 

Watch the animated version of this episode from our series with PBS Digital Studios: blankonblank.org/hunter-thompson

Hunter S. Thompson on Outlaws

""I‘m just an obnoxious guy who can make it appear charming, that’s what they pay me to do." - Bill Murray as told to T.J. English in 1988.

Watch the animated version of this episode from our series with PBS Digital Studios: blankonblank.org/bill-murray

Blank On Blank Bill Murray

"Nothing means anything"
– Kurt Vonnegut on November 8, 1970 in a class at New York University. Excerpted from the Pacifica Radio Archives

Watch the animated version of this episode from our series with PBS Digital Studios: blankonblank.org/kurt-vonnegut




Kurt Vonnegut on Man-Eating Lampreys

Watch the animated version on this episode: blankonblank.org/sally-ride

Sally Ride on Dumb Questions - The Experimenters

"Everything in my mind works like a search engine set for the image function." - Temple Grandin in an oral history recorded in 2008

Watch the animated version of this episode: http://blankonblank.org/interviews/temple-grandin-visualizing-autism-aspergers-cattle-nerds/

Temple Grandin on Search Engines | The Experimenters

“I have to make my life worth saving, and each day you spend as if it would be your last” - Dame Stephanie Shirley in 2010

Dame Stephanie Shirley might be the most successful tech entrepreneur you have never heard of. In the early 1960s, Shirley started a barrier-breaking, all-woman software company that would eventually be valued at $3 billion. From a rarely heard oral history at The British Library, Shirley takes us on the journey from fleeing Nazi Germany as a little girl to breaking through in the new world of computers despite not being taken seriously as a woman working from home. She even changed her name to Steve.

Watch the animated version of this episode from our series with PBS Digital Studios: http://bit.ly/steve-shirley


Dame Stephanie Shirley on Survival Code

"A literal reading of the Bible simply is a mistake; I mean it’s just wrong" - Carl Sagan on October 4, 1985, as told to Studs Terkel.

Watch the animated version from our PBS series: 
http://blankonblank.org/carl-sagan

Carl Sagan on Extraterrestrials | Blank on Blank

"Mama just always said, ‘you be what you are and you don’t have to worry about nothing.’"

From a previously unheard interview recorded in 1978

Watch the animated version: http://blankonblank.org/interviews/dolly-parton-on-getting-dirty-childhood-family/


Dolly Parton on Getting Dirty

George Washington Carver, Oliver Sacks, and Jacques Cousteau. Our podcast returns with lost interviews on self, sight, and deep-sea diving. These three luminaries had the imaginations and daring to go where none had gone before. They overcame indifference and bigotry, exploring the darkest depths of the ocean, and even challenging their own deepest assumptions. These men lived the very definition of scientific inquiry. We’ve brought the three together for the return of our special series, The Experimenters, featuring icons of science and innovation.

Watch the animated versions of these rare interviews in our series with PBS Digital Studios: blankonblank.org

Oliver Sacks, Jacques Cousteau, and George Washington Carver.

Innocence, Innovation and Future Shock. It's our latest installment of The Experimenters and we're about to hear from an anthropologist and a futurist: two people endeavoring to understand the impact of scientific invention. Margaret Mead and Alvin Toffler know that while we’ve started a technological revolution, we don’t quite know where it’s going to take us. 

But maybe most interesting of all - we’ll be hearing these archival interviews from the very future these thinkers were trying to imagine.

Margaret Mead and Alvin Toffler are our two guides into a view of what the present might have been… or perhaps in some ways actually came to pass.

First.

Alvin Toffler and Margaret Mead on Revolution and Future Shock

George Michael in a never heard interview from the Joe Smith Collection at the Library of Congress. He talks about sexuality, Wham!, going solo, dreams, and playing in Communist the China. He was 23 at the time of the recording.
Watch the animated version of this interview: blankonblank.org/george-michael

George Michael Interview, November 10, 1986

"We played 12 concerts in Poland. Underground meetings and underground concerts...we didn’t understand how we could be that important. We had no clue that we were helping people break away from Communism." ~ jazz legend Dave Brubeck 

Today we have an interview Brubeck gave on stage during the Litchfield Jazz Festival. He’s speaking with John Dankosky, the host of Where We Live, a show that airs on WNPR in Connecticut. It’s a remarkable story: Brubeck fighting communism with jazz. So here it is. Dave Brubeck remixed. This is Blank on Blank.

Interviewed by: John Dankosky, host of WNPR's "Where We Live"
Fall 2008 // Live at the Litchfield Jazz Festival
For more of John Dankosky’s interview with Dave Brubeck and other "Where We Live" broadcasts, visit WNPR.org.

Host & Executive Producer: David Gerlach
Producer:  Amy Drozdowska
Music Credit:  Dave Brubeck live at the 2008 Litchfield Jazz Festival
Photo Credit: "The Great Dave Brubeck" by CJ Peters via Flickr

See photos of Brubeck's early days, read the transcript, and discover more unheard interviews at http://blankonblank.org/interviews/dave-brubeck-on-fighting-communism-with-jazz/.

Dave Brubeck on Jazz Diplomacy Behind the Iron Curtain

"I don’t remember what that preacher's name was, but I wish I did so I could give him a shout out and say thank you for turning me on to some fu%$ing bitching Satanic jams." - Jack Black
Interview by <a href="http://blankonblank.org/contributors/brian-raftery/">Brian Raftery</a> in 2003
Diner in Los Angeles | Microcassette recorder
Related profile appeared in GQ magazine
Executive Producer: David Gerlach
Producer: Amy Drozdowska

See the interview slideshow @ <a href="http://blankonblank.org/interviews/jack-black-on-prayer-video-games-and-satanic-rock/">blankonblank.org</a>

Jack Black on Prayer, Video Games, and Satanic Rock

"You’re in your birthday suit up there. People can see clean through you. And your music, your actions and the vibes you bring forth to the audience come out. You cannot hide that. "  - Art Blakey

- Interview by Ben Sidran in 1982 
- Originally aired on NPR’s Jazz Alive
- Executive Producer: David Gerlach | Producer: Amy Drozdowska

Art Blakey on How to Build a Band

"What's wrong with being fat? That's what I want to know. Why is it so onerous to be fat?" - Jim Morrison

Interview by Howard Smith
TheSmithTapes.com
Los Angeles, 1969

Watch the animated version of this interview created with PBS Digital Studios @www.blankonblank.org

Follow us on Twiiter & Facebook @blankonblank

Music
The Doors "Soul Kitchen" & "Who Do You Love" | Joe Jones "Light My Fire" (The Doors)

Jim Morrison on Why Fat is Beautiful

"You've got to be good or as bad as the devil. ... Even if we had two, three days off I still had to blow that horn a few hours to keep up the chops."
- Louis Armstrong

"Pops" interviewed by two teenagers in 1964 @ Ravinia outside Chicago

Watch the animated version of this episode from our PBS Series
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyNRy1To5vg


Louis Armstrong on His Chops

Famous names. Lost interviews. Journalists' tapes comes back to life via podcast & radio with PRX, and an animated series with PBS Digital Studios. Blank on Blank is a production of Quoted Studios, a non-profit 501(c)(3). 

Popular tracks by Blank on Blank