Sparky Rucker was introduced to the music of the civil rights movement when his mother took him to his first march at the age of 14, but he was already steeped in the music of the era in the black Pentecostal church of his youth and the distinctive Appalachian culture of Eastern Tennessee. Sparky Rucker has woven together music, activism, history and culture for more than 5 decades, raising and inspiring spirits everywhere. Listen to our interview with his wife Rhonda back on August 28, 2016.
Carl Magruder, born in 1969, multiracial, & growing up around Berkeley, is a real child of the 60's, complete with his TheEarthQuaker email identity. Along the way he got schooled by Spirit, led to seminary, & into his current work as a palliative care chaplain. Carl Magruder sees wide and deep, & brings forth the words to excite healing energy for the Earth & humans, around race, and between peoples.
Guest-host Peterson Toscano of Citizens Climate Radio brings inspiration & joy to today's program, visiting with Hannah Pickard from NNOCCI, Sean Dague from Citizens Climate Lobby, Environmental Health Expert Dr. Natasha DeJarnett, Jennie Carlisle and Laura England from the Climate Stories Collaborative at Appalachian State University, and Violet Kitchen, artist and illustrator of The 100% Solution: A Plan for Solving Climate Change.
Joe Newberry has a wonderful voice, and writes tunes & lyrics to enrich that wonderful voice to the point of sublime. Writing music that tends toward old-timey, bluegrass, spirituals, torch songs, & more beyond that, Joe's songs draw deeply on the Missouri of his youth and the North Carolina of his adulthood. Renowned for his clawhammer banjo playing, Joe has won multiple awards from the IBMA, and was a frequent performer on A Prairie Home Companion. He performed with the Red Clay Ramblers, Big Medicine, and in duos with Mike Compton and April Verch, among others.
Though Rick Ruskin has a voice sometimes reminiscent of James Taylor, with all the enchantment that implies, and though he's got a lot of wonderful lyrics & tunes, the way that Rick most distinctively shines is through his magic on the guitar. Born and raised around Detroit, Michigan, migrating to California in the late 1960's, and having played for years with prominent artists like Olivia Newton John & Jackie DeShannon, Rick Ruskin has been located in Seattle for the past few decades in a home complete with an excellent recording studio plus a drum kit for creativity, exercise and therapy.
Mark Neumann was a Franciscan brother for 20 years, including 6 years working as a medical missionary in Zaire, now called the Congo. After a total of 35 years as a pediatrician, he is making his 1st run for office, in the Democratic primary for Wisconsin's 3rd district in the US House of Representatives, currently occupied by Ron Kind. As a world-healer and a people-healer, he is now seeking to further heal our country as a politician.
Liam Hooper takes on the "gayest" passage in the Christian Bible, the story of the Roman Centurion and the healing of his personal servant. Does this text condone gay sex? Gay relationships? Slavery?
Liam deepens the significance of the passage by connecting it to the narrative that comes immediately afterwards: Jesus raising a widow's only son from the dead.
Extinction Rebellion has a take on addressing the climate crisis that is refreshing, since their plan is to step pass the log-jam of the political process in the US, and taking the power right back to the people. And instead of talking about things like carbon neutrality by 2050 or the like, their plan is to do it by 2025. Impossible is not in the vocabulary of Extinction Rebellion, and they've already got a hefty track record to show they can get things done. Daniel Yildirim is what they call a mass mobilizer for this area of the country, operating out of Viroqua, Wisconsin.
Past/current religious/spiritual influences:
Atheist, Catholic Worker, Lutheran, Meditation, Quaker, Secular Humanist
Leslie Evers has been singing and writing songs forever, but she waited decades to release them to the world. With her beautiful voice, lyrical skill, and trusty guitar and banjo, she casts magical-musical spells. Located on the folk-jazz continuum, Leslie has also performed for years with The Gryphon Carolers. Home is Palo Alto, CA, and she will soon release her first hymn!
Think of this as a patchwork quilt. Instead of one long main segment, the Art House, and the Puzzler Question, we have sewed together five shorter segments from around the world that each stand alone. Together they tell a larger story.
Olivia Oguadinma in Nigeria discusses the role of storytelling in motivating her peers to meaningful action. Through her Gems on Earth podcast she reaches young people throughout Western Africa and beyond.