Studs Terkel (1912-2008) lived in Chicago, so when I read his book “Talking to Myself: A Memoir of My Times,” c 1973, I spent much time in the city.

Studs was an interviewer on WFMT radio for 45 years. He called himself a disc jockey. He also acted in dramas. This book tells us about his travels all over the world to do interviews, and reading the book will introduce you to many well-known people. When you look him up on the Marshall-Lyon County Library website, you’ll find many Studs Terkel book titles.

My first connection with Studs was listening to my six CD set “Studs Terkel: Voices of Our Time.” Some names you’ll probably recognize are Peter, Paul & Mary, Billy Rose, Bertrand Russell, and Martin Luther King, just a few of the 48 interviewees. I think my favorite is Disc 1, for which the dates of the interviews are in the 1950s and 1960s. On this disc there are many well-known artists, including Tennessee Williams, Barry Lopez, Eudora Welty, and Isabel Allende. The first interview on Disk 1 is with folk singer Pete Seeger in 1955.

I recently read Pete Seeger’s Foreword to the paperback “Bound for Glory,” Woody Guthrie’s autobiography, published in 1968. (The first copyright date is 1943.) In October 1980, when I was a student at the University of Minnesota, I went to the Arlo Guthrie and Pete Seeger concert.

One of Woody’s songs that I like to sing, along with playing my ukulele is “This Land is Your Land.” I take my ukulele lessons from Pete Lothringer, well-known guitar player and instructor in southwestern Minnesota. I had my first ukulele when I was a teenager. You can see me in the photo with my friend Sally and her new camera set.

Studs wrote that “no song is an entity by itself.” I think that’s his approach to writing about Mahalia Jackson (1911-1972) now and then throughout the book. He met her in 1946. When she passed, her funeral service was held in Chicago. Studs wrote of his reaction: “Why is my pulse going crazy?” (p. 258).

In 1947 when he was with Mahalia, she told him that her hands “demonstrate what I feel inside” (p. 260).

Another person included many times in “Talking to Myself: A Memoir of My Times” is Nelson Algren, whose best-known book is “The Man with the Golden Arm,” c 1949. Studs writes that “he may be the funniest man around” (p. 229).

His interview with Maya Angelou is preparing me to read her book “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” c 1969.

First I hear Maya talking about her family doing cotton picking. When the men came back from the fields, they would sing while playing their guitars.

Next, in the interview with her, Studs mentions “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.” She talks about how deep this book covers her life. The mother who raises her is her grandmother. They would spend time by the family store, “her favorite place to be.” That’s where she worked. The songs the men sang, after they came from cotton-picking, were blues and gospel music.

Maya sings “I am a poor pilgrim of sorrow. I’m lost in this wide world alone. No hope have I for tomorrow. I’ve started to make heaven my home.” You can see her sing this song on YouTube.

“Keep on keepin’ on” is what she says to Studs as they close the interview.

A book of her poems is “And Still I Rise,” c 1978. I’ll share the first verse of her nine-verse poem with the title “Still I Rise:”

You may write me down in history

With your bitter, twisted lies,

You may trod me in the very dirt

But still, like dust, I’ll rise.

Look for the books and music CDs by the authors/musicians mentioned at your Marshall-Lyon County Library. marshalllyonlibrary.org