Sunday 3/5/2017 Show: Abbey Lincoln Membership Special

The next show will air on Sunday, March 5, 2017 from 11:00 PM – 1:00 AM Monday Eastern Standard Time on WBAI, 99.5 FM in the NYC metro area or streaming online at wbai.org. This broadcast features an audio documentary produced by Joyce Jones with music and interviews focused on the career of legendary vocalist, activist, actress, and writer Abbey Lincoln.

As we approach the end of African Heritage Month and enter Women’s History Month, “Suga’ In My Bowl” honors renaissance woman Abbey Lincoln.

Most people are only familiar with Abbey Lincoln as a singer and actress. However, Ms. Lincoln was also published poet, writer, visual artist and composer. During this special, several artists will either share their personal tributes and/or read the work of Ms. Lincoln.

Contributing artists include:

• Sonia Sanchez, who reads Ms. Lincoln’s essay “To Whom Will She Cry Rape?” from the 1970 Toni Cade Bambara anthology The Black Woman and originally printed in a 1966 issue of Negro Digest.
• Latasha N. Nevada Diggs reads Ms. Lincoln’s poetry from Amina and Amiri Baraka’s 1983 anthology Confirmation: An Anthology of African American Women.
• Lashonda Katrice Barnett, author of I’ve Got Thunder: Black Women Songwriters on Their Craft (which featured an exchange with Abbey Lincoln) reads excerpts from Ms. Lincoln’s unpublished autobiography.
• Rembrances from political prisoner Mumia Abu Jamal, writers the late Jayne Cortez, Amina and Amiri Baraka, Mark Anthony Neal, Farah Jasmine Griffin and Carl Hancock Rux, filmmaker Ifa Bayeza (You Gotta Pay The Band), Maggie Brown (daughter of Oscar Brown Jr.), bassists Christian McBride and the late Charlie Haden.

These contributions will be offered as a 2-CD set in an effort to help continue this listener-supported experiment that is WBAI/Pacifica Radio. Please join us as we remember Ms. Abbey Lincoln (Aug. 6, 1930 – Aug. 14, 2010).

This program is hosted, engineered, produced, and edited by Joyce Jones. Listen for our On the Bandstand segment with NYC metro area appearances of Suga’ guests at the end of the first hour with Associate Producer Hank Williams.

This is a special Fund drive broadcast and we’ll be asking for your help to support WBAI Radio. Please consider donating (any amount: starting at only $5) to the station in the name of our show to support jazz programming and the work we do. Even better is choosing to be a monthly sustaining member, which gets you extra benefits as a “WBAI Buddy” and provides a consistent, predictable revenue stream for the station. Pledges at the $35 level will receive the 2 CD Abbey Lincoln documentary as a gift for supporting the station. We still have a few autographed copies left of Jon Else’s True South book documenting filmmaker Henry Hampton’s quest to complete the monumental Eyes on the Prize series. These are also available for a $35 donation, which also includes a year’s station membership!

Hank Williams is assistant producer for Suga’ in My Bowl and produces the weekly “On the Bandstand” segment as well as running the show’s website and blog, where he has reviewed several jazz festivals. His writing has also appeared in Left Turn magazine and American Music Review. He teaches at Lehman and Hunter colleges in the City University of New York system.