Fresh Music on Fresh Air

I remember discovering Terri Gross and her Fresh Air radio interviews soon after I started work in publishing. I thought they were terrific, and of course my firm wanted to get our authors booked on that show. I don’t recall if we ever did.

Last week my old friend Steve Young sat down to talk with Terri Gross, so now I’m jealous. He was in the studio along with lyricist Sheldon Harnick and performer John Russell to discuss “industrial musicals” of the late twentieth century: musical shows written and performed at a professional level for big American corporations’ sales conferences and trade shows.

Steve just co-wrote a book documenting that little-known art form: Everything’s Coming Up Profits. He’s assembled a website that shares some of the surviving recordings. The songs are both catchy and hilarious, and it’s clear in the lively radio conversation that Terri Gross loved hearing and learning about them. If only we’d known what would catch her attention.