SouthBound
144 episodes - English - Latest episode: 4 days ago - ★★★★★ - 274 ratingsThe South … What is it? Movies, books, songs, myths and legends have tried to explain this part of the United States. SouthBound, a new podcast series from WFAE, talks to people who were born and raised in the South. Hosted by journalist Tommy Tomlinson, SouthBound features conversations with notable Southerners from all walks of life – from artists and athletes to preachers and politicians.Who would you like to hear on the SouthBound podcast? Click here or use the form below to submit your favorite Southerner and the question you would love for them to answer. Who knows... you might just hear them on a future episode.
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Episodes
SouthBound: Issac Bailey On Embracing Hard Conversations And Finding His Own Voice
September 30, 2020 04:04Issac Bailey has had to jump a lot of hurdles.
SouthBound: Elijah Heyward III And The New Museum On 'Sacred Ground' In African American History
September 16, 2020 08:00You can’t understand the South without trying to understand Charleston, South Carolina.
SouthBound: Anthony Hamilton On Reshaping His Sound And Raising His Kids In This Troubled Summer
September 02, 2020 08:00Anthony Hamilton, the Grammy-winning singer and songwriter from Charlotte, has spent his career working a fertile patch of rhythm and blues.
SouthBound: Fawn Weaver On Bottling A Tribute To A Former Slave's Role In Whiskey History
August 19, 2020 08:00Fawn Weaver is the author of a best-selling book on happy marriages. Her husband is a movie exec. They were happy and comfortable in Los Angeles. But then she read a story about a former slave named Nearest Green, who taught his method of making Tennessee whiskey to a young businessman named Jack Daniel. Weaver longed to know more.
SouthBound: Eddie Glaude On James Baldwin's Clear-Eyed Vision Of Race In The South -- And America
August 05, 2020 08:00Eddie Glaude, the chair of the Department of African American Studies at Princeton, is the author of a new book called “Begin Again,” about the writer James Baldwin, and how his work reflects on modern race relations in America.
SouthBound: Karen Cox on Confederate Statues, Plantation Neighborhoods, And Other Old South Remnants
July 22, 2020 08:00The links to the South’s Confederate past are beginning to come down – some by law, some by force. But this part of the country is still strewn with memorials to the Lost Cause – from monuments in town squares to the names of parks and streets and schools.
SouthBound: Clint Smith's Voice Rises To A Transformative Moment In America
July 08, 2020 08:00Clint Smith grew up in New Orleans until his family had to relocate to Houston in Hurricane Katrina. He has grown up to become one of America’s most powerful young voices, especially when it comes to the value of Black lives.
SouthBound Replay: Harvey Gantt On Activism, Jesse Helms, And His Faith In Better Days
June 24, 2020 08:00This is a recut version of the very first episode of SouthBound, which we put into the world on Nov. 15, 2017. Our guest for this first episode was Harvey Gantt, a longtime pioneer in civil rights in the Carolinas.
SouthBound: Regina Bradley On The Glories Of OutKast, And Southern Hip-Hop As Living History
June 10, 2020 08:00If you know the Atlanta hip-hop duo OutKast – the rappers Big Boi and André 3000 — you might know them from their big pop hits “Hey Ya!” or “The Way You Move.”
SouthBound: Marcus King Talks About Coming Off The Road, And Plays A Song For Us From Home
May 27, 2020 08:00Marcus King was playing clubs around the Carolinas before he was old enough to drive.
SouthBound: Rachel Lance On Trying To Solve The Mystery Of A Confederate Submarine
May 13, 2020 08:00On Feb. 17, 1864, a torpedo from a Confederate submarine called the H.L. Hunley blew a hole in the side of a Union ship called the USS Housatonic in Charleston Harbor, becoming the first combat submarine to sink a warship in history. But after the attack, the Hunley disappeared.
SouthBound: Todd May On Living Ethically During The Coronavirus, And Working On 'The Good Place'
April 29, 2020 08:00The TV show “The Good Place” recently wrapped up after four seasons on NBC. “The Good Place” was a unicorn of a TV show – a comedy that explored deep philosophical issues of life and death and what it means to be human.
SouthBound: Stuart Stevens On His Career As A Republican Consultant, And Why He's Walking Away
April 15, 2020 08:00Stuart Stevens, a son of Mississippi, helped Republicans get elected for more than 40 years.
SouthBound: Elaina Plott On Covering Politics, Writing With Compassion, And The Bullet In Her Arm
April 01, 2020 08:00Elaina Plott is a young reporter from Alabama with skills beyond her years.
SouthBound: Food Writer Hanna Raskin on Barbecue Hash, Seafood Buffets And Occasionally Angry Chefs
March 18, 2020 08:00There's a reason you don't see Hanna Raskin’s face in this photo – she tries to keep it hidden for her job.
SouthBound: Fortune Feimster On Small Towns, Big Laughs, And The Movie That Changed Her Life
March 04, 2020 09:00There was a young woman named Emily Feimster from a small town in North Carolina. She was an athlete in high school and college, presented as a debutante, graduated summa cum laude, had the whole world in front of her. But she didn’t know what she wanted to be. And more than that, she didn’t know who she really was.
SouthBound: Photographer Burk Uzzle On MLK, Woodstock, And Coming Back Home
February 19, 2020 09:00You might not have heard the name Burk Uzzle – if you did, you’d remember it. But it’s likely that you’ve seen his work.
SouthBound Replay: Brooklyn Decker On Acting, Running A Business, And Coming Home
February 05, 2020 09:00Today's episode is a replay of our conversation with Brooklyn Decker from October 2018. Decker grew up outside of Charlotte, where SouthBound is based, and was discovered at a mall by a talent scout for a modeling agency. When we talked, she was back in town to see family.
SouthBound: The Drive-By Truckers' Patterson Hood Explores The South's Psyche And Sound
January 22, 2020 09:00The Drive-By Truckers’ new album “The Unraveling” comes out Jan. 31. Patterson Hood co-founded the band in 1996 with his longtime musical partner Mike Cooley.
SouthBound: Micah Cash On Viewing The Waffle House From The Inside Out
January 08, 2020 09:00 - 2.24 KBNo matter your culture or upbringing, at some point, if you live in the South, you wind up in a Waffle House.
SouthBound Replay: Andre Leon Talley on Fashion, Glamor, And Preserving His Childhood Home
December 25, 2019 09:00 - 2.94 KBHere’s a holiday gift from us here at SouthBound: a replay of our 2018 interview with fashion icon Andre Leon Talley.
SouthBound: Erika Council On Family, Destiny, And The Secrets To A Great Biscuit
December 11, 2019 09:00 - 1.99 KBErika Council grew up among food royalty. One of her grandmothers owned the classic soul-food restaurant Mama Dip’s in Chapel Hill. And now Erika has found her own prominent place in Southern food, especially through her biscuits, the centerpiece of her Bomb Biscuits pop-up meals in Atlanta.
SouthBound Replay: Vivian Howard On 'A Chef’s Life,' Her New Show, And Living In Front Of The Camera
November 27, 2019 09:00Today we’re replaying a previously aired episode of "SouthBound" with chef and TV host Vivian Howard.
SouthBound: Author Kevin Wilson On Writing, On Family, And On Fire
November 13, 2019 09:00When author Kevin Wilson talks about combustibles, he means exactly what he says. His new novel, “Nothing To See Here,” features a set of twins who, when they get agitated, literally catch on fire.
SouthBound: Mitch Landrieu On The South's Racial Divide, And How To Bridge It
October 30, 2019 08:04Mitch Landrieu comes from one of the South’s most storied political families. His dad, Moon Landrieu, was mayor of New Orleans for 28 years. His sister, Mary, was a U.S. Senator. Mitch was lieutenant governor of Louisiana and then mayor of New Orleans from 2010 to 2018. After leaving office he founded the E Pluribus Unum Fund to study issues involving race in the South.
SouthBound: Poet Maurice Manning On Writing About Abe Lincoln, And Finding Inspiration In The Woods
October 16, 2019 04:01Maurice Manning writes poems about turnips, and copperheads, and tire swings, and a woman who gets her apron strings caught in an old wringer washer. His work is dug from the ground of the Kentucky farmland where he lives. But it’s also elevated, universal, as high and expansive as the stars.
SouthBound: Rhiannon Giddens Digs Deep Into The South's (And The World's) Musical Roots
October 02, 2019 04:01When you listen to Rhiannon Giddens, you might hear a little bit of anything. She grew up in Greensboro, North Carolina, biracial and multicultural and absolutely omnivorous when it came to music.
SouthBound: Author Casey Cep On The Real-Life Murder Story That Harper Lee Tried To Write
September 18, 2019 04:01Harper Lee wrote one of the classic novels in American history, “To Kill a Mockingbird.” A second novel, “Go Set a Watchman,” was published under a cloud of controversy a few months before her death. But there was another book that Harper Lee worked on – a nonfiction story from her home state of Alabama that involved a preacher, a series of mysterious deaths, and possibly voodoo.
SouthBound: Ben Folds On Making Music, Making Mistakes, And Building A Creative Life
September 04, 2019 04:01Ben Folds has pounded pianos into submission around the world for the past 25 years, playing everything from ballads to heavy-metal covers to symphonic pieces – often in the same night.
SouthBound: ESPN's Paul Finebaum Gets Us Ready For A New College Football Season
August 21, 2019 04:01In Southeastern Conference football history, the true legends go by just one name. Bear. Herschel. Bo. And now there’s another, although you have to stretch it out: Pawwwwwwwwl .
SouthBound: Wrestling Announcer David Crockett On Life Around (And Sometimes In) The Ring
August 07, 2019 04:01David Crockett spent years as one of the announcers for Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling, the wrestling promotion based in the Carolinas from the '50s through the '80s. His dad, Jim Crockett, founded the business.
SouthBound: Kyes Stevens On Teaching Alabama Prisoners And The Complications Of Home
July 24, 2019 04:01Kyes Stevens went from her tiny hometown in Alabama to Sarah Lawrence College in New York. For a lot of people it might have been a springboard to a bigger world. But Stevens ended up going back home and making her own world bigger.
SouthBound: Drew Lanham On Birding While Black, And Hope As The Thing With Feathers
July 10, 2019 04:01Listening to Drew Lanham is like standing in a field and hearing the sounds of nature wash over you. Lanham grew up in the country in South Carolina and fell in love with watching birds. Eventually, he turned that love into his career.
SouthBound: Ed Currie On The Carolina Reaper, And Hot Peppers As A Spiritual Experience
June 26, 2019 04:01On a patch of farmland down in South Carolina, a man named Ed Currie grows the hottest peppers on Earth. The Guinness Book of World Records says so – they’ve certified his pepper called the Carolina Reaper as the hottest ever measured. During this episode I try some sauce made from those peppers. It’s called Chocolate Plague. I’m relieved to still be here to tell you about it.
SouthBound Replay: Josh Burford On Documenting The LGBTQ History Of The South
June 12, 2019 04:01Josh Burford was one of our first guests on SouthBound, a year and a half ago. Josh is an expert on the LGBTQ history of the South, and at the time we talked, he was about to leave Charlotte for Alabama to co-found the Invisible Histories Project, which aims to document queer history throughout the South.
SouthBound: Matt And Ted Lee On Southern Food, Catering, And The Mysteries Of The Hotbox
May 29, 2019 12:41Matt and Ted Lee are brothers who grew up in Charleston and moved to New York. They had what they thought was a great idea – to sell boiled peanuts to all the Southern-themed joints in the Big Apple. It didn’t go well.
SouthBound: Lisa Hendy On Becoming Chief Ranger At Great Smoky Mountains National Park
May 15, 2019 04:01Lisa Hendy just became the first woman to be named chief ranger at the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. She’s in charge of emergency operations for the park, which covers 800 square miles on the Tennessee-North Carolina border and is America's busiest national park, with 11.4 million visitors last year.
SouthBound: Tony Jack On His Journey From The Streets Of Miami To Harvard Yard
May 01, 2019 04:01I met Tony Jack 10 years ago when I was on a fellowship at Harvard. It was the first day of a sociology class I was taking. Tony walked in looking like an NFL lineman – tall and thick and wearing a track suit. Then, the professor had us introduce ourselves. And about 10 seconds after Tony started talking, I knew he was the smartest one in the class.
SouthBound: Leighton Ford On Family, Faith, And His Friendship With Billy Graham
April 17, 2019 04:02Leighton Ford wasn’t born a Southerner, but surely by now he qualifies – he has lived in Charlotte more than 60 years. Before then, back home in Canada, he met a young preacher named Billy Graham. He ended up not just working with Graham, but marrying his sister Jeanie. He went on to his own career as a teacher and mentor to young evangelist. But he and Billy Graham stayed friends to Graham’s dying day.
SouthBound: Chow Club Atlanta’s Yohana Solomon On Bringing The World To A Southern Table
April 03, 2019 04:00Yohana Solomon had to learn a different way of living when she emigrated to America 20 years ago. She took political asylum here as her home country of Ethiopia was in the middle of a war. Eventually, she landed in Atlanta. And now she brings the whole world to a Southern supper table.
SouthBound: Chuck Culpepper On Life As A World Traveler, A Gay Man And A Sportswriter
March 20, 2019 09:00Chuck Culpepper and I were friends for years before I ever met him — we used to talk about music and storytelling on a chat room created by some fellow writers back in the Internet’s dial-up days. Chuck is one of the few openly gay male sportswriters in America.
SouthBound: Historian Tom Hanchett On The Past, Present (And Future?) Of The South
March 06, 2019 05:00Tom Hanchett is a historian. Charlotte is his particular area of expertise, but he has spent years studying how the modern South came to be. So how did our history make the South what it is today? And what are some of the changes likely to come our way in the future?
SouthBound: Charlie Lovett On Going Down The Rabbit Hole Of Lewis Carroll’s Life
February 20, 2019 05:00When Charlie Lovett was a boy growing up in Winston-Salem, one day he put on a record and heard a recording of Lewis Carroll’s “Alice In Wonderland.” When Charlie became a grown man, he would become one of the world’s leading experts on Lewis Carroll and his creations.
SouthBound Replay: Dale Earnhardt Jr. On Fatherhood, Concussions, And Life After Racing
February 06, 2019 05:01A note from Tommy: Today’s episode is a recut version of the conversation I had with Dale Earnhardt Jr. last March. We’ve done some editing and reshaping so it might sound a little different, but we thought it might be a good time to re-air it with the Daytona 500 coming up on Feb. 17. You’ll hear Dale Jr. talk about his mixed emotions about retiring as a race car driver, and his relationship with his legendary dad, Dale Sr. He also talks about getting ready to become a father, which happened...