Terry Gross

We talk with Raul Malo the lead singer for the country music band The Mavericks. The group's latest CD is "Music For All." by MCA Nashville 1995.

Kazuo Ishiguro won international recognition with his novel The Remains of the Day. He won the distinguished Booker Award for this book in 1989. It was later adapted to a movie starring Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson. The Japanese born British writer has released his latest book The Unconsoled, Alfred A. Knopf 1995. A story about the mixed blessings of celebrity from the point of view of a concert pianist. Other titles by Ishiguro include: A Pale View of the Hills, An Artist of the Floating World.

Former Secretary of State James Baker talks about his role during the Bush Administration. His new autobiography is The Politics of Diplomacy: Revolution, War & Peace, 1989-1992.It was co-written with Thomas M. DeFrank and published by G.P. Putnam's Sons 1995. As the 61st Secretary of State, James Baker oversaw U.S. relations during many historic geo-political changes. Among those include The Persian Gulf War, Tiananmen Square, and The fall of the Berlin Wall.

Former Soviet Ambassador to the United States Anatoly Dobrynin. Dobrynin has written his autobiography In Confidence: Moscow's Ambassador to America's Six Cold War Presidents published by Times Books 1995. Dobrynin was Ambassador from 1962 (Kennedy) through 1986 (Reagan). He was a key diplomat in many U.S./Soviet conflicts including The Cuban Missile Crisis. Dobrynin, now 76 years old, is still active in Russian diplomacy as senior advisor to the Foreign Ministry. He lives in Moscow.

Former Executive Editor of The Washington Post Ben Bradlee. During his stint at the paper he helped transform the Post into one of the most influential investigative newspapers. Under his leadership, reporters investigated and broke open the Watergate story. The paper also challenged the federal government over the right to publish the Pentagon Papers. Bradlee has written his autobiography: Ben Bradlee: A Good Life: Newspapering and Other Adventures. (Simon & Shuster)

Singer Betty Johnson. She was a member of "The Johnson Family," which sang gospel and country music for two decades. President Franklin D. Roosevelt was a fan, and the group was invited to sing at his memorial service. Johnson went solo in the late 1950s and was a regular on Don McNeill's "Breakfast Club," and Jack Paar's TV show. She also made many guest appearances on TV shows. During that time she made over 150 records and a dozen albums. Johnson left show business to raise a family and receive a degree in drama at Dartmouth.

Soprano Eileen Farrell. At the age of 75, she's had a long career: she began in radio, with her own show on CBS, in the forties. In the fifties she started singing opera, and has performed with every major opera company and symphony orchestra in the U.S., including five seasons with the Metropolitan Opera in New York. She has also been a professor of music at Indiana University and the University of Maine. Starting in the sixties, she began putting out albums of jazz standards.

Ronald Williams is Executive Director of New York Therapeutic Communities Inc. It was founded in 1977 to pilot a program called "Stay'n Out." The program provides substance abuse treatment to New York state's prisons. The program is to reduce recidivism in prisons. 212-971-6033.

Marc Mauer is a co-author for a new study that says there has been a sharp increase over the past five years in the number of African-American males age 20-29 in jail, on probation or on parole. The study finds, on any given day, one in three black men in their 20s is under some form of court supervision. Five years ago, a similar study found that the percentage at one in four blacks. The study is titled Young Black Americans and the Criminal Justice System: Five Years Later. it's two authors are Marc Mauer and Tracy Huling.

Editorial writer for the New York Times Brent Staples. He wrote a memoir last year: Parallel Time: Growing Up in Black & White (Pantheon). In 1984, Staples' younger brother, a cocaine dealer, was murdered. Staples began a process of reconsideration of the major questions in his life: his distance from his family by graduate study at the University of Chicago; the demise and racial divisions of his industrial hometown in Pennsylvania.