Terry Gross

We remember paleontologist and evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould. He died Monday at the age of 60. Gould was a professor of geology at Harvard and curator of the university's Museum of Comparative Zoology. He wrote columns for Natural History Magazine and Discover Magazine, and had written several books, including the award-winning The Mismeasure of Man. Gould used his writing and teaching to demystify the scientific method and to provide a historical perspective on science for the layman.

Soprano Eileen Farrell has died at the age of 82. Well listen back to a 1992 interview. Her career began in radio, with her own show on CBS, in the 1940s. In the fifties she started singing opera, and performed with every major opera company and symphony orchestra in the US, including five seasons with the Metropolitan Opera in New York. Starting in the sixties, she began putting out albums of jazz standards. Her 1999 autobiography is entitled, Cant Help Singing. She was also a professor of music at Indiana University and the University of Maine.

Chuck Jones, creator of the cartoon characters Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and many others for Warner Bros., died Friday at the age of 89. His career in animation lasted nearly 70 years. Fresh Air remembers him with a 1989 interview.

Country music star Waylon Jennings died this week at the age of 64. Born in 1937 in Littlefield, Texas, he was a disc jockey at 14, and had already formed his own band at the age of 12, making guest appearances on local station KDAV's Sunday Party, where he met Buddy Holly in 1955. Jennings became Holly's bass player. It was Jennings who gave his seat up to the Big Bopper on the plane that crashed and killed Buddy Holly.

Ted Demme died Sunday at the age of 38 from a heart attack. He was playing basketball when he died. Early in his career he produced Yo! MTV Raps. He won an Emmy in 1999 for co-producing the civil-rights TV movie, A Lesson Before Dying. Demme film credits include Who the Man, The Ref, Snitch, and Blow. Ted Demme was the nephew of film maker Jonathan Demme.

Juan Garcia Esquivel was the icon of space age bachelor music, producing innovative recordings of pop music in the 1950s and sixties. He died in his home in Mexico on January 3rd at the age of 83. In 1994 his work was re-issued on the CD, Esquivel!: Space Age Bachelor Pad Music (Bar/None). Yvonne de Bourbon, one of Esquivel's ex-wives, and a former performer in his live show.

Blues singer Rufus Thomas has died at the age of 84. Wel play back several songs and an interview from the 1997 Chicago Blues Festival. Thomas was best known for novelty dance tunes like Walking the Dog and Do the Funky Chicken. In 1953 Thomas recorded Bear Cat, the answer to Big Mama Thornton Hound Dog. It became Sun Recordsfirst hit. In the sixties, Thomas became one of the founding performers for Stax Records.

Writer Ken Kesey died Saturday 11/10/01 at the age of 66. Kesey was a leading figure of 60s counterculture. As the organizer of the Merry Pranksters, Kesey did as much as anyone to popularize the use of LSD and other hallucinogens. Kesey also wrote two of the most popular books of the era, Sometimes a Great Notion and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. He also the author of Demon Box, Caverns and other books.

We remember violinist Isaac Stern He died Saturday at the age of 81. He died of heart failure.

We remember newspaper editor and anti-apartheid activist Donald Woods. His relationship with the slain black South African activist Steve Biko was dramatized in the 1987 film, Cry Freedom. He died yesterday in England, where he had lived for over 20 years. Well listen back to a 1987 interview.