Archive: Around Town

Bound For GlorySomeone once told Phil Shapiro that he is a maker of magic.  "I like to make magic," he says.  "It's an important part of my life.  I've never been rich, but I've never been looking for dollars.  I've always been looking for magic."  He says part of that magic is bringing a community together, which explains why this Sunday has been declared 'Bound For Glory Day' by the City of Ithaca and Tompkins County.

Shapiro is celebrating the 40th anniversary of the show's first broadcast on WVBR with a special broadcast from Anabel Taylor Hall on the Cornell campus.  Shapiro's guest performer will be Josh White Jr., son of the great blues master, Josh White.  White does contemporary folk, as well blues, including his father's songs.  This special show will include local luminaries who will be on-air between 9:00 and 9:30 between White's sets.

Bound For Glory has featured live folk music performances as well as recorded songs from the very beginning when Shapiro started the show.  Live musicians played in the studio without an audience, but he managed to broadcast some very successful specials featuring live audiences.  The show almost didn't make it past the second year.  "In the fall of 1969 the program director tried to fire me," Shapiro recalls.  "When he couldn't fire me he tried to put me on Saturday night at midnight.  I raised all kinds of hell and finally he said, 'You can keep your time slot if you go live from Anabel Taylor every Sunday night.'  He didn't think I'd do it.  He was wrong."

Today Shapiro broadcasts 33 live shows per year and 19 studio shows.  On a typical Sunday Shapiro appears at WVBR around 5:00pm to get his CDs and LPs together.  He gets a list of commercials, copies the current weather forecast and generally prepares for the show.  He brings these to Anabel Taylor Hall, where Ken Deschere has been setting up the chairs.  Shapiro begins the tech setup as Terry Kelleher ('head techie,') and his two assistants Dave Rice and Ted Robinette show up with the sound and tech equipment.  Between 6:30 and 7:00 the performer has arrived and the crew performs thorough sound checks.  "We've put a lot of energy into making sure that everything just plain works," Shapiro says.

But Murphy's Law being what it is, sometimes things don't work, as when a performer doesn't show up.  At that point he scrambles to find local musicians to fill in.  "A number of years ago a performer hurt her back.  I called Carrie and we did the show on no notice and got three quarters of our CD out of it!"  He's talking about Binghamton fiddler Carrie Shore, with whom he performs professionally. 

Shapiro makes his living selling ads for the station as well as teaching group guitar lessons and performing with Shore.  But Bound For Glory is a labor of love.  Nobody gets paid for producing the show, not Shapiro, not his crew, not the musicians.  And in this day and age that is a miracle when you consider the caliber of performers he books.


He attributes that success to his audience, which he says validates the performing experience by their participation, and also to the high quality he and the other volunteers insist upon in everything from the sound mix to the care and welcome the performers receive.  "Most professional musicians are driven by some inner need to do what they do and mostly it's not a lot of fun," Shapiro explains.  "They do a lot of driving.  A lot of the shows that they do are for audiences that don't care.  They spend a lot of nights in crummy motels or trying to make conversation with nice people who put them up.  And it's not easy.

"When they come to Bound for Glory, they leave with a smile on their face, because they get a message that there is a reason why they're doing this.  This is a very powerful message, and it has an enormous amount to do with why the show is still here.  Bound For Glory is a ratifying experience.  It says, 'Yes, I'm here for a reason.'"

Shapiro says the show has changed over the years, but that it is basically the same show now that it was in 1967.  One difference is that he now books internationally know performers, as opposed to the local performers who filled the schedule in the early years.  "Almost all the people I get on the show are national or international touring professional musicians," he says.  And in contrast to the old days when he had to actively pursue each performer, many now contact him to ask whether they can be on the show.

And these days he has some help.  In addition to his tech crew, 'The Friends of Bound For Glory' formed in 1996 to raise money to buy new equipment, keep the equipment functioning and do other things that keep the show running.  Shapiro says that President Jim Harper, Mark Anbinder, Ken Deschere, and Leslie Kinsland are the 'activists' of the Friends of Bound For Glory.

About six months ago Shapiro hosted his 1200th live concert.  When you consider what goes into putting together even one live concert that number is mind blowing.  Shapiro spends much time on the phone and on the Internet keeping abreast of when performers' schedules bring them near Ithaca, booking shows months in advance.  When asked if he ever takes vacations Shapiro laughs.  He takes a break in June when Mark Anbinder takes over a studio show for him.  He says he's only missed two live shows in 40 years, one because of a power failure and the second because of the blizzard of '93.  "Even when I broke my ankle I hobbled in on crutches, high as a kite from pain killers and did the show anyhow," he laughs.  "I'm a pretty stubborn guy."

Over 40 years things have gone well for the show, but when you do live radio there are bound to be some surprises. In the 1970s a duo called L.A. Murphy decided it would be clever to perform a pantomime, creating about two minutes of dead radio time.   "The audience recognized that this was a total disaster and just sat there, not knowing what to do," Shapiro recalls.  "That was a low point, no question about it."

But there have been many high points including Shapiro's favorite show that featured an appearance by U.Utah Phillips, a well known singer-song writer who often tells stories from his own life in his stage show.  "On that show, I guess he felt really comfortable," Shapiro recalls.  "It was an incredibly intense and moving experience, not to mention that he sang some darn fine songs."  That show also had what Shapiro calls an interesting byproduct.  Feminist songwriter Ani DiFranco was driving on the New York Thruway and heard the show on her radio.  This led to a major collaboration between the two performers resulting in two albums.

And that's all part of the magic Shapiro creates.  "I'm not under the illusion that I have the power to change the world," he says.  "I do think that if we are able to right the wrongs in our world, some of it will have to do with things like building community, and coming together and sharing, doing things locally and not being dependent on somebody else for all of the details of our lives.  That's a big part of what keeps me going."  And a big part of what has made Bound For Glory a an Ithaca tradition for 40 years.

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Picture courtesy of Phil Shapiro

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