Best of 2023 Commentaries (Part 1 of 2)

TRANSCRIPT:

Chuck Reece: I’m Chuck Reece, editor-in-chief of SalvationSouth.com and host of the Salvation South podcast from Georgia Public Broadcasting. Each week we bring you a new short commentary on the culture and values of the American south, and they’re available worldwide anytime on our podcast feed.  On the first of this special 2 part episode of Salvation South, we look back on our most popular commentaries aired by GPB radio in 2023.

At the beginning of this year, artificial intelligence — and the worry over how students might use it to cheat on their assignments — had only recently become a dominant topic in the news. In this commentary I spent some time with ChatGPT and discovered that when it comes to forming a truly insightful understanding of Southern culture and history, our teachers didn’t have much to worry about.

Commentary: ChatGPT - (from February 2023)

Chuck Reece: That commentary originally aired on GPB radio in February 2023.

This next commentary has proven to be one of our most popular ones to date, with a whopping 20,000 downloads since we first aired it in April. After diving into the history of blues music — arguably the greatest Southern contribution to American culture — I’d been thinking about music’s power to soothe even the deepest pain we feel. And reflecting on the price paid by Robert Johnson.

Commentary: Blues (from April 2023)

Caption

A painting of Blues singer Robert Johnson by Welsh-born, Chicago-based artist and musician Jon Langford

Credit: Used with permission of Jon Langford/Salvation South

Chuck Reece: Robert Johnson and the Soothing Power of the Blues, from April 2023.

We’re looking back on some of our favorite Salvation South commentaries aired by Georgia Public Broadcasting this year. Earlier in the year, a new documentary from the Atlanta History Center about the history of Stone Mountain, and the memorial to the Confederacy carved into its flank, had prompted many Georgians to re-examine what they thought they knew about the carving and how it got there.

Commentary: Stone Mountain (from March 2023)

Chuck Reece: That commentary originally aired back in March.

There’s a good argument to be made that the greatest gift we can pass on to someone we love is a book. Books feed our spirits and take us to places we could never go on our own, and they bring us wisdom that stays with us for a lifetime. This next commentary, from January, is about an author named Silas House and his book Lark Ascending, which I considered the greatest southern novel of 2022.

Commentary: Lark Ascending (from January 2023)

Chuck Reece: Silas House and the power of the great southern novel, from January 2023.

We’ve come to our final commentary of this special episode, and it’s a story about when I first moved to New York City as a young journalist. Back then, as a southerner, I felt like I had something to prove. But I didn’t know exactly what that was. In this commentary, I report on what I learned from one audacious experiment with my new coworkers.

Commentary: Georgia Kid in NYC (from June 2023)

Caption

New York City, y'all.

Chuck Reece: That was A Georgia Kid in New York City, from June 2023.

That concludes the first part of our year end Salvation South commentary retrospective. Be sure to subscribe to Salvation South on your favorite podcast platform for part two. And keep an eye out for Salvation South Deluxe, a series of longer episodes that tell deeper stories of the Southern experience through the unique voices that live it.

Listen and subscribe to Salvation South at gpb.org/podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts, and come visit us at SalvationSouth.com.

I’m Chuck Reece. Thanks for listening.

Salvation South editor Chuck Reece comments on Southern culture and values in a weekly segment that airs Fridays at 7:45 a.m. during Morning Edition and 4:44 p.m. during All Things Considered on GPB Radio. Salvation South Deluxe is a series of longer Salvation South episodes which tell deeper stories of the Southern experience through the unique voices that live it. You can also find them here at GPB.org/Salvation-South and wherever you get your podcasts.