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Georgia Today: Falcons support girls flag football; holiday food safety; 2024 music interviews
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On the Tuesday Dec. 24 edition of Georgia Today: The Atlanta Falcons are providing support for high school girls' flag football programs, a UGA food specialist has holiday safety tips, and we'll look back at some of GPB's music and entertainment stories from 2024.
Peter Biello: Welcome to the Georgia Today podcast from GPB News. Today is Tuesday, December 24th. I'm Peter Biello. On today's episode, the Atlanta Falcons are helping to grow Georgia high school flag football programs. A food safety specialist from the University of Georgia has some holiday kitchen tips for you. And we'll highlight some of the GPB stories and interviews you might have missed in 2024. We'll hear from the one and only Donny Osmond, perennial pop powerhouse Hanson, and we'll rediscover how a Savannah murder became a musical that's headed for Broadway. These stories and more are coming up on this edition of Georgia Today.
Story 1
Peter Biello: The Atlanta Falcons are expanding their efforts to grow flag football across Georgia. Last week, the team announced new grant opportunities to help schools start or sustain girls flag football programs. Chris Millman, Senior Vice President of Community Engagement, says ultimately the Falcons want a girls flag football program in all 465 Georgia high schools.
Chris Millman: So with this new program, we're going to now give grant money available to any school that one wants to start a team. And then we also are going to continue to fund schools, those 275 schools that currently have a team we're now going to have additional funding. Make them feel our love and support here from the Atlanta Falcons for girls flag football.
Peter Biello: The Falcons also announced Georgia high school tackle football programs will have the opportunity to receive up to 50 Guardian Caps per school in an effort to enhance health and safety at the high school level.
Story 2
Peter Biello: As holiday cooking shifts into high gear, one food safety specialist at the University of Georgia wants people to play it safe. GPB's Chase McGee has more on keeping a germ-free kitchen.
Chase McGee: Old culinary habits are hard to shake. That's according to Carla Schwan, food safety specialist at UGA's Cooperative Extension. She remembers watching her mom prepare poultry by washing it in the sink.
Carla Schwan: I would ask her, "Why are you rinsing the poultry?" and explain why you should not. And she said, "Well, but that's how I learned from my mom," you know, from my grandma.
Chase McGee: But Schwan says that doing that can create the perfect conditions for harmful bacteria to grow. Instead, thaw your proteins in the fridge and cook your poultry to 165°F. She says that while it's great to socialize over the dining room table, refrigerate leftovers within two hours at room temperature.
Carla Schwan: You want to keep that between three and four days. And if you think that you're not going to be able to eat that, maybe freezing it it's a best idea and it can keep it frozen for about three or four months.
Chase McGee: Or, Schwan says you can always send home an extra plate with whoever's at your table. For GPB News, I'm Chase McGee.
Peter Biello: Hanson, the Grammy-winning musical trio of brothers from Tulsa, Okla., came to Atlanta to celebrate the 20th anniversary of their album Underneath with two concerts at the Buckhead Theater. Brothers Taylor and Zac Hanson joined GPB's Kristi York Wooten to share their very special connections to Georgia.
Peter Biello: That was Taylor and Zac Hanson of the group Hanson speaking with GPB's Kristi York Wooten. To hear the entire interview, visit gpb.org.
Story 4
Peter Biello: When we're little kids this time of year can produce precious memories that will last our entire lives. Then we grow up and life gets more complicated. But there's great value in savoring those old memories. Here's Salvation South editor Chuck Reese.
Chuck Reece: 'Tis the season. Holiday season. The time of year when people sing Christmas carols. I mean, occurs to me, however, that Christmas songs are not considered particularly Southern. Let's say you live in Charlotte, N.C., and a group of carolers arrives at your doorstep one evening. They will most likely sing "Jingle Bells" or "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" or "Silent Night," just like the carolers in Seattle. But there is, good friend, Southern Christmas music. So I decided to share four of my favorites, songs that are on my holiday playlist every year. Songs that touch all four bases: the funky, the twangy, the bluesy, and the punky. Let's start with the funky. My home state's own James Brown, the Godfather of Soul, always hits my playlist with this tune from 1968.
Chuck Reece: Next, let's step back a few years in Southern Christmas times and roll westward to Texas, where one of my favorite holiday tunes was written and recorded by Mr. Willie Nelson in 1964.
Chuck Reece: Pretty pencils to write "I love you." Man, I love that line. Now, our Tennesseean friends are partial to an even older chain released in 1957 by a young man from Memphis named Elvis Presley. If someone you love is not with you at Christmas, "Blue Christmas" is a must listen. And if the person you love best is with you, you should grab that person and dance to Blue Christmas. I mean, just listen to that rhythm. It's absolutely perfect for one of those not quite slow dances where you can hold your partner a little too closely and do some spinning and maybe even a dip at the end. And for our last numbered day, let's hop forward four decades to the 1990s and back home to Georgia. This tune isn't really a Christmas song, but ever since it came out in 1991, it's been on all of my holiday lists because it just captures so wonderfully how we all want to feel at this time of year. I hope this season brings you at least a few moments where you feel shiny and happy and do your very best, as the song says, to throw your love around. I hope all of you have the happiest of holiday seasons, whatever you celebrate. And we would just love it this season if you dropped by to visit us a time or two at SalvationSouth.com
Peter Biello: Salvation South editor Chuck Reese comments on Southern culture and values weekly on GPB. Plus, Chuck hosts Salvation South Deluxe, a series of extended episodes of the Salvation South podcast that unravel the untold stories of the Southern experience, narrated by the authentic voices that make this region truly unique.
Peter Biello: Donny Osmond has been performing since he was a small child and achieved worldwide fame in the 1970s, first with his brothers, then with his only sister, Marie, on their TV variety show. He's performed in Georgia many times over the years and returned to Atlanta for a show at the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Center this past summer. GPB's Kristi York Wooten talked to Donny Osmond about some of his Georgia memories.
Donny Osmond: We run on stage and all these flashbulbs were going off in the in the audience and massive amounts of screams. Now, what I'm telling you happened in like nanoseconds. All the screams are taking place, and I look out into the audience. Of course, we were in the dark, and I thought somebody was hurt because everybody was screaming. And then I realized, right in that split second, "They're screaming for us. I’ve got to do this the rest of my life. This is amazing!" And then we went on that big tour where we came to the Municipal Auditorium in Georgia, in Atlanta.
Kristi York Wooten: So one of the things I wanted to ask you about is you're known as an entertainer because you do lots of things in addition to singing, but people may not know what a huge audiophile you are and how much you actually love music and listening to music, and you're influenced by a lot of things. Growing up especially, you've talked about Motown, R&B, rock and roll. You and I both love Stevie Wonder and Peter Gabriel and folks like that. But your latest album, Start Again, came out during the pandemic, right?
Donny Osmond: Correct.
Kristi York Wooten: And you've got a track featuring Charlie Wilson from the Gap Band.
Donny Osmond: And yeah. Gap Band, yeah
Kristi York Wooten: And one of the songs, I think had a writing credit with Ne-Yo as well. So, I think a lot of people don't know this about [your tastes]. So tell us a little bit more about some of the music that you dig.
Donny Osmond: Well, one of the most important things you can do as an artist is reinvent. When people expect one thing, you gotta turn the other way. Some artists don't do that, and that's fine — whatever they want to do. With me, I grew up with “variety” as my middle name, and it was necessary for reinvention. Because when you hit it so big as a — as a child star, as a teeny bopper, you have to get out of that genre as you grow older. Not that I'm putting it down, because it was fantastic. “Puppy Love" years, “Go Away, Little Girl” — all those songs, they were fantastic. And the R&B stuff that I did with my brothers, “One Bad Apple,” things like that.
But then you have to progress. So yeah, I would listen to Stevie Wonder a lot. Earth, Wind and Fire. I loved P-Funk — Philadelphia funk and — of course. But back in the early days, my roots were all about singing. I was surrounded by one of the greatest singers of all time, Andy Williams, and listening to his control and the way he approached the song gave me that foundation. Then I went to the Stevie Wonders of the world and then — which, you know, he doesn't sing "correctly," but he sings amazingly. But when you get the training of Andy Williams with the combination of Stevie Wonder [Donny imitates Stevie Wonder], you can still control the sound and still have the soul, the control of Andy Williams and the soul of Stevie Wonder. That was my training.
Kristi York Wooten: That makes sense. So let's talk a little bit about ...
Donny Osmond: Sorry, I broke into some songs there! [Laughs.]
Kristi York Wooten: That's fine with us. That's fine with us.
Donny Osmond: Yeah. That's what I've been doing for 60 years. So whatever. [Laughs.]
Kristi York Wooten: There's some Georgia artists we could talk about, too. I know you have a couple of Ray Charles stories, but I also want to know if you have any Gladys Knight stories or any stories about any other Georgia artists. I know that Gladys was on the reincarnated Donny and Marie show one time, at least.
Donny Osmond: Oh, no. We're going to do one better than that.
Kristi York Wooten: OK. Who we got?
Donny Osmond: One better than that. No, it's Gladys, but when I was the very first artist to start [the Fox TV singing competition where performers dress in disguises] The Masked Singer, I was the Peacock and Gladys was on that show with me. But none of us knew who we were competing against. It was all secret. So it got down to T-Pain, who won, me and Gladys. We were the final three. And obviously Gladys’ voice is so unique and it's so recognizable. So we're standing there during a commercial or during a downtime in the wings, and I'm standing next to the Bee, which is Gladys, and she's standing next to the Peacock, which is me, and we're not supposed to talk to each other. And I just said, “Hi, Gladys.” And I heard this sweet little laugh. She said, “Hi, Donny.”
Kristi York Wooten: She recognized your voice!
Donny Osmond: Yeah, she recognized me, and I recognized hers. But I didn't know it was T-Pain. And Gladys came in third, I came in second. And T-Pain won the first [season].
Kristi York Wooten: What a trio.
Donny Osmond: Yeah.
Peter Biello: That was GPB's Kristi York Wootten talking with legendary stage and screen performer Donny Osmond.
Peter Biello: Also this past year, 30 years after hitting bookstores Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil premiered as a musical. GPB's Savannah reporter Benjamin Payne attended opening night in Chicago and had this review.
Peter Biello: And that's a wrap on this episode of Georgia Today. Thanks so much for tuning in. You can find the latest headlines at GPB.org/News and you'll find more stories from Georgia on the podcast tomorrow. So subscribe now and we will pop up in your podcast feed automatically tomorrow afternoon. If you've got feedback, we would love to hear from you. Email GeorgiaToday@gpb.org. I'm Peter Biello. Thanks again for listening. We'll see you tomorrow.
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