The Kitchen Sisters Present

In 2001, a quarter-century after boxing's celebrated "Thrilla in Manila," Ali and Frazier were once again poised to enter the ring. But this time it was the daughters of the legendary combatants who were scheduled to battle—22 year old Laila Ali and 39 year old Jacqui Frazier Lyde.

The Green Street Mortuary Band, made up of mostly Italians playing Christian hymns and dirges, accompanies traditional Chinese funeral processions through the streets of San Francisco's Chinatown. Tubas, gongs, firecrackers and spirit money tossed in the air, ward off evil spirits and carry on a tradition that dates back to 1911.

In the early 1950s, at the same time legendary record producer Sam Phillips was making recordings of the pageants and events happening in Memphis' white community—across town, R.A. Coleman, an African American photographer, was making recordings of the black community—weddings, church choirs, nightclubs and dance halls.

A look into the life of Taylor Negron— actor, comedian, and telephone message hoarder— told through the voicemails on his machine. Taylor died on January 10, 2015. We present this story in his honor.

Before Elvis walked through the door, before Sun Studios put Memphis on the map—Sam Phillips, a young man with a tape recorder, lived by the motto, "We Record Anything, Anywhere, Anytime."

She rose every day at dusk and rehearsed, performed, ate and drank until dawn. Then slept all day, woke up and began to create and unravel again as the sun went down. Nearly every song Edith Piaf sang came from a moment of her life on the streets of Paris. She would tell her composer and musician lovers a story, or describe a feeling or show them a gesture and they would put music and words to her pain and passion, giving her back her own musical autobiography. Charles Aznavour, Francis Lai, Georges Moustaki, Henri Contet, some of France's great musicians and writers recall their nights with Edith Piaf. Fugitive Waves is one of 10 podcasts in the Radiotopia Collective, some of the best story-driven podcasts on earth. 99% Invisible, The Truth, Love & Radio,Theory of Everything, Strangers, Radio Diaries, and us, The Kitchen Sisters. Come January you'll also be hearing Criminals, Mortified, The Illusionist and Heart. Love Funding for this episode comes from Mothlight Creative and Audible.com. Funding for Radiotopia comes from Mailchimp and The Knight Foundation and from all of you who backed the Kickstarter campaign that kicked some serious support. The Nights of Edith Piaf -- Produced by The Kitchen Sisters in collaboration with Raquel Bitton, who hosts and translates the program

Narrated by Andy Garcia, the story of the men who read to the cigar rollers as they worked in the cigar factories of Ybor City and Tampa in the early 19th century.

Part 3 of Hidden Kitchens World Trifecta with host Frances McDormand: Hidden Kitchens Russia, stories of the role of the kitchen in the downfall of the Soviet Union.

Part 2 of the Hidden Kitchens World Trifecta with host Frances McDormand and special guests Werner Herzog, Gael Garcia Bernal and Stories of Atomic Wine and The Romance and Sex Life of the date.

Fugitive Waves presents a Hidden Kitchens World Podcast Trifecta with Frances McDormand and The Kitchen Sisters. In this episode Salman Rushdie talks about his Hidden Kitchen. We travel to Sicily for The Pizza Connection—a story of fighting the mafia through food. And on to England for the seldom heard saga of a small dog bred to run in a wheel that turned a roasting spit in medieval kitchens—The Turnspit Dog: The Rise and Fall of the Vernepator Cur.

Just about anytime we walk out of The Kitchen Sisters office in San Francisco we stop and stare in the windows of City Lights bookstore, soaking in the covers of the new arrivals. Awhile back, we were stopped in our tracks by a book of photographs of Patti Smith – Patti staring down the camera, holding a movie camera herself. It turns out Patti wasn't just the muse of photographer Robert Mapplethorpe in the Sixties, she was also muse and model for Judy Linn, an art student and budding photographer in New York. Paging through Patti Smith 1969-1976, we discovered Judy had that no only photographed Patti, she had made a little super-8 movies too, as the two young women created a world together. The movies were missing, but the soundtracks remained. Lost and found sound, we thought. Got to hear those recordings, got to meet that photographer. And we did. Fugitive Waves, Episode Number 7: Just Girls: The Hidden World of Patti Smith and Judy Linn.

Fugitive Waves: Episode 6: Cry Me a River: A story of three pioneering river activist and the damming of wild rivers in the west.  Mark Dubois, co-founder of Friends of the River, Earth Day and International Rivers Network, began as a river guide who opened up rafting trips to disabled people in the 1970's.  Dubois protested the damming and flooding of the Stanislaus  River by chaining himself to a rock in the river as the water rose.  Katie Lee, born 1919, a former Hollywood starlet, ran the Colorado through Glen Canyon long before it was dammed and in 1955 was the 175th person to run the Grand Canyon.  An outspoken conservationist, singer and writer, she has spent her life fighting for rivers.  Ken Sleight, now in his late 80s, is a long time river and pack guide and activist in southern Utah who fought the damming of Glen Canyon and filling of Lake Powell.  An inspiration for Ed Abbey's, Monkey Wrench Gang, Sleight is currently working on the campaign to remove Glen Canyon dam.  

In this episode of Fugitive Waves, The Kitchen Sisters ride the nightshift with The Homobile. Homobiles is a non-commercial, volunteer, 24/7 ride service created by Lynnee Breedlove for the "LGBTQRXT and transgender community and others around San Francisco who feel the need safe, dependable rides, outside traditional services. "Moes getting hoes where they needs to goes," is their motto. Homobiles is for people who feel at risk because they don't conform to sexual or gender norms and have been targets of rudeness or shame or violence, says Lynne. Homobiles is a network of independent drivers who pilot their own cars, a non-profit organization that caters to this underserved, and sometimes harassed community in the Bay Area. This community car service operates on donations. No one is turned away for lack of funds. Homobiles has been called "Uber for Drag Queens," but with a mission that is social, not financial.

"I left Vietnam in 1972. I listen the radio when I was in high school. I still in Vietnam at that time. I left with US troops during the Vietnam War. I really love the song, you know, played by Glen Campbell, "Wichita Lineman." And all the song from the Bee Gee, from Beatle, Rolling Stone, I love. When I was young I heard, you know, "California Dream." I thought, `Wow, San Francisco, everybody wearing their flower in their hair?' I make my wish: when I grow up, I like to come to United States. I like to live in San Francisco, see if I can get flower in my hair. That's a "California Dreaming," the song. But when I come here in 1979--oh, it is hard. I have no relative. Just, like, a couple of friend. They help me. And I'm not able to be speaking very, very well. So every day when I am driving, I put a tape in my radio so I'm listening. When you come to the country here, the easy way to be get in--get a job is to go to into the nail salon. That's why the population from Vietnam, they all do nail business."

We were in London, searching for hidden kitchens, when we came upon an Eel Pie and Mash shop. These shops are now a dying breed, along with the eels they serve. Our search for the source of these vanishing eels led us to southwest London, to Eel Pie Island, a tiny slice of land with a flamboyant history that stretches from Henry VII to The Rolling Stones.