Terry Gross

Fresh Air went national in 1987, and we're celebrating that 20th anniversary by revisiting some classic broadcasts. In this segment: A song from New Orleans musician Dr. John, aka Mac Rebennack. Rebroadcast from May 1987.

Fresh Air went national in 1987, and we're celebrating that 20th anniversary by revisiting some classic broadcasts. In this segment: Anthropologist Robert Murphy. In 1972, his body began to twinge with muscle spasms that wouldn't go away; doctors discovered a debilitating tumor growing on his spinal cord.

Fresh Air went national in 1987, and we're celebrating that 20th anniversary by revisiting some classic interviews. In this segment: German jazz artist Marty Grosz plays the music of Fats Waller. Rebroadcast from June 26, 1987.

Fresh Air went national in 1987, and we're celebrating that 20th anniversary by revisiting some classic interviews. In this segment: Neurologist and writer Oliver Sacks.

Sacks is probably best known for The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, a case-history collection in which he describes patients struggling to live with a startling array of conditions: Tourette's syndrome, autism, Parkinsonism, musical hallucinations, phantom-limb syndrome, schizophrenia, retardation and Alzheimer's disease.

Fresh Air went national in 1987, and we're celebrating that 20th anniversary by revisiting some classic interviews. In this segment: Harmonica player Larry Adler performed with legendary entertainers including Fred Astaire, George Gershwin, and Jack Benny, but he was blacklisted amid the anti-communist fervor surrounding the McCarthy hearings of the 1950s. Adler moved to England not long after; he died in August 2001. Rebroadcast from June 19, 1987.

Fresh Air went national in 1987, and we're celebrating that 20th anniversary by revisiting some classic interviews. In this segment: Tom Wolfe's best-selling books include Bonfire of the Vanities, A Man in Full, The Right Stuff and The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. He began his career as a journalist, writing for The Washington Post, Rolling Stone, Esquire and New York magazine. Rebroadcast from Oct. 29, 1987.

Fresh Air went national in 1987, and we're celebrating that 20th anniversary by revisiting some classic interviews. First up: Jerry Seinfeld, who sat down with Terry Gross before Seinfeld made him a star.

That hit TV show, of course, catapulted the comedian to fame and won six Emmy Awards before ending its run in 1999. The 2002 documentary Comedian, which followed Seinfeld on a stand-up tour, is available now on DVD. Rebroadcast from Sept. 2, 1987.

As artistic director of the Encores series at New York's City Center, Jack Viertel is the go-to guy for one of New York's hottest musical-theater tickets. It's just the latest phase, though, in an impressive theatrical career.

Fresh Air went national in 1987, and we're celebrating that 20th anniversary by revisiting some classic interviews. In this segment: Jackie Mason.

Mason's comic roots are planted firmly in the Borscht Belt, but he's conquered everything from HBO to Broadway. His one-man show The World According to Me earned Mason a Tony Award, an Outer Critics Circle Award, an Ace Award, and an Emmy Award, and it toured the U.S. and Europe for two years.

In Presidential Courage: Brave Leaders and How They Changed America 1789-1989, historian Michael Beschloss takes a look at nine crucial moments when a president risked his political career for the good of the country, often by taking an unpopular or controversial stand.