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Fresh Air Weekend: Louis Armstrong as the first Black pop star; America's loneliness epidemic

SeventyFour via Getty Images

Fresh Air Weekend highlights some of the best interviews and reviews from past weeks, as well as new program elements specially paced for weekends. Our weekend show emphasizes interviews with writers, filmmakers, actors and musicians, and it often includes excerpts from live in-studio concerts. This week:

How Louis Armstrong became the first Black pop star: Author Ricky Riccardi says Armstrong's innovations as a trumpeter and vocalist helped set the entire soundtrack of the 20th century. His new book about Armstrong's early life is Stomp Off, Let's Go.

A family endures a dictatorship in the Oscar-nominated 'I'm Still Here': A Brazilian family is rocked when the father disappears following a military coup. I'm Still Here tells the heroic true story of a wife and mother who steers her family through the rapids of tyranny.

The trouble with 'donating our dopamine' to our phones, not our friends: "Smartphones make our alone time feel more crowded than it used to be," says journalist Derek Thompson. His article in The Atlantic is called "The Anti-Social Century."

You can listen to the original interviews here:

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SOMOS CONNECTICUT es una iniciativa de Connecticut Public, la emisora local de NPR y PBS del estado, que busca elevar nuestras historias latinas y expandir programación que alza y informa nuestras comunidades latinas locales. Visita CTPublic.org/latino para más reportajes y recursos. Para noticias, suscríbase a nuestro boletín informativo en ctpublic.org/newsletters.

The independent journalism and non-commercial programming you rely on every day is in danger.

If you’re reading this, you believe in trusted journalism and in learning without paywalls. You value access to educational content kids love and enriching cultural programming.

Now all of that is at risk.

Federal funding for public media is under threat and if it goes, the impact to our communities will be devastating.

Together, we can defend it. It’s time to protect what matters.

Your voice has protected public media before. Now, it’s needed again. Learn how you can protect the news and programming you depend on.