Noah Adams, a longtime host of NPR’s “All Things Considered,” died on Oct. 16 at his home in Yellow Springs, Ohio. He was 84. The cause was complications of a benign brain tumor removed eight years ago, his wife Neenah Ellis said. Mr. Adams was a postman’s son from Kentucky who never finished college and worked to lose his Appalachian accent.
But he never lost respect for rural and working-class Americans, delighting in traveling the country interviewing miners, farmers, single mothers and factory workers. In morning meetings, Ms. Ellis recalled, “He was looking for who was yearning, who was in pain, who needed help out in the country.” Mr. Adams abhorred interviewing officials with pat talking points, preferring regular people whose lives were affected by national events. “The best stories come from west of the Potomac,” he once said. His respect for his sources came through in interviews of those unaccustomed to a microphone. “He was wonderfully warm and conversational with people,” said Melissa Block, another host. “I don’t know that anyone talking with him would think, ‘Oh, the interview is about to start.’ It would just be a conversation.” From 1982 to 1987, Mr. Adams’s co-host was Susan Stamberg.
After a short hiatus, he returned to host with Robert Siegel and Linda Wertheimer from 1989 until 2002. “He was a very private and shy person,” Mr. Siegel said. After Mr. Adams wrote “Piano Lessons” (1997), Mr. Siegel recalled Mr. Adams’s distress at performing on his book tour: “I watched him at a Borders, and he was terrified. But he loved what he did.
He pulled it off very beautifully.” During his time away from NPR, from 1987 to 1989, Mr. Adams was recruited to host a replacement for “A Prairie Home Companion.” The replacement, “Good Evening,” struggled to replicate Garrison Keillor’s audience and lasted less than a year.
Source: New York Times Business · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing