Episode 3: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Tribute Concert Flyer

This installment looks at a momentous Carnegie Hall concert—the 1961 tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.—and the roles that the Rat Pack and many other artists played in supporting Dr. King and his Southern Christian Leadership Conference at a pivotal moment of inflection and growth for the organization.

Guests featured in this episode include Jonathan Eig, author of King: A Life, a 2023 biography of Dr. King; Tom Santopietro, author of Sinatra in Hollywood; Will Friedwald, author of Sinatra! The Song Is You and The Great Jazz and Pop Vocal Albums; Emilie Raymond, author of Stars for Freedom: Hollywood, Black Celebrities, and the Civil Rights Movement; and Davóne Tines, path-breaking artist and singer. Members of Carnegie Hall’s Rose Archives and Museum team—including Director Kathleen Sabogal, Assistant Director Rob Hudson, and Founding Archivist Gino Francesconi—are also featured.

If This Hall Could Talk is available wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes are released every other week.

Release Date: May 30

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Bonus Content

The 60s: The Years that Changed America

More than half a century later, the cultural and social upheavals of the 1960s in the US and abroad inform nearly all aspects of our lives. In 2018, Carnegie Hall looked to a figure outside the music world—Pulitzer Prize–winning author and journalist Robert A. Caro, famed biographer of Robert Moses and Lyndon B. Johnson—for inspiration in creating a festival, turning our attention to this singular decade.

Photography: Concert photos by Bill Mark, other images courtesy of the Carnegie Hall Rose Archives.
Podcast illustrations by Rob Wilson.
Music Credits

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