Sweet Talker

Terry Gross, radio's voice of reason, anthologizes her best work from Fresh Air.

by Gary M. Kramer

"Samuel Jackson, I love his voice," Terry Gross says not once, but twice during an interview about her new book, All I Did Was Ask (Hyperion, $24.95). "There's a certain musicality in his voice. He's not "singing' — but there's a music in his speech."

The radio host is all about the voice, having made an enviable career from her own voice, not to mention her keen mind and her inquisitive nature.

Gross' voice comes across clearly in her book, an anthology of interviews from her locally produced, nationally syndicated radio show, Fresh Air. Listening to her speak, she has that perfect diction, that deliberate cadence that her fans tune in to hear. Her hard-edged but soft-spoken delivery is something that Gross has developed over her 25-plus years in radio.

She says her instrument was not always this smooth. "When I get nervous, I speak really fast if I don't hold myself in check. My voice raises an octave. I sound like Minnie Mouse," she explains. "I learned, through listening to my show, how to talk more slowly, how to breathe — less from the throat, deeper and lower down, from the diaphragm, wherever that is!"

It sounds like something a singer would say, not a radio-show host, but Gross admits she does not sing. "I wish," she answers with a laugh, before she announces, "I love musicals more than anything. I love music and I love language. I think the song is the perfect art form. The only thing that makes them more perfect is if the songs are in a movie or a show, linked to a narrative." In her introduction, Gross confesses she once wanted to be a lyricist. Not surprisingly, her conversation with songwriter Hal David is one of the most enjoyable entries in All I Did Was Ask.

What may astound her legions of listeners is that Gross is also an unabashed fan of talent shows. And while she never misses an episode of American Idol, she and her husband, Francis Davis (a jazz critic who also penned Afterglow, a Q&A with Pauline Kael), were huge fans of Al Alberts Showcase. Gross' famous voice gets noticeably excited as she recalls the program's appeal. "It was just so entertaining to see these 5-to-7-year-old kids learning all these microphone techniques of cynical veterans. Like little Judy Garlands and little Vic Damones!"

But back to the voice. Gross admits that although she tries not to listen to herself on the air, it is impossible "because the interviews are all prerecorded and edited. I'm here [in the studio] as they are being played. I'm half-listening because I'm usually writing intros to interviews as interviews are playing on the air." Yet she acknowledges that "I need to listen to myself to know what I'm doing wrong." Pausing to consider this further, she says, "But if you listen to yourself too much, it's exhausting. It can make you self-conscious."

Gross also looked at narrative voice in choosing what interviews to include in All I Did Was Ask. She used a different set of criteria for the book than she would in selecting guests for Fresh Air.

"On the radio, the quality of a person's voice matters — how much personality is expressed through that voice. Some voices give pleasure, energy …" she explains as her own voice trails off. For the book, Gross had to find a tone that translated well to print. "If you take away the voice, these are just words on a page." She said that she and her collaborator, Margaret Pick, asked themselves, "Is this interesting? Does this work as a piece of literature?"

The final decisions — more than three dozen interviews — spotlight the talents of the interviewer and her subjects. In fact, readers can imagine hearing the actor, author, musician (Jodie Foster, John Updike, Johnny Cash, etc.) speaking out from the page.

Gross justifies her reasoning for selecting interviews with performers and not politicians. "I went for the stuff that held up over time. It had to be as interesting, or even more interesting than at the time it was recorded. A lot of stuff was just "not in the moment' anymore."

The author listened to the little voice inside her head when it came to arranging the interviews in book form. "I suggested alphabetical [order], but then we put it in an intuitive order, one that we thought would make sense, the way you might program a record — a ballad followed by an up-tempo piece. Some of the [links] make obvious sense — Uta Hagen not talking about craft, Michael Caine talking all about craft."

This reminds her of something: "Michael Caine has the best voice!"

Terry Gross will speak Fri., Oct. 15, 8 p.m., $6-$15, Free Library of Philadelphia, Central Branch, 1901 Vine St., 215-569-9700.