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That's oracle.com slash cbs oracle.com slash cbs. Good morning. Jane Pauley is off this weekend. I'm Bill Whittaker and this is Sunday Morning. It's an all too familiar story. Being convicted of a crime you didn't commit, then having to serve a long prison sentence or worse. That kind of real life scenario has been the backdrop for no shortage of novels and films over the years. The sort of story John Grisham knows well. He, of course, is the acclaimed author of dozens of legal thrillers. But his newest book is no work of fiction. It tells the real life tales of people who've been wrongly convicted.
This morning, he's talking with our Aaron Moriarty about righting wrongs. Is this fiction? Is this fiction? These stories can't be true. And they are. Legal thrillers made John Grisham a best-selling author.
Neighbors heard several shots bring out. But he didn't have to dream up the characters or the courtroom drama in his latest book. I knew, didn't think, knew we were going to die in prison. And I didn't want to die in prison. I wanted a life.
Ahead on Sunday Morning, John Grisham's mission. Damon Wayans has been making audiences laugh on television in the movies and with stand-up for decades now. As he tells Tracy Smith, it all started when he was just a kid, long before he and his siblings became familiar figures in the world of comedy. Hey, Pop. Need a favor? Son, can I at least get a sip of tea before you start asking me for favors? Damon Wayans wants you to laugh about his family. It's something he's been doing all his life. There was four of us to a room. Sounds like an obvious question, but how close did that make you all?
Like, to sleep with someone's foot in your behind is pretty much my childhood. Damon Wayans Walks the Walk, later on Sunday Morning. The streaming series The Diplomat has earned raves from critics and audiences alike, with Keri Russell starring as the American ambassador to the United Kingdom.
Seth Doan this morning joins her on set. Diplomacy and foreign policy are generally not must-see TV. Do you think this is over-glamorized in a way? Are you amping it up a little too much? Is this the diplomatic world? Well, yeah, it's TV.
You've got to over-glamorize it. We're on set with Keri Russell and series creator Deborah Kahn, making season two of The Diplomat, coming up this Sunday morning. Rita Braver pays a visit with Sarah McBride, aiming to become the first transgender member of Congress.
And David Pogue marks the centennial of an American music classic, George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue. And more this Sunday morning for the 20th of October, 2024. We'll be back after this. Calling all shoppers, Rakuten is the smartest way to save money when you shop because you earn cash back at over 3500 stores, fashion, beauty, electronics, home essentials, travel, dining, concert tickets and more. Your favorite stores like Ulta, Urban Outfitters and Neiman Marcus pay Rakuten to send them shoppers and Rakuten then passes on part of that payment to its members as cash back. Cash back is deposited directly into your PayPal account or Rakuten can send you a check. You can even maximize your savings by stacking cash back on top of other deals like store sales and coupons. You're already shopping at your favorite stores. Why not save while you're doing it?
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Listen to 60 Minutes A Second Look ad free on Wondery Plus in the Wondery app. Author John Grisham is best known for legal thrillers like The Firm and The Pelican Brief, books that went on to become hit movies as well. His latest book isn't fiction, but the stories in it are perhaps more chilling and devastating than those in his novels, as Aaron Moriarty discovered. They just blindside you like a bolt of lightning. You're stunned and in shock. What happened to Army veterans Mark Jones, Dominic Lucci and Kenny Gardner on a January night in 1992 is almost impossible to believe. One day you're preparing to go before the promotion board. Next day you're fighting for your freedom. Neighbors heard several shots bring out.
A chance encounter with a Savannah, Georgia, police officer investigating a murder caused them 26 years in prison for a crime they didn't commit. Why us? Why then? We had nothing in our lives would even bring anybody to the assumption of that. No logical reason for us to have done any of that. Their arrest, conviction and fight for freedom is as dramatic as the plot of any legal thriller, says bestselling author John Grisham, who has written nearly 50 of them.
Everything is there. Drama, suffering, injustice, you name it. The story of the Savannah 3 is one of 10 cases outlined in Grisham's new book, Framed, co-written with Jim McCloskey. He was exonerated.
Founder of Centurion, one of the country's first nonprofit organizations helping free those wrongfully convicted. So these aren't outliers? They're not outliers. They're the tip of the iceberg.
Yeah. There are hundreds of these cases, maybe thousands. It's only the second nonfiction work by Grisham. We should note there are questions about how much Grisham relied on the reporting of others.
The former attorney sits on Centurion's board. Did you expect to get sucked into this world? Because it's a tough world. You know what? We can't begin to believe somebody would last for 20 years on death row and walk out and be able to function.
And I've met so many of these guys over the years, they have endured something that the rest of us cannot begin to comprehend. The name, the title also struck me. Framed? Who's doing the framing? The police and the prosecutors. The police are coercing witnesses into false testimony. Prosecutors are hiding exculpatory evidence from the defendant.
It goes on and on. These are the two lawyers I worked with in Columbus. The walls of the Centurion office in Princeton, New Jersey are lined with some of the faces of those clients. And the numbers say Grisham and McCloskey are troubling. Nationwide, 3,600 people have been exonerated since 1989. 68% are people of color. Oh, racism is a huge factor.
Right. If you're a person of color and indigent, you've got an uphill battle because you have no resources to fight this wrongful conviction. And most of those wrongfully convicted, as the case of Kenny Gardner, Mark Jones and Dominic Lucci demonstrate, were simply unlucky. Back on January 31, 1992, the three soldiers, then in their early 20s, were together at this wedding rehearsal the day before Mark Jones was set to get married.
Everything was finally really connecting and coming together in my life. After dinner, the three soldiers drove 45 miles to a nightclub in Savannah for an impromptu bachelor party. We tried to get into a strip club that wouldn't let us in because his birthday was three months away, so we went to a different one. Had no idea how to get to it. They stopped three times to ask police officers for directions, unaware that a drive-by shooting had taken place nearby, and they were about to cross paths with the only eyewitness. We asked the police officer that was walking across the street with a gentleman in a suit where the place was at, and she said, it's right there. We assumed the guy in the suit was a detective. He was the eyewitness who told her, that kind of looked like the car. Shortly after, police took the men in for questioning.
They were arrested for murder hours later. Did any of you have a criminal history? No. Did any of you know the victim?
No. Was there a gun found in the car? There wasn't a gun found anywhere. Still, no gun has been found.
Nothing connected us at all. So how did it not only just go to arrest, but go to conviction? Wrong place, wrong time. And that was all it took. This also says Jim McCloskey racial unrest in Savannah, and the murder of a black man blamed on three white men put the city on edge. They made a case against them to demonstrate to the black leadership that they care as much about black victims as they do white, and these three innocent soldiers fell into their grasp, and away they went. At trial, James White, the eyewitness, identified two of the men as the shooters. Other witnesses and prosecutors painted them as racists and thrill seekers. The jurors were out for eight hours and 20 minutes. Guilty.
I literally almost passed out because I was so shocked. He was sentenced to life in prison, plus five years. Does that mean I've got to serve life? When I die in prison, you guys are going to keep my body for five more years before you release it to my family?
I don't understand what's going on here. Dominic Lucci wrote letter after letter to Centurion, which only accepts one or two new cases a year. But in 2009, McCloskey and his team took the case.
He writes about it in the book. This is just the Savannah 3 case. It still took years to get justice. Even after James White admitted he lied about the identification at trial, the men remained in prison until December 20, 2017.
The Georgia Supreme Court ruled that the state's failure to produce this key piece of evidence to the defense at the original trial, even if inadvertent, violated the law. Dominic Lucci, Kenny Gardner, and Mark Jones were finally free. It was a moment that gives you chills.
You can't believe it's actually happening, and you're so happy for the families and the mothers to bring their sons home to them. Kenny Gardner now lives in Texas and rents a room in a house where Mark Jones lives, along with his mother. They both have jobs delivering pizzas.
Dominic Lucci moved to Ohio, where he works as a phone operator at the VA hospital. The three men, now in their 50s, are still the best of friends. While the Georgia legislature granted all three men some compensation, they can never get back what they lost. Think about what you've done from the time you were 21 to the time you were 47 and lose all that. Your college, your marriage, your house, your children being born. No work history.
26 years of Social Security not put in. And they can't quite shake the past. Do you have nightmares?
Oh, yes. Do you have trouble trusting people? I don't trust anybody. Family.
Family is as far as it goes, and these people are included in the family. And these men are actually the fortunate ones, John Grisham says. There are untold others still waiting to be heard. What we are trying to do is bring attention to these cases and show people that these cases happen all the time. It's not that difficult to convict an innocent person.
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Do more with Viator. With election day just over two weeks off, Rita Braver checks in with a candidate who's running for Congress and poised to make history. It's a typical election year scene.
Congressional candidate works the crowd at a college football game. But Sarah McBride's simple act of handshaking at Delaware State University could lead to a turning point in American history. If elected, you will become the first trans member of the U.S. House of Representatives.
What does that mean to you? It is a testament to Delawareans that the candidacy of someone like me is even possible. I, Sarah McBride, do proudly swear. When Sunday morning first met McBride during the pandemic, she was already making history as the first trans person ever elected to a state senate seat. Now at age 34, with almost two terms under her belt, she's running for higher office, but says it is not about her identity as a trans woman. I think that folks know that I'm personally invested in equality as an LGBTQ person. But my priorities are going to be affordable child care, paid family medical leave, housing and health care, reproductive freedom. A Republican opponent in the congressional race is a former Delaware State police officer. Hi, my name's John Whalen. His top priorities are stopping illegal immigration and reducing the federal debt.
I think we're going too far to the left, and spending's way out of control. He did not want to do an interview for this story. But during a brief phone conversation, when I asked if McBride's being a trans woman would be a factor in the race, he said, there's more important things than that. Professor Dana Young agrees. I think voters really do want to hear about other issues. She is director of the Center for Political Communication at the University of Delaware. Some years ago, she co-authored a study on attitudes toward transgender candidates. We asked people if they would be willing to support a transgender candidate if that candidate were from their own party. And the results showed that there really was not a lot of support for a transgender candidate. But now she questions whether that study would hold up today, especially because it wasn't tied to a specific transgender candidate like Sarah McBride. And people know her now.
Especially in a state that's small. By now, Delaware voters are familiar with McBride's story, including how she met her future husband, a trans man named Andrew Kray, at an Obama-era White House reception. Andy was the kindest, funniest, smartest person that I had ever met.
Kray would die from cancer just four days after their wedding. Professor Young says all that has strengthened Sarah McBride. Oh, she's tough.
I do not worry about her ability to take whatever attacks are likely to come her way at the national level. But on the national level, the Republican candidate for president is putting transgender issues front and center. The transgender thing is incredible. For example, falsely charging that school children are undergoing surgical procedures.
Your kid goes to school and comes home a few days later with an operation. I wouldn't be the first person in Congress to be part of a community that Donald Trump has said outrageous things about. There are members of Congress who have repeatedly railed against trans people. How are you going to make peace with them? I think the ones who are really caught up on this, the folks who are those professional provocateurs, they're not going to work with any Democrat.
They can barely work with their own Republican colleagues. A recent poll by the University of Delaware had McBride leading in this heavily Democratic state by more than 20 points. How are you?
I'm good. Sarah. When she was elected, Sarah McBride believes that she will not be the last trans member of Congress. We know throughout history that the power of proximity has opened even the most closed of hearts and minds. And I still believe that the power of proximity taps what I believe to be the most fundamental human emotion, which is empathy. You play innocent and you're charismatic and you smile and you get away with it and you made me fall for you.
And this is what's not fair. You knew it and you liked it. That's Keri Russell in Felicity, the series that made her a star. Now, Russell is playing the fictional American ambassador to the United Kingdom in the Netflix series The Diplomat, which earned her Emmy and Golden Globe nominations. Seth Doan caught up with her in London.
Is he quite all right? Give me that. Keri Russell, literally acting as U.S. ambassador, was deftly balancing yet another diplomatic crisis.
Prime Minister. Of course, this is a rented manner. The champagne is just a prop.
And the plot, while plausible, was scripted. Do you think this is over-glamorized in a way? Are you amping it up a little too much? The diplomatic world? Well, yeah. It's TV.
You've got to over-glamorize. Everything takes so long. But The Diplomat moves.
In its first season, Keri Russell's character Kate Wyler was thrown into her role in London. Come on in. No pesky Senate confirmation required. The president is asking you to serve as ambassador to the United Kingdom. We have a plane waiting.
We'd like you to get on it. No. She literally tussles with her opinionated former ambassador husband, played by Rufus Sewell. Jesus. The storyline parallels current events — Iran and a resurgent Russia.
You can come in. You, I need 17 plausible diplomatic retaliations to Russia. It's just a world that we kind of don't know that much about, which is really interesting. You're an actress. You go into other worlds for a living.
Is there something different about this? I think the State Department in general is they're doing their job well when we don't hear about them. It's fun to get to peer a little bit behind the curtain.
So let's just run it on action. And we got to peer behind the curtain of this hit Netflix show while they were shooting season two to be released later this month. In a grand room by a table prepared for a feast were settings for this TV show, the temporary office of series creator Deborah Kahn. You're taking notes. I'm curious what you're taking notes on. Reminding myself to, in a future script, follow up on something that's planted here.
It's just getting a patter at the paper. Hey Jim, are we ready? Kahn is used to scripting the way things go. I think I don't want to say this. Roll back the f***ing tape! Okay, so... You're not the boss of this show. Uhhh... S***!
Al, can you open up the camera a little bit? The writer-producer has built a career making the politics, deal-making, and diplomacy of Washington sexy for TV audiences. Are those classified documents? In the CIA drama Homeland. Good afternoon, Mr. President.
Al. For that, the White House. I was sort of raised on the West Wing as a writer, and loved it, and loved that there was a way to talk about things that mattered in the world, but without making it feel sort of preachy or expositional.
I thought that was just an incredible magic trick. And I really wanted to do the foreign policy version of that. Jill's trying to reopen our diplomatic mission in Afghanistan.
Jill is trying to get people out. Will you open the newspaper now and say, ooh, this could be a good storyline for the diplomat? Every single day. Every single day. When you read criticism that you've over-glamorized the State Department.
I'm okay with that. They could use a little glamorizing. I mean, they work really hard and they do good stuff, and absolutely nobody has any idea what they do. I'm Felicity Porter. Keri Russell became familiar to TV audiences in the title role of Felicity, a drama about college life.
More recently in the thriller The Americans, she played a Russian spy. The Americans was so, like, stylized in a way, or at least my character was. It was all, like, mood and vibe, kind of, and this is much more Fraggle Rock. Like, I'm always like, you know, spazzing out and saying things a million, a mile a minute and all of that.
It is such a different gear and it's such a fun, different gear to play. We glimpsed a bit of that ourselves. All right. Okay, sorry.
As she'd run from the set to our interview. Sorry, that was stressful. We're here. There's so much rushing. There's crowd today. There's, like, ah. How is the pace of shooting this show? The pace is fast. And I think the diplomatic nature of the dialogue is muscular and quick and, you know, fun if you can get it.
Don't do pooling resources. Do frank and targeted exchange of views. It's not just like, hey, how are you? I think Keri Russell is absolutely perfect in my role. Jane Hartley is actually the U.S. ambassador to the United Kingdom. One of the things I love about the show is, one, it is a female ambassador to the U.K. And I am the second female ambassador to the U.K. two in 200 years. It must be interesting to have a spotlight shown on what you do. Yeah, you know, I, when I heard about it first, I was worried. I wanted to make sure that it got the substance right.
The American ambassador was nearly widowed last night. And I think they do. Have you been involved in affecting story lines? They've checked with me on things.
Did you learn anything from her? They're kind of unflappable. And I think that's what you have to be. You have to be really good in crisis and know how to manage many different types of people.
And I think Jane really has that. If you come up to my office on most days, it's pretty frenetic. We're pretty busy. Phones are ringing, people are running, papers are being shoved. And if you watch her show, it's the same thing.
So they get the intensity right. The only private garden in London larger than Winfield is Buckingham Palace. You know, even on my toughest days, and there are some that are tough, you know, the world. The ambassador took us around the real Winfield house. I often sit outside. And you've got this view. And I got this view. And told us there is one problem. Some visitors to the residence who've seen the show are expecting something more familiar. They'll walk in, and I can see them looking around and looking around, and I can see them thinking, well, this isn't how it is on the show. We had a wonderful dinner for Hillary here.
You made a tactical error. Ambassador Jane Hartley says folks in the Foreign Service are definitely watching. She's not the only one wondering if this TV show might spark interest in the next generation of diplomats. You never know what's going to touch people. It's like a little look in, and maybe it'll get, I don't know, the smart kids at school will go, oh, I'd like to do that. So that's what I think it could be, a little eye-opening.
Felicity recruited kids for NYU, maybe this will recruit diplomats to work for the State Department. Cheers to fall at Whole Foods Market. Welch's can't make everything make sense, like why your mom still listens to the radio, or what she meant when she sent that emoji. But a zero-sugar drink that's still full of fruit flavor?
We made that make sense. And strawberry, passion fruit, Concord grape, and more, you gotta sip it to get it. New Welch's Zero Sugar.
Let's fruit stuff up. It happened this past week. The death of equal pay champion, Lilly Ledbetter.
That's what makes this fight worth fighting. After discovering a wage gap between herself and her male colleagues, Ledbetter took her discrimination case all the way to the Supreme Court. She lost. But in 2009, President Barack Obama signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, cementing her role in the women's rights movement. Lilly Ledbetter was 86. Mitzi Gaynor had her silver screen debut in My Blue Heaven at age 19, and quickly established herself as a star, dancing and singing in a number of movie musicals. But it was her role in the film South Pacific that catapulted her to international fame. Gaynor enjoyed a nearly seven-decade career, which included TV specials and Las Vegas performances.
Mitzi Gaynor was 93. Let me tell you something, D. Yeah, brother? Why don't you come closer? I am not your damn brother! Now drop down and give me a 20 squad class now!
20 squad class now! Damon Wayans played the title role in the 1995 comic film Major Pain. Today, he's the proud patriarch of a family with comedy steeped in its DNA, soon to be appearing in a new sitcom. He talks with our Tracy Smith. No. Everything's changed.
This building wasn't here when I was here. Damon Wayans knows his way around the Paramount Pictures lot better than most. He used to deliver mail here to all the big stars.
And now, of course, he is one. Action! Please, I raised my children the same way my dad raised me.
In his new comedy, Papa's House, which premieres tomorrow night on CBS, he's a dad with attitude. So, what does the phone roller king think about you taking meetings on a work day? Well, you know, I just told J.J. I'm on a sales run. I go and crush my meetings, back to work, no harm, no foul.
Well, there is a foul. You're stealing time from your boss. Look, Dad, I know you guys go way... The chemistry here feels natural because it is. His son is played by his real-life son, Damon Wayans Jr. Is one of the goals to make each other laugh? Oh, yeah. That's the ultimate goal, really, is to make people who you respect laugh. If I can get my dad to break in a scene, it just gives me more energy for the next take. Ha!
In your face, Paulie! And for 64-year-old Damon Wayans Sr., comedy is both an occupation and a legacy. You know, you remind me of the Doughboy. If I poke your stomach, we'll make you go, ooh!
For nearly four decades, Damon Wayans has been creating some of the edgier characters on TV and film. Homie, homie, homie! Like the angry clown from In Living Color named Homie.
Now do a silly clown dance for us! Oh, yeah! Yeah, degrade myself, huh? I don't think so.
Homie don't play that. Do people still say, hey, Homie, on the street? Sometimes. And how does that make you feel? Are you warm and fuzzy? I smile. I smile. It's nice. It's like, does a woman ever get tired of being told she's beautiful? No.
Never. And that little bit of TV immortality is even sweeter for someone who grew up fighting just to survive. Damon Wayans was born in a less glamorous section of New York City, one of ten children, all living in a cramped apartment. There was four of us to a room. Four to a room.
Sounds like an obvious question, but how close did that make you all? Like, to sleep with someone's foot in your behind is pretty much my childhood. It also helped make them funny. Wayans says he and his siblings, including Sean, Marlon, and Keenan, all found a way to turn a difficult childhood into fuel for comic fire.
In my stand-up, I talk about how my mother would tell us, there's no food, you can each have a little bit of toothpaste so you have something in your stomach. That's for real? That's real. By 1982, he'd followed his older brother Keenan to Hollywood, doing stand-up comedy by night and, with a wife and new baby at home, delivering mail all day at Paramount Studios. It was amazing because I would see Eddie Murphy on the lot, I'd see Henry Winkler and Leonard Nimoy and, you know, just like all these stars. And what'd you think as an up-and-comer seeing those people?
I hope I didn't mess up their mail. He laughs now, but it wasn't an easy job. In fact, just walking at all was a challenge. You also overcame, you had a foot defect. Club foot. A club foot?
Yeah, not head, it's for life. I thought you had operations to correct it. I had operations, but still, it's like I'm in pain. I just walk around with like a toothache in my foot.
It's a constant, yeah. Wow. At one point, broke and in despair, he quit the mail job in frustration. And then, he says, he got a sign that changed his life. And I take a walk and I have a talk with God. And I told him, if you help me, I promise I'll never put my family in this position again.
Because we had nothing to eat, no milk, no diapers. And I'm walking and I'm talking, I'm crying to God. And there's a guy walking ahead of me. And I see something fall out of his pocket. And he turns the corner and I go, I pick it up, it's $10. Was it like a prayer answered?
Absolutely. But the next day, I had to go beg for my job back. His first real break was a brief but memorable part in an Eddie Murphy film. I need a couple of bananas. How much are they? Well, the buffet plate is $12.50. You get peaches, plums, oranges, and bananas.
Well, all I need is a couple of bananas. It also led to his being cast on Saturday Night Live, essentially following in Eddie's footsteps. Did Eddie Murphy give you any advice about SNL? Yeah. He said, write your own sketches.
Otherwise, you're going to be doing white people's stuff and you're going to hate it. And he was right. Just recently, I watched President Reagan's budget proposal on TV. And after meditating on his plan, I've come to the conclusion that homeboy don't know what he's doing. Wayans struggled to get a foothold at SNL. You moved a lot of dough, but you got caught.
Yeah, you're going to jail for a long, long time. And was fired after his first season. Clutch the pearls, what a sneaky thing to do.
But just a few years later, Hate it. Wayans and his characters found a home on the sketch show his brother Keenan created, Fox TV's In Living Color. So it's Heidi home, prime time we go, with the Hey You Dried Turkey and Brody Usain Bolt.
The show also starred his siblings, Sean and Kim, among others, a real family business. Maybe you better tell me how you define the word wife. What does that mean? Are you barefoot? Pregnant?
No, you can wear shoes. His family has long been an inspiration for his work. I want to talk about this right now. Soon as you come back home, we talking about this. Like the hit series, My Wife and Kids.
Then he'd be up there dancing and kicking. For Wayans, working on that show was a kind of therapy. I had a dream that one day jockstraps and g-strings would tumble around in the dryer of love. People don't know that in 2000, I was going through a divorce while we were starting Life and Kids. Wasn't that painful doing that? No, comedians live for that. It's like I get into a car accident and I go up on stage and I talk about my neck hurting and people are laughing. My neck doesn't hurt as much.
Oh, so you lied to your wife. It's a formula that's taken Damon Wayans from the depths of despair to the top of his game. He's raised a family, had grandkids, and along the way found peace. And I've reached an age where I'm content. You're content. What makes you content? Well, I got tired of chasing Happy because Happy is fleeting. There's nothing I need except my health and well-being.
And guess what? Happy moved in next door to me. Now every day is just like a blessing. Ten grandkids, one great-grandkid. It's like life, does it get better?
It doesn't. Just go to Indeed.com slash match right now and support this show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com slash match. Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire?
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Evolve your finances. As one of the classics of American music and Rhapsody in Blue is marking a major milestone, David Pogue does the honors. Chances are pretty good that you know this piece. And your grandparents too.
And probably your grandparents. It's Rhapsody in Blue, a piece for piano and orchestra, about 17 minutes long, written by George Gershwin when he was 25 years old. Later, musicians all over the world are celebrating its 100th birthday.
From Carnegie Hall to the Hollywood Bowl. So this is the first printing of Rhapsody in Blue that is autographed by George, of which there are I believe only three or maybe four in existence. Should you be touching it?
Well, for you I'm touching it. Pianist, singer and Gershwin expert Michael Feinstein once spent six years working for George Gershwin's brother, Ira. Few know the Rhapsody story as well as he does. It was created as a piece of special material, if you will, for the Paul Whiteman Orchestra. In 1924, jazz band leader Paul Whiteman advertised a concert of music that would combine classical and jazz influences. He announced that the concert would feature a new piece by George Gershwin. Unfortunately, he'd forgotten to tell George Gershwin. Gershwin read an article in a New York newspaper saying that George Gershwin is going to write a concert piece. Oh, and he calls up Whiteman and said, what is this? And Whiteman said, well, will you do it?
And he said, I'll try. Gershwin wrote Rhapsody in Blue for two pianos. He finished it in about three weeks. Ferde Grofe did the orchestration. Arranger Ferde Grofe hastily adapted it for Whiteman's jazz band. The room was hot and the concert was long. Rhapsody in Blue was the 25th piece out of 26. But just as audience members were starting to leave...
This strikingly handsome guy with jet black hair confidently walks to the piano, sits down and people are going, what's going on? It was Gershwin himself at the piano, sounding like this from a recording he made a few months later. Nobody filmed that world premiere, but on February 12th of this year, 100 years to the day after the original performance...
Welcome to 1924. Conductor and clarinetist Luis Arquez recreated the original concert. Same musical numbers. Same instrumentation in the same building. We tried not only to recreate the music that was played here 100 years ago, we tried to recreate as much as we could at the look.
Myself, I had to shave quite a big beard, get the mustache and the little curly Q in the hair. The audiences of 1924 loved Rhapsody in Blue. But not all of the critics were convinced. It was almost considered by the critics to be a sort of stunt. You can't dance to it because it had all these different tempo changes. And who was going to play it in the concert hall because it was written for a dance band? It's not a classical piece. It's not a jazz piece.
Why don't we just call it? It's a great piece. Concert pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet has performed Rhapsody in Blue over 100 times. It's almost like a big improvisation. He just came up with those beautiful themes and then he just put them together. You could probably hum along with those themes.
Well, I think that was one of them, right? It's just such a lyrical, it's just unbelievable. And then you have a recording. Within a year of its premiere, Rhapsody in Blue had been published, recorded, and arranged for more traditional orchestras. And it's been a fixture of American culture ever since. Every time you see a scene where there's a New York skyline, you hear somebody copying Rhapsody in Blue. So the effect of Rhapsody in Blue, culturally, is that he created the sound that is the essence of New York. Of course, millions of people know Rhapsody in Blue not from the concert hall, but from the United Airlines ads. He never wanted it commercialized. It wasn't until Ira passed away in 1983, shortly thereafter, I don't even know if his body was cold, that the family sold Rhapsody for use by United Airlines and for other commercial uses. But actually, it hasn't negatively affected the piece because it's bulletproof. Rhapsody in Blue was George Gershwin's first major work, and it helped to bring him fame, popularity, and wealth for the rest of his much too short career.
He died of a brain tumor, at age 38. In 2020, the copyright on Rhapsody in Blue expired. So for the next hundred years and beyond, it belongs to us all. Okay, it's time to commit.
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That's B-O-M-B-A-S dot com slash WONDERY and use code WONDERY at checkout. Earlier, 48 Hours correspondent Aaron Moriarty talked with author John Grisham about the trials endured by America's all too many falsely accused even after they are freed. She has more thoughts about that in our commentary. You've watched scenes play out like this over and over again. A wrongfully convicted person tearfully embraced by family members walking free after years behind bars. It's a heartwarming sight. Ms. Watkins, this charge against you is dismissed. Evidence that may be justice denied is only justice delayed. And that the system does finally work.
This is a picture of me. But what happens to those people after they go home? For more than 25 years, I've reported on wrongful convictions. And I have followed the efforts of those newly released to return to the lives they left behind.
And it's a real struggle. In 2021, Kevin Strickland was exonerated and released after 43 years in Missouri prisons. When I asked him how he felt about getting his life back, Strickland, who was a teenager when arrested, said, I give my life back.
I've never had one. He was starting over in his 60s. Wrong place, wrong time. And that was all it took. Earlier on this broadcast, you heard Kenny Gardner, Mark Jones, and Dominic Lucci describe lives drastically altered by 26 years in prison. They missed out on school, marriage, having children, and all the joys that come with family. They missed saying goodbye to parents who died and going to their funerals. And when they were released, they walked out with only the clothes on their backs and a few personal items.
Here's the kicker. When people who committed crimes are paroled, they're given assistance to find housing and employment, counseling. What do the wrongfully convicted get?
No services at all. 38 states, the District of Columbia, and the federal government do have programs that offer some compensation. But in most cases, those newly released only qualify if they are actually exonerated, given a pardon, or a finding of actual innocence. And even then, the process can take years. There is nothing to make these individuals whole again.
But maybe restoring the Social Security benefits that they lost can give them some financial security as they age. And there is something else that should be guaranteed. A heartfelt apology. Thanks for listening. I'm Bill Whittaker. Please join us when our trumpet sounds again next Sunday morning.
Trumpets sound again next Sunday morning. If you like this podcast, you can listen ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a quick survey at Wondery.com slash survey. Have you ever wondered who created that bottle of Sriracha that's living in your fridge? Or why nearly every house in America has at least one game of Monopoly? Introducing The Best Idea Yet, a brand-new podcast from Wondery and T-Boy about the surprising origin stories of the products you're obsessed with and the bolder-risk takers who brought them to life. Like, did you know that Super Mario, the best-selling video game character of all time, only exists because Nintendo couldn't get the rights to Popeye? Or, Jack, that the idea for the McDonald's Happy Meal first came from a mom in Guatemala from Pez Dispensers to Levi's 501s to Air Jordans.
Discover the surprising stories of the most viral products. Plus, we guarantee that after listening, you're going to dominate your next dinner party. So follow The Best Idea Yet on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to The Best Idea Yet early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus.
It's just the best idea yet. As a kid growing up in Chicago, there was one horror movie I was too scared to watch. It was called Candyman.
The scary cult classic was set in the Chicago housing project. It was about this supernatural killer who'd attack his victims if they said his name five times into a bathroom mirror. Candyman.
Candyman? Now, we all know chanting a name won't make a killer magically appear, but did you know that the movie Candyman was partly inspired by an actual murder? I was struck by both how spooky it was but also how outrageous it was. We're going to talk to the people who were there and we're also going to uncover the larger story. My architect was shocked when he saw how this was created. Literally shocked. And we'll look at what the story tells us about injustice in America. If you really believed in tough-on-crime, then you wouldn't make it easy to crawl into medicine cabinets and kill our women. Listen to Candyman, the true story behind the bathroom mirror murder, early and ad-free with the 48 Hours Plus subscription on Apple Podcasts.
