Winner:
KUT, Austin - Hawk Mendenhall, Assistant General Manager - Listen
Judges' comments:
What was your overall impression of the entry?
An outstanding documentary with great storytelling and use of interviews.
I made fewer notes on this entry than any other, as I was too busy listening intently. The 10 minute excerpt left me wanting more, and I went to PRX to hear the entire show. I had been aware of Willie Nelson’s 75th birthday, but somehow this show wasn’t on my radar in the spring. As far as I’m concerned, that was a loss for my listeners. This entry is a masterful piece of radio, an engaging music documentary where all the elements of our craft—including research, writing and production—come together to articulate an artist in his place and time.
I genuinely enjoyed this from the minute it started. Brown’s delivery matched the dread and sadness he was intimating in the narrative. I wanted to care. This is better than the national cultural reporting and should be winning the news category.
What are its greatest strengths?
An honest portrayal of an American musical icon.
This show is pretty near perfect. It uses writing, music and sound effectively to trace the story with beauty and grace. The producers go beyond the surface facts of Willie Nelson’s biography to explore the triumphs and tragedies of his life and artistic evolution over the decades. I enjoyed David Brown’s writing, the range of interview sources, the use of archival sound and old radio, and the grain of the voices. The pacing is superb (it seemed very Texas).
It’s hard to improve on what the producers have accomplished here. This is very good work.
This program has tremendous emotional honesty. The material has its own pathos and the producers let this come to the surface and drive the experience. There is a sense of localism that is very strong and comes through in an intuitive, unstated manner. It’s unlikely that people who were not from Texas could have approached the material in the same way.
What can others learn from this entry?
Great editing and writing examples throughout this documentary.
It’s clear that KUT has put a lot of resources into this project, and they’ve created a wonderful, lasting document. Hear that, GM’s? Support your programming staffs!
Devise a clear editorial voice, hire major talent and let them work. Sweat the details. Do work you care about and let it show.
