Phil Shapiro: Bound for Glory

Dirty Linen

This is an excerpt from the print edition of Dirty Linen #127 (December 2006/January 2007).
The full article is in the magazine, available on newsstands, by subscription, and at the Dirty Linen webstore.

Phil Shapiro

Bound for Glory

by Bill Chaisson

"I'm supposed to be an economics professor in a small liberal arts college somewhere," said Phil Shapiro. Instead, for 40 years Shapiro has been an advertising representative for WVBR-FM in Ithaca, New York, and the host of a radio show called "Bound for Glory." " 'Bound for Glory' is North America's longest-running live folk concert broadcast," Shapiro said grinning through his beard. "If you say it that way, it's true." The show is on from 8 to 11 p.m., 33 Sundays a year.

The "Great Folk Scare" started in the late 1950s and, by some people's estimation, came to an end when Dylan went electric at Newport in the summer of 1965. It was an urban phenomenon, and New York City was one of its strange attractors. Philip Donald Shapiro was a teenager in New Jersey when he got on the proverbial train. "A friend introduced me to folk music in 1959 or so," Shapiro recalled. "All through high school I was interested in it."

[cover #127]