JanisJanis: Little Girl Blue Once you heard her, you never forgot her. Her bluesy vocals and supercharged emotional delivery took hold as she “shared the secrets of her soul.” Janis: Little Girl Blue presents an intimate portrait of a driven artist — a genius who was uninhibited on stage and very shy at the same time. “She put women in rock on the map... and we’re still reaping the benefits of that today,” said Amy Berg, writer, director and producer in a recent Billboard interview. “I think her music is just as relevant today as it was in 1968-69.” Joplin’s own words tell much of the film’s story through a series of letters she wrote to her parents, many seen and heard for the first time in this film. Her letters show the vulnerable artist, daughter and lover Joplin was... until she self-destructed at age 27. She began singing blues and folk music growing up in Port Arthur, Texas. As a teen, she became overweight, and her skin broke out so badly, she was left with scars. Children routinely taunted her because she was different. She left Texas and headed for San Francisco. Through the years she performed with the psychedelic rock band Big Brother and the Holding Company and later formed her own backup group, the Kozmic Blues Band. She was best known for her songs: Me and Bobby McGee, Mercedes Benz, Piece of My Heart and many others. Berg had access to a treasure trove of audio and video footage, thanks to Joplin’s cooperative estate. There are also marvelous interviews with Joplin’s siblings, friends, lovers, bandmates and musical colleagues. Janis: Little Girl Blue airs Tuesday, May 3 at 8 p.m.

The Highwaymen: Friends Till the End

What a foursome! Originally formed in 1985, this super group known as The Highwaymen consisted of Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Kris Kristofferson and Johnny Cash. The Highwaymen: Friends Till the End explores how individually and collectively The Highwaymen had a profound effect on changing country music and American pop from a producer/label- controlled medium to freer, artist-based creations that led to a genre known as outlaw music. Although each one was a superstar, they began to strategize about recording together to revitalize the country music scene and ignite their own restless creativity. Their artistry, friendship and independence prevailed, and they produced a number one hit (and album) The Highwaymen, followed by groundbreaking world tours, more albums and hits, a movie deal and one of the best live shows of all time. As part of its 30th anniversary celebration, American Masters will premiere these two programs filled with music and memories that you can enjoy again and again. The Highwaymen: Friends Till the End airs Friday, May 27 at 9 p.m.

LITTLE GIRL BLUE

NEWS FROMETV ENDOWMENT OF

SOUTH CAROLINA

MAY/JUNE

2016

THE HIGHWAYMEN FRIENDS TILL THE END

&

Gather with family and friends for a truly American tradition. The spectacular 27th annual National Memorial Day Concert will air live from the West Lawn of the U.S. Capitol. Cohosted by Tony Award-winner Joe Mantegna and Emmy Award-winner Gary Sinise, this extravaganza features an all-star lineup of musical artists and actors. In ad-dition to the audience in Washington and millions of home viewers, the concert will be beamed to troops around the world on the American Forces Network. “There are veterans everywhere on this weekend. As long as they can get here, they do,” said Sinise. “To have people telling their stories makes it very personal. They repre-sent so many others who have gone through similar wartime experiences. It brings our audience in a more personal way to what we are doing here — honoring those who have sacrificed.” “Join us for a night to remember,” added Mantegna. The program airs on Sunday, May 29 at 8 p.m. and again at 9:30 p.m. Photo: Courtesy of Capital Concerts

Dear ETV Endowment Member, In the coming weeks you will find some extraordinary filmmaking on ETV, focusing on scientific and musical geniuses and how we as humans relate to each other and to the creatures that share our planet. Independent Lens brings us another thought-provoking film that will further the debate about the role of guns in our society. Kenneth Branagh rounds out his role of Wallander, the conflicted detective struggling to protect his community from violent crime. Stephen Hawking investigates the nature of Genius, taking us through the thought pro-cesses that great intellects of our time have used to answer our deepest questions. We’re proud to bring you another exclusive interview with one of the talented producers responsible for our extraordinary programs. Michael Kantor, executive producer of Ameri-

can Masters, fills us in on the series’ 30th anniver-sary season. And as always, you can rely on SC Public Radio’s interviews with the “movers and shakers” of the country and the region to explore the deeper implications of the day’s news. ETV and SC Public Radio will continue to illu- minate the heights and the depths as long as your membership support remains our bedrock. It’s a relationship with real genius at work!

Coby C. Hennecy, CPA, CFREExecutive DirectorETV Endowment of South Carolina

A Word from … COBY HENNECY

MembershipETV Endowment 864-591-0046

members@etvendowment.orgwww.etvendowment.orgETV Endowment of SC

401 E. Kennedy St., Suite B-1Spartanburg, SC 29302

ProgrammingETV and South Carolina Public Radio:

803-737-3200 or 800-922-5437 csr@scetv.org

www.scetv.org and www.etvradio.org

Independent Lens is premiering two controversial and challenging films: Peace Officer and The Armor of Light. Peace Officer explores the

increasingly militarized state of the police as told through the story of

William “Dub” Lawrence’s quest to find answers after the 2008 shooting of his son-

in-law, Brian Wood. Wood, who was parked in his truck, was shot by the swat team that Lawrence

founded in the 1970s. “It didn’t make sense the way it went down,”

said Lawrence, a former Davis County sheriff. “I kept telling them, let me talk to Brian, I know I can calm this situation down,” he continued. “They said absolutely not.” You’ll watch his progress as Lawrence uses his investigative skills and exhaustive forensic techniques to uncover the truth and reconstruct what happened to Wood on the day of his death. The film also delves into the larger questions and factors that have led to a 15,000 percent increase in SWAT-team raids in the United States since the late 1970s. Peace Officer airs Monday, May 9 at 9 p.m.

The Armor of Light follows the journey of an evangelical minister, Reverend Rob Schenck, as he preaches about the growing toll of gun violence in America. An anti-abortion activist, Schenck breaks with orthodoxy by questioning whether being pro-gun is consistent with being pro-life. You’ll also meet Lucia McBath, the mother of Jordan Davis, an un-armed teenager who was murdered in Florida, who decides to work with Schenck, even though she is pro-choice. The film asks the question of whether people can really find common ground across deep party lines. The Armor of Light airs Tuesday, May 10 at 9 p.m.

the Armor of Light

Photo credit: Brad Barber

N A T I O N A L

MeMorial day concert

andPEACE OFFICER

THE ARMOR OF LIGHT

2 The Endowment Insider

BRILLIANTLY ACTED, SUPERBLY WRITTEN

WALLANDER

Kenneth Branagh reprises his role as Inspector Kurt Wallander as Wallander returns for the fourth and final season with three episodes, as part of MASTERPIECE Mystery!. Joining him are Jeany Spark as his daughter, Linda; Richard McCabe as the good- hearted forensic pathologist, Sven Myberg; and Ingeborga Dapkunaite as Baiba Liepa, the beautiful Latvian musician and police widow. New this season is Harry Hadden-Paton who plays Linda’s workaholic husband, Hans von Enke.

According to Branagh, the last season contains some of the greatest challenges Wallander has ever faced. The first program is based on Henning Mankell’s The White Lioness, the second on A Lesson in Love and the third on The Troubled Man. What will happen to Wallander as he pursues some of the most deranged criminals in northern Europe and battles his own personal demons? Why is he starting to lose his memory? Tune in to find out as Season 4 premieres on Sunday, May 8 at 9 p.m.

Michael Kantor is executive producer of American Masters. A longtime filmmaker for PBS, he has created numerous award-winning documentaries.

Q. How are you expanding American Masters?A. American Masters is already a remark-ably diverse series, but I am hoping to work with each group in the CPB-supported National Minority Consortia to create new and compelling programs about people who have had an impact on our culture. There has also been a renewed interest in limited theatrical “art house” runs for the kind of documentaries we make, so we’ve come up with a theatrical imprint, American Masters Pictures.

Q. What does American Masters offer viewers that is unique in television programming?A. We focus on biography, so if you are interested in what makes an artist or cultural leader great and how his/her work relates to the cultural and historical crosscurrents of the times, this is the series for you.

Q. What were your criteria for choosing Janis and The Highwaymen? A. Janis was commissioned by American Masters series creator Susan Lacy, and I had the pleasure of working with director Amy Berg and producer Alex Gibney to see it to fruition. Building on the country music audience for our program on Loretta Lynn, The Highwaymen will hopefully expand our audience even further.

Q. What do you want the audience to take away from these two films?A. I think both of these films speak to the power that we all have to reinvent ourselves. Janis does that at a very young age, and The Highwaymen used the supergroup to breathe new life into their careers.

Q. What programming can viewers look forward to?A. Coming up, we will feature directors and producers like Norman Lear, Sidney Lumet and Richard Linklater. Next year, we are planning a series on great chefs. n

Exclusive Interview with

Michael Kantorfor ETV

BY MARILYN EWERBY STEPHEN HAWKING

Genius “We all can think like a genius,” says Profes-sor Stephen Hawking, the renowned theoretical physicist, as he talks about the new six-part science series, Genius by Stephen Hawking. The challenge of this groundbreaking program is to prove that ordinary people with curious minds can use their own intellect to learn what humanity’s most notable thinkers have discovered about the greatest scientific mysteries through the centuries. Through the use of large-scale experiments and remarkable dem-onstrations, the programs decode the mysteries of evolutionary biology, astrophysics and quantum mechanics, solving questions like “Why are we here?,” “What are we?,” “Are we alone?,” “Where did the

universe come from?” and “Can we travel in time?”

“We all can think like a genius.”

— Professor Stephen Hawking

Genius takes us back in time to ancient Greece, where Eratosthenes calculated the Earth’s circumference, and to more recent history when Edwin Hubble established the

distances between our planet and the vast galaxies throughout the universe.

You’ll witness firsthand a demonstration of evolution in action, a self-assembling machine and other remarkable

inventions. What will you discover? Airs Wednesday, June 1 at 9 p.m.

Photo: Courtesy of Freya Williams / Bigger Bang Communications

The Endowment Insider 3

SCETVNL05164 The Endowment Insider

The ETV Endowment is pleased to welcome Rachel Chesser to our staff as development associate. Rachel comes to us with previous public relations and marketing experience with The Charleston Museum and the Charleston Men’s Chorus. Rachel will help steward relationships with the thousands of ETV and South Carolina Public Radio supporters in the Lowcountry of South Carolina.

“We are excited to have Rachel on board and know that her extensive experience will be a significant benefit to our members,” stated Executive Director Coby Hennecy. Rachel holds a Bachelor of Arts in sociology from Emory and Henry College and a Master of Arts in United States History from George Mason University. She is married with two children and lives in Charleston.

If you enjoy authentic stories about the American South, you are going to love the stories of Reel South. An exciting documentary series that includes half-hour and hour-long independent, documentary films, Reel South is a col-laboration between SC ETV, UNC-TV and the Southern Documentary Fund. The six acclaimed films of the pilot season are:• The Last Barn Dance, profiling a struggling

dairy farmer who wants to continue the tradition of an annual gathering

• Tommy! The Dreams I Keep Inside Me, about a 60-year-old singer on the autism spectrum who dreams of crooning with a big band

• Cotton Road, tracking a South Carolina cotton crop to factories in China and back to U.S. retailers

• Can’t Stop the Water, reporting on a Native American community coping with flooding in Louisiana

• Counter Histories: Rock Hill, recalling

a lunch-counter protest in 1961 that helped inspire the “jail, no bail” movement• Bending Sticks, a profile of artist Patrick

Dougherty, who crafts massive, graceful sculptures from saplings

Now airing on both SC ETV and UNC-TV, Reel South brings these films to a national audience hungry for authentic stories from one of the most unique corners of America.

Have you made a dona-tion to the ETV Endow-ment and received the new 2016 decal? We

have heard from a number of donors who weren’t sure how to apply the decal, and we would like to provide some guidance on how best to position your decal on your vehicle. The new decals are designed to be located on the right side of the rear of a vehicle, so that they may be layered each year to the left, as pictured above. We hope you all will show your support of the great programming that ETV and South Carolina Public Radio offer!

South Carolina Public Radio has collaborated with the Spoleto Festival USA for more than three decades

to produce Chamber Music from the Spoleto Festival USA. These daily concerts are a statewide series. Chamber Music from the Spoleto Festival USA is heard on 217 stations in the USA and internationally, reaching more than 7 million listeners. In addition, performances from Chamber Music from Spoleto Festival USA are broadcast on Performance Today, heard by more than 1.4 million listeners each week on 292 stations. Shari Hutchinson, General Manager of SC Public Radio and Executive Producer of Chamber Music from Spoleto Festival USA, said “South Carolina Public Radio is pleased to share these exceptional performances with our South Carolina audience as well as music lovers around the world.”

ETV Endowment Adds Development Associate

“I hate violence, so I will not lend my energy to violence by looking at it. Therefore, I support ETV! It’s what I love.”— Amoy, Charleston, SC

“We support because it’s the right thing to do. If ETV is to exist, it will survive because of its donors and members.”— Edwin, Hartsville, SC

“I get more from ETV than I give.”— Joe, Charleston, SC

“The programs are documented, factual, informative and researched. There is clean and reliable information on ETV without hidden messages. I am always intrigued.”— Wanda, Columbia, SC

When asked why they support the ETV Endowment, our

donors shared the following.

New 2016 DECAL!

SPOLETO