TALKIES
Section 03
Talkies.
72 live literary addas, tributes, author chats, and conversations — the oral archive of Kahaani Koncerti, spanning five years of stories told out loud.
Latest · Gajaraj by Avijit Dutt · Author's Chat Soumitra Chatterjee and His World · March 2025 Talking Tagore · Three-Part Series Poet's Corner · Faiz · Nabarun · Kolatkar Hungry Legend · Moloy Roychowdhury Lucille · The Blues of BB King Latest · Gajaraj by Avijit Dutt · Author's Chat Soumitra Chatterjee and His World · March 2025 Talking Tagore · Three-Part Series Poet's Corner · Faiz · Nabarun · Kolatkar Hungry Legend · Moloy Roychowdhury Lucille · The Blues of BB King
2025
Gajaraj by Avijit Dutt
31:59
Author's Chat
Gajaraj by Avijit Dutt
April 2025
Anjana Basu and Sujit Sanyal in conversation with Avijit Dutt about his novel Gajaraj — a story of an elephant, a mahout, and the world they carry between them.
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Soumitra Chatterjee and His World
48:44
Author's Chat
Soumitra Chatterjee and His World
March 2025
Sanghamitra Chakraborty and Poulami Bose explore the life, craft, and legacy of the incomparable Soumitra Chatterjee — actor, poet, man of letters.
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Usha Di on Benegal
4:19
Film & Cinema
Usha Di on Benegal
February 2025
A warm recollection of Shyam Benegal — the filmmaker who changed how Indian cinema told its stories — as remembered by a collaborator and friend.
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Forgotten Lives of Kolkata
53:29
Author's Chat
Forgotten Lives of Kolkata
January 2025
Devasis Chattopadhyay in conversation with Sujit Sanyal — excavating the stories of those the city forgot, the lives that slipped between its cracks.
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2024
Translating for Rituparno
54:18
Film & Cinema
Translating for Rituparno
September 2024
An intimate look at the art and challenge of translating Rituparno Ghosh's screenplay language — prose that carried an entire sensibility — into English.
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The Swinging 70s
1:33:29
Literary Adda
The Swinging 70s
June 2024
The editors and four contributors of this landmark anthology on the decade gather for a live conversation — about what made the 1970s so turbulent, so generative, so unforgettable.
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2023
Talking Tagore: Episode III
44:18
Talking Tagore
Talking Tagore: Episode III
September 2023
Prof. R. Sivakumar in conversation with Prof. Sushanta Dattagupta — on Tagore's engagement with science, nature, and the philosophy of a borderless world.
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Talking Tagore: Episode II
1:13:01
Talking Tagore
Talking Tagore: Episode II
July 2023
Dr. Dipankar Dasgupta returns to Tagore's economic thought and his vision of a self-sustaining village — ideas that feel startlingly current in the second episode of this series.
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Phire Dekha: The Hungryalist Movement
40:26
Literary Adda
Phire Dekha: The Hungryalist Movement
June 2023
A relook at the Hungryalist movement in Bengali literature — its rage, its poetry, its politics — and why it still matters half a century on.
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Talking Tagore: Episode I
1:04:47
Talking Tagore
Talking Tagore: Episode I
February 2023
The first episode in Kahaani Koncerti's three-part series revisiting Tagore's vision — his humanism, his politics, and the restless, searching quality of his thought.
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2022
Cutting Loose: Album by Jaimin
1:06:49
Music
Cutting Loose: Album by Jaimin
December 2022
A full evening around Jaimin's album — the sounds, the stories behind each track, and a conversation about what it means to make music on your own terms.
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No Return Address
1:04:58
Author's Chat
No Return Address
December 2022
A book discussion about belonging, identity, and what we leave unsent — a conversation about letters and the silences between them.
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Poet's Corner: Arun Kolatkar
1:01:58
Poet's Corner
Arun Kolatkar and Bombay Modern
September 2022
The third Poet's Corner explores Arun Kolatkar's bilingual world — the Bombay of Jejuri and Kala Ghoda Poems, and the modernism that made him irreplaceable.
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Poet's Corner: Nabarun Bhattacharya
1:18:00
Poet's Corner
Nabarun Bhattacharya
August 2022
The furious, carnivalesque world of Nabarun Bhattacharya — his Fyatarus, his rage against the establishment, his love for the marginalised.
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Cinemapadar Rahagir: Tarun Majumder
1:08:19
Film & Cinema
Cinemapadar Rahagir: Tarun Majumder
July 2022
A tribute to Tarun Majumder — the director who gave Bengali cinema its most lyrical romances — retracing the journey of a master.
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Poet's Corner: Faiz Ahmad Faiz
1:00:31
Poet's Corner
Faiz Ahmad Faiz
June 2022
The first Poet's Corner takes on the great Urdu poet Faiz Ahmad Faiz — his resistance, his romanticism, and why Hum Dekhenge still stops a room in its tracks.
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Gleanings of the Road
54:33
Author's Chat
Gleanings of the Road
May 2022
An author chat about travel, memory, and the fragments that stick — what we carry home from the road, and what shape those experiences take when finally written down.
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Visva Bharati: A Vision Betrayed
1:16:34
Author's Chat
Visva Bharati: A Vision Betrayed
May 2022
A century after its founding, what remains of Tagore's dream at Visva Bharati? An author chat on the university, its promise, its politics, and what was lost along the way.
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The Tree with a Thousand Apples
52:55
Author's Chat
The Tree with a Thousand Apples
May 2022
An author chat on a book that grows in many directions at once — its stories branching into myth, memory, and the strange abundance of the ordinary.
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A History of Sriniketan
1:09:16
Author's Chat
A History of Sriniketan
April 2022
The lesser-told story of Sriniketan — Tagore's rural reconstruction experiment, his attempt to bring the university to the village, and what it looked like in practice.
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Tarangey Antarangey
1:13:21
Author's Chat
Tarangey Antarangey
March 2022
Sutirtha Das in conversation — waves on the surface, depths below. A book and a discussion about what lies underneath the lives we show the world.
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The Second Wife and Other Stories
1:32:02
Author's Chat
The Second Wife and Other Stories
February 2022
Short fiction about women, households, and the negotiations that happen in the margins of domestic life. An author chat on a rich and overdue collection.
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Birth of Bangladesh
1:17:56
Literary Adda
Birth of Bangladesh
February 2022
Fifty years on from 1971 — a conversation about the Liberation War, the literature it inspired, and how writers on both sides of the border have reckoned with that history.
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A Memorial for Maharaj Ji
1:07:21
Literary Adda
A Memorial for Maharaj Ji
January 2022
A gathering in memory — keeping a beloved figure alive in the room through stories, readings, and the kind of conversation that refuses to let go.
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Bishoye: Bangobala
1:44:49
Heritage Series
Bishoye: Bangobala
January 2022
On Bangobala — the everyday heroism and complex humanity of Bengali women across literature and life. A wide-ranging conversation about who gets written and who writes.
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Debnath the Great
1:07:08
Literary Adda
Debnath the Great
January 2022
Narayan Debnath — who gave Bengal Handa Bhonda, Nonte Fonte, and Batul the Great — remembered and celebrated by those who grew up with his pen.
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2021
Seshadri Serves
1:10:01
Literary Adda
Seshadri Serves
September 2021
A celebration of the poet H.S. Shivaprakash's Seshadri — the enigmatic wandering poet of Mysore — and what it means to carry genius and homelessness in the same body.
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Buddhang Sharanang
1:37:38
Heritage Series
Buddhang Sharanang
September 2021
On taking refuge in the Buddha — a conversation about Buddhism, literature, and the long tradition of writers who found in Dharma a language for suffering and release.
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Smoked, Spiced, Pickled, Preserved
1:02:17
Author's Chat
Smoked, Spiced, Pickled, Preserved
August 2021
Food as archive, as memory, as politics — a book that refuses to treat recipes as merely recipes and insists on the history in every bite.
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Toba Tek Singh: Play Reading
24:29
Literary Adda
Toba Tek Singh: Play Reading
August 2021
Dharam Arora leads a dramatised reading of Saadat Hasan Manto's devastating Partition story — performed at the border of reason and madness, just as Manto intended.
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Waiting for Swaraj
44:44
Author's Chat
Waiting for Swaraj
August 2021
Dr. Aparna Vaidik and Dr. Anirban Bandopadhyay on the long wait for self-rule — what independence meant to those who struggled for it, and what it left unresolved.
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The Flame of Freedom: Pritilata Waddedar
7:24
Heritage Series
The Flame of Freedom: Pritilata Waddedar
August 2021
Ahana Chaudhuri on Pritilata Waddedar — the revolutionary who walked into fire for her country at twenty-one — in this tribute from Kahaani Koncerti's Independence series.
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Freedom at Midnight, 2021
1:59:56
Literary Adda
Freedom at Midnight, 2021
August 2021
A two-hour Independence Day live event — stories, readings, conversations, and reflections on 75 years of a republic still learning what it means to be free.
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S Hussain Zaidi in Conversation
1:03:37
Author's Chat
S Hussain Zaidi in Conversation
August 2021
S Hussain Zaidi and co-author Gautam Mengle on Mumbai's underworld, the ethics of true crime, and what fiction can do that reporting cannot.
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Will OTT Kill the Movie Going Habit?
1:03:21
Film & Cinema
Will OTT Kill the Movie Going Habit?
August 2021
Post-pandemic, with cinemas shuttered and OTT exploding — a sharp panel debate on whether the theatrical experience is finished, or just changing.
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Desire for Fire
1:13:43
Author's Chat
Desire for Fire
July 2021
Arunava Sinha on translating 54 Bengali poets — the impossible choices, the formal challenges, and the privilege of living inside so many voices at once.
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Six Years on the Dope Trail
38:40
Author's Chat
Six Years on the Dope Trail
July 2021
A book that followed the narcotics trade across six years and multiple continents — about addiction, journalism, complicity, and what the war on drugs costs everyone.
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A Taste of Time
1:41:03
Author's Chat
A Taste of Time
July 2021
Food, memory, and the passage of years — a book that uses flavour as a way of recovering the past, and recipes as a form of inheritance.
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Fern Road
48:52
Author's Chat
Fern Road
July 2021
Angshu Dasgupta on a novel about place, displacement, and the strange grief of a house that no longer exists. A conversation about homes in fiction and in life.
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Discussing Charulata
1:33:30
Film & Cinema
Discussing Charulata
June 2021
Ray's masterpiece, sixty years on — Charulata's loneliness, her intelligence, her unfulfilled desire, and why the film still feels like it was made yesterday.
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Proshongo Durga
29:55
Heritage Series
Proshongo Durga
June 2021
On the goddess in literature, art, and life — a conversation about Durga not as icon but as idea, and how Bengali writers have interpreted her power across the centuries.
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Shankodhwani
1:16:35
Music
Shankodhwani
June 2021
The sound of the conch — a musical evening exploring the sacred and the ceremonial in Bengali music, where tradition and innovation find each other across time.
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MuniraGhran
1:27:04
Heritage Series
MuniraGhran
June 2021
A cultural evening that brought together stories, songs, and remembrances to keep a tradition and a name alive in the room.
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Kalim Sandhya
1:09:43
Music
Kalim Sandhya: Celebrating Kalim Sharafi
June 2021
An evening in honour of Kalim Sharafi — the legendary Tagore singer whose voice defined an era — celebrating his music, his pedagogy, and his enduring influence.
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Proshongo Sarbajaya
1:23:57
Heritage Series
Proshongo Sarbajaya
June 2021
On Sarbajaya — the mother in Pather Panchali, in Bibhutibhushan, in Bengali literary consciousness — and what her endurance has meant to generations of readers and viewers.
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Robert Johnson
56:45
Music
Robert Johnson
June 2021
The crossroads, the deal, the music — a conversation about Robert Johnson, the Delta blues, and the mythology that grows around an artist when recordings outlast the life.
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Shotoborshey Subinoy
1:34:59
Music
Shotoborshey Subinoy
June 2021
Celebrating a century of Subinoy Roy — the Rabindra Sangeet maestro whose recordings shaped how an entire generation heard Tagore. An evening of music and memory.
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Proshongo Aditi
1:01:44
Heritage Series
Proshongo Aditi
June 2021
On Aditi — the Vedic mother of gods, and her long journey through Indian literature. Mythology, maternity, and the stories we tell about the first mother.
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Proshongo Bimala
1:22:42
Heritage Series
Proshongo Bimala
June 2021
On Bimala — Tagore's most complex woman, the heart of Ghare Baire — her desires, her politics, her impossible choices. A conversation about the novel that haunts us still.
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Being Mrinmoyee
1:10:41
Heritage Series
Being Mrinmoyee
June 2021
On Tagore's Mrinmoyee — the rebellious girl-child who refused to be tamed by marriage — and what she represents in the canon of Bengali women who dared to be difficult.
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Secret of Lynching and Blood Justice in India
1:23:25
Literary Adda
Secret of Lynching and Blood Justice in India
June 2021
A difficult, necessary conversation about mob violence, its legal vacuum, and the literature that has tried to make sense of a cruelty hiding in plain sight.
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Discussing Jhuria
1:09:25
Film & Cinema
Discussing Jhuria
June 2021
A conversation about the Bengali film Jhuria — its world, its craft, and what it says about the lives of women in rural Bengal. Cinema as social document and human story.
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Talking Classics with Tillotama Shome
44:02
Film & Cinema
Talking Classics with Tillotama Shome
June 2021
The actor Tillotama Shome in conversation about the films she loves and what it means to return again and again to a work you thought you already understood.
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Enter Stage Right
1:00:26
Literary Adda
Enter Stage Right
June 2021
On theatre — its politics, its economics, its survival — and the writers and directors who believe the stage is still the most immediate form of storytelling we have.
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The Magic of Mandi House
1:47:37
Literary Adda
The Magic of Mandi House
March 2021
Delhi's theatre district, its golden era, and what it produced — actors, playwrights, directors, and a culture of serious performance that changed how India told stories on stage.
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Tambourine Man: An Evening on Bob Dylan
1:27:58
Music
Tambourine Man: An Evening on Bob Dylan
March 2021
A live event dedicated to Dylan — his songs, his Nobel, his refusals, and whether the troubadour from Duluth is better understood as a poet or a phenomenon.
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Calling Elvis
1:26:18
Music
Calling Elvis
January 2021
An evening in honour of the King — his music, his mythology, and his strange, complicated legacy. A Kahaani Koncerti live event that brought Elvis home on a January night in Delhi.
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2020
Ghanada-75
1:28:22
Literary Adda
Ghanada-75
December 2020
Seventy-five years of Premendra Mitra's Ghanashyam Das — the armchair adventurer whose tales have never stopped being read. A celebration of the man who made tall stories respectable.
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Hungry Legend: Moloy Roychowdhury
1:52:03
Literary Adda
Hungry Legend: Moloy Roychowdhury
November 2020
The last surviving founder of the Hungryalist movement — the poet Moloy Roychowdhury — in a full live event: readings, interviews, and the untamed spirit of a movement that refused to be polite.
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Hungry Legend: The Hungryalists
4:09
Literary Adda
Hungry Legend: The Hungryalists
November 2020
Anamika Bandopadhyay on the Hungryalist movement — what they were, what they wanted, and why their literary rebellion still registers as one of the most important in Bengali letters.
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Hungry Legend: Interview with Moloy Roychowdhury
4:19
Literary Adda
Hungry Legend: Interview with Moloy Roychowdhury
November 2020
Anamika Bandopadhyay in conversation with Moloy Roychowdhury — the poet speaks about the Hungryalist years, the arrests, the trials, and the poetry that came out the other side.
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Hungry Legend: Prochondo Boidyutik Chhutar
1:45
Literary Adda
Hungry Legend: Prochondo Boidyutik Chhutar
November 2020
Moloy Roychowdhury recites his landmark poem — the Hungryalist manifesto-in-verse that put him in a courtroom and put Bengali poetry on notice.
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Hungry Legend: Stark Electric Jesus
1:53
Literary Adda
Hungry Legend: Stark Electric Jesus
November 2020
Moloy Roychowdhury recites Stark Electric Jesus — Allen Ginsberg's translation of the most notorious poem of the Hungryalist movement, heard again in the poet's own voice.
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Himmat Mai: Usha Ganguly
1:22:50
Literary Adda
Himmat Mai: Usha Ganguly and Hindi Theatre
November 2020
Dharam Arora on Usha Ganguly's extraordinary career in Hindi theatre in Calcutta — the plays, the politics, the courage it takes to build a theatre company on your own terms.
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Chacha Mujtaba Ali
1:53:05
Literary Adda
Chacha Mujtaba Ali
November 2020
Syed Mujtaba Ali — the great Bengali humorist, traveller, and polyglot — remembered with the wit and warmth his work deserves. One of Kahaani Koncerti's finest evenings.
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Discussing Mahasweta Devi
1:11:42
Literary Adda
Discussing Mahasweta Devi
October 2020
On the great Mahasweta Devi — her fiction about tribal India, her journalism, her activism — and the question of whether a writer can be too committed to the truth to be comfortable.
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Lucille: The Blues of BB King
1:10:19
Music
Lucille: The Blues of BB King
October 2020
Vivek Mukherjee on the life and guitar of BB King — the man who named his guitar Lucille and played the blues like a conversation with God. A full live stream evening on the King of the Blues.
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Bhakti Literature: Sant Tukaram
4:54
Heritage Series
Bhakti Literature: Sant Tukaram
September 2020
T.S. Satyanath on Sant Tukaram — the 17th-century Marathi poet-saint whose abhangas fused devotion with social protest — and the 1936 Prabhat Film that brought his story to the screen.
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Lucille: Why I Sing the Blues
8:39
Music
Lucille: Why I Sing the Blues
September 2020
A look at BB King's anthem — its lyrics, its history, and the decades of grief and joy compressed into three minutes of guitar and voice.
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Lucille: Sweet Sixteen
7:03
Music
Lucille: Sweet Sixteen
September 2020
Sweet Sixteen — the BB King classic — unpacked: its structure, its feeling, the way it moves between tenderness and longing. Part of Kahaani Koncerti's Lucille series on the blues.
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Lucille: Caldonia
3:20
Music
Lucille: Caldonia
September 2020
A look at Caldonia — the jump blues classic — and what BB King made of it. Short, bright, irresistible, and part of the reason the blues never really went away.
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Lucille: Hummingbird
4:36
Music
Lucille: Hummingbird
September 2020
The opening note of the Lucille series — and an introduction to why the blues is not just a genre but a way of telling the truth about living.
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