Noah Adams, the longtime host of NPR’s All Things Considered, died on October 16 at his home in Yellow Springs, Ohio. He was 84.

A postman’s son from Kentucky, Noah was the host of ATC for some 18 years. His quiet Appalachian baritone, the warmth of his voice, his curiosity and empathy for the lives of working people was a part of the fabric of public radio for decades.

Noah’s wife Neenah Ellis, whom he met when she was a producer on All Things Considered and who was station manager at WYSO, the community radio station in Yellow Springs, where the two have lived for some 20 years, said this about Noah: “He was looking for who was yearning, who was in pain, who needed help out in the country.”

With Deborah Amos and James Reston Jr, Noah produced one of the most important, powerful radio documentaries of the 20th century: “Father Cares: The Last of Jonestown” about Jim Jones and the mass cult suicide and murder in Jonestown, Guyana in 1978. Nikki and I heard the story when we were just beginning our nearly 40-year collaboration with NPR and it opened our eyes to the power of the medium and the possibilities of scorching storytelling through sound and archival audio.

At the turn of the millennium, The Kitchen Sisters and Jay Allison produced the series, Lost & Found Sound with All Things Considered, a big, sprawling nationwide collaboration with NPR, radio producers and listeners across the nation to mark the turn of the century in sound. The series ran every Friday afternoon for nearly two years. Noah was one of the hosts of the show at the time and often read the intros to our stories and produced a beautiful story for the series himself, West Virginia Steam Trains. As the pieces piled up across the year we put together a two-disc CD collection for listeners. Noah was the obvious choice as host.

Today, in honor of Noah Adams and all he gave to public radio, to his friends and the country, The Kitchen Sisters and Jay Allison Present: Lost & Found Sound: Vanishing Voices, a radio special produced in the year 2000. Our host is Noah Adams.

Lost & Found Sound: Vanishing Voices was produced by The Kitchen Sisters and Jay Allison. Mixed by Jim McKee. Special thanks to Art Silverman, Robert Siegel, Linda Wertheimer, Ellen Weiss, Jeffrey Dvorkin, David Giovannoni, Sandra Wong Geroux and Laura Folger.

Funding for The Kitchen Sisters Present... comes from our listeners. We thank you for your support and generosity. Funding for Lost & Found Sound came from NPR, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

The Kitchen Sisters Present… is part of Radiotopia from PRX, a network of independent, multi-layered, sound-rich podcasts that widen your world.

Thank you for listening. Thank you for subscribing. Thank you for supporting non-commercial public media in these times.

And thank you Noah Adams for your beautiful voice and your beautiful heart.