''The Connection'' was a public radio call-in program from

WBUR WBUR-FM (90.9 FM) is a public radio station located in Boston, Massachusetts, owned by Boston University. It is the largest of three NPR member stations in Boston, along with WGBH and WUMB-FM and produces several nationally distributed prog ...

that ran from 1994 to 2005. Originally hosted by Christopher Lydon (1994–2001), and (after a series of short-term fill-in hosts) followed by Canadian Dick Gordon (2001–2005), it was syndicated to as many as 66 public radio stations in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five ma ...

. In March 2001, Lydon was dismissed after negotiations for renewal of his contract broke down. Lydon now hosts WBUR's ''

Open Source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized sof ...

''. Dick Gordon became the show's host just after the

September 11, 2001 attacks The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commerc ...

. He eventually took the program to Baghdad for 10 days in April 2003. ''The Connection'' was abruptly canceled after the August 5, 2005 broadcast, and Gordon laid off. Gordon says that the circumstances surrounding his termination were not explained well, though it is believed that WBUR was presumably not able to continue carrying the show. WBUR filled ''The Connection'''s 10 a.m. to noon timeslot with '' On Point'', a similar program previously aired in the 7-9 p.m. timeslot. Gordon now hosts ''

The Story with Dick Gordon ''The Story with Dick Gordon'' was a weekday interview program hosted by Dick Gordon, former host of WBUR's '' The Connection'' and, before that, fill-in host for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's national radio program ''This Morning''. ...

'' at North Carolina Public Radio. ''The Connection'''s theme song was the jazz tune "

Cantaloupe Island "Cantaloupe Island" is a jazz standard composed by Herbie Hancock and recorded for his 1964 album '' Empyrean Isles'' during his early years as one of the members of Miles Davis' 1960s quintet. Hancock later recorded a jazz-funk fusion versio ...

" by

Herbie Hancock Herbert Jeffrey Hancock (born April 12, 1940) is an American jazz pianist, keyboardist, bandleader, and composer. Hancock started his career with trumpeter Donald Byrd's group. He shortly thereafter joined the Miles Davis Quintet, where he hel ...

, performed by Us3 in their rendition titled "Cantaloop (Flip Fantasia)".

References

External links

''The Connection'' website
with streamable show archives from 2000 to 2005 American talk radio programs NPR programs {{US-radio-show-stub 1994 radio programme debuts 2005 radio programme endings