IN: Robert David Sanders "Bob" Novak (February 26, 1931 - August 18, 2009) was an American syndicated columnist, journalist, television personality, author, and conservative political commentator. After working for two newspapers before serving in the U.S. Army during the Korean War, he became a reporter for the Associated Press and then for The Wall Street Journal. He teamed up with Rowland Evans in 1963 to start Inside Report, which became the longest running syndicated political column in U.S. history and ran in hundreds of papers. They also started the Evans-Novak Political Report, a notable biweekly newsletter, in 1967.

Novak was born in Joliet, Illinois, the son of Jane Sanders and Maurice Novak, a chemical engineer. His paternal grandparents immigrated from Ukraine, and his mother's family was from Lithuania. Novak's parents were secular Jews who had little interaction with their local Jewish community and rarely attended religious services. Neighbors considered Novak's family to be Polish. Novak suffered from chronic bronchitis through his early childhood, which led his mother to drive him to and from school instead of letting him walk. Because of the constant family attention, his cousins mockingly called him "Baby Jesus". Novak also loved to tease, offend, and shock his family from an early age, and he later compared himself to French rebel Bertran de Born.  Novak's journalism career began when he was in high school as a student-writer for the Joliet Herald-News, his hometown newspaper, and he received ten cents per inch. After high school, he attended the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UI) from 1948 to 1952. His father had attended the college, and he later remarked that "I was an Illini from birth". He became a brother of the Alpha Epsilon Pi fraternity, at the time a mostly Jewish college fraternity, while attending the University of Illinois. Novak would later use the group's 'secret handshake' whenever he met fellow alumnus Wolf Blitzer.  He continued gaining journalism experience as a sports writer for the Daily Illini (DI), the college's student newspaper. Novak's wrote how his disappointment about not being named the paper's main sports editor for the 1951-52 school year (he lost the job to Tony Garcia) led him to skip his senior classes and to work full time for the Champaign-Urbana Courier. After four years at the University, Novak left it to become a full-time journalist without a degree, even though he was only one course short of the requirements. In 1993 a college Dean determined that four mandatory physical education classes that Novak had gone through for no credit should constitute enough credit hours, and Novak received his bachelor's degree. Novak later described his academic achievements as "very uneven." He spoke at the university's May 1998 commencement, and in his speech he credited the college for bringing him up from working class immigrant status into the American middle class.  During the Korean War, Novak served in the U.S. Army, and he reached the rank of lieutenant. He later stated that he had fully expected to die in the service. After serving from 1952 to 1954, he joined the Associated Press (AP) and became a political correspondent in Omaha, Nebraska. He was transferred to Lincoln, Nebraska, and then to Indianapolis, Indiana, covering the two state legislatures in his reporting. In 1957, Novak was transferred to Washington, D.C. where he reported on Congress. He left the AP to join the D.C. bureau of The Wall Street Journal in 1958, covering the Senate. He rose to the rank of chief congressional correspondent in 1961. He generally did his work without using a tape recordings or paper notes, relying just on his detailed memory. Novak's colleagues at The Wall Street Journal later said that he absorbed himself in his work so completely that he often forgot to shave, left his shoes untied, and even started accidentally placing burning cigarettes into his pockets.
QUESTION: Did he work with any news organizations?
IN: Buena Vista Social Club is an ensemble of Cuban musicians established in 1996 to revive the music of pre-revolutionary Cuba. The project was organized by World Circuit executive Nick Gold, produced by American guitarist Ry Cooder and directed by Juan de Marcos Gonzalez. They named the group after the homonymous members' club in the Buenavista quarter of Havana, a popular music venue in the 1940s. To showcase the popular styles of the time, such as son, bolero and danzon, they recruited a dozen veteran musicians, many of whom had been retired for years.

Shortly after the Cuban Revolution of 1959, newly elected Cuban President Manuel Urrutia Lleo, a devout Christian, began a program of closing gambling outlets, nightclubs, and other establishments associated with Havana's hedonistic lifestyle. This had an immediate impact on the livelihoods of local entertainers. As the Cuban government rapidly shifted towards the left in an effort to build a "classless and colourblind society", it struggled to define policy toward forms of cultural expression in the black community; expressions which had implicitly emphasized cultural differences. Consequently, the cultural and social centers were abolished, including the Afro-Cuban mutual aid Sociedades de Color in 1962, to make way for racially integrated societies. Private festivities were limited to weekend parties and organizers' funds were confiscated. The measures meant the closure of the Buena Vista Social Club. Although the Cuban government continued to support traditional music after the revolution, certain favor was given to the politically charged nueva trova, and poetic singer-songwriters such as Silvio Rodriguez and Pablo Milanes. The emergence of pop music and salsa, a style derived from Cuban music but developed in the United States, meant that son music became even less common.  Cuban music experienced quite a radical change in the 1960s, as National Geographic notes:  Cuban dance music also witnessed dramatic change beginning in the late 1960s, as groups explored the fusion of Cuban son with American rock, jazz and funk styles. Groups such as Los Van Van and Irakere established modern forms of Cuban music, paving the way for new rhythms and dances to emerge as well as fresh concepts in instrumentation. ... Cuba's dance music had already inspired a change from the older son-style dances, as younger Cubans broke free of step-oriented dances...  The occurrence of these closures and the change in traditions is the simplest explanation of why many musicians were out of work, and why their style of music had declined before the Buena Vista Social Club made it popular again.
QUESTION:
Were there any other changes?