Noah Adams, a longtime host of NPR’s “All Things Considered” whose quiet baritone and empathetic ear brought listeners stories of back-roads America not often heard on the national airwaves, died Oct. 16 at his home in Yellow Springs, Ohio. He was 84.

The cause was complications of a benign brain tumor removed eight years ago, his wife, Neenah Ellis, said.

Adams was a postman’s son from Kentucky who never finished college, and he worked hard to lose the Appalachian accent that he knew conjured up negative stereotypes about his native region.

But he never lost his respect for rural and working-class Americans, and he delighted in leaving Washington, D.C., where NPR is based, to travel around the country interviewing miners, farmers, single mothers and factory workers.

In the morning meetings, where the day’s events and newsmakers were discussed, Ellis, who worked in production at NPR, recalled, “He was looking for who was yearning, who was in pain, who needed help out in the country.”

Adams abhorred…