The beauty of a bitterly cold Sunday, 8 a.m.
I couldn’t sleep last Saturday night due to anxiety caused by rewinding various lowlights of my long life that hit me like a brick and I lay in bed and watched the hours go by as I contemplated my imminent demise leaving my dependents impoverished and homeless so when the day dawned I put on a suit and coat and I went around the block to the solemn 8 a.m. Mass rather than wait for the more festive 10:30 and walked through the bitter Minnesota cold into St. Mark’s Cathedral where a couple dozen souls sat, widely spaced apart, perhaps to guard against communicable disease, or maybe to avoid the Exchange of Peace after the absolution of our sins. Read the rest of the column >>> |
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Enjoy this classic from 2006 February: The ebb of Minnesota life. With frozen pipes, a dark cloudy sky, and a self-described vampire running for Governor, thus, it seemed like a good time to get out of town for a while so the show will travel back to 2006. So, this week, we'll go to the beautiful Bayfront Amphitheater in Miami, Florida. Featuring jazz luminaries Vince Giordano, Butch Thompson and Dan Barrett, Cuban chanteuse Aymee Nuviola and her band, and sitting in with the Guy's All-Star Shoe Band, Andy Stein, also with us, the Royal Academy of Radio Acting, the News from Lake Wobegon, and much more this week on A Prairie Home Companion. Highlights include talk of a former president, Ketchup, Fritz Electronics, Guy Noir plus “Florida Lowdown'”by Vince, “Guantanamera.” “'Saturday Night Function” from the Shoe Band plus a few humorous songs. Join us Saturday at 5 p.m. CT via our Facebook page or via the link below, Listen to the Show >>>
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More about this week’s featured guests:
Vince Giordano plays bass, tuba, bass sax and several other instruments, all of which complement his passion: music of the 1920s and '30s. He grew up on Long Island listening to old 78s on his grandmother's Victrola. At 14, he joined the musicians' union, and after high school, he joined the Navy and toured with the United States Navy Show Band. Back in New York, Vince continued to develop his musical talents, playing in Broadway pit bands, traditional jazz bands and recording sessions. With his own band, The Nighthawks, Also, a music historian and collector, Vince owns more than 30,000 original jazz charts. He was cast as a bass player in the Woody Allen film Sweet and Lowdown. And the Nighthawks recorded a slew of vintage hits for the soundtrack of Martin Scorsese's The Aviator. Vince Giordano at the Awards >>> Cuban-born singer/songwriter Aymee Nuviola has performed to sold-out crowds in dozens of countries. Music has always been an important part of her life, beginning with piano lessons at the age of seven, but she didn't begin singing until she was in high school. Aymee and her sister, Lourdes, rose to stardom in Cuba as co-hosts of a popular variety show, Todo el Mundo Canta (Everybody Sings). This led to an invitation by legendary music director Pachito Alonso for Aymee to join his band, Pachito Alonso y Sus Kini Kini, with whom she recorded half a dozen albums. In 1995, with her husband, conguero Robert Nuviola, she defected in Costa Rica, and in 2004 she landed in Miami. Listen to “Rumba De La Buena” >>> For 12 years of his four-decade career, Butch Thompson was the house pianist on A Prairie Home Companion, dating back to the show's second broadcast in July 1974. As a soloist, he has earned a worldwide reputation as a master of ragtime, stride and classic jazz piano. Described by Jazz Journal International as "the premier player in traditional jazz today," Thompson also performs with his well-known trio, his eight-piece New Orleans Jazz Originals, and with symphony orchestras, including the Hartford Symphony, the St. Louis Symphony, the Minnesota Orchestra, and the Cairo (Egypt) Symphony. Listen to 'How Long Blues” >>> Sometimes we all long to go somewhere warm. Here are the lyrics for "Biscayne Bay' from this week's featured show:
Biscayne Bay, Biscayne Bay
It's 71 degrees today
Hey hey hey hey
Land of Gloria Estefan and Ponce de Leon
Ricky Martin, Dave Barry, and Al Capone
Hey hey hey hey.
It's got sun and it's got soul
Everywhere hablamos espanol
Hey hey hey hey
Across the bridge, just out of reach
The billion dollar sandbar they call Miami Beach
It's Venice, Havana, Managua and Rome
It's Vacationland and its home sweet home
Floridians love sunlight, they are solar,
Two dark days and they turn bipolar
Hey hey hey hey
Lake Okeechobee flows to the sea
Home of alligators, egrets, manatee
Hey hey hey hey
There's dolphins, sea turtles, moray eels
Crabs and lobsters waiting to be meals
Hey hey hey hey
There's tall dark women and beautiful men
They all listen to WLRN
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Some news and a few updates That Time of Year: A Minnesota Life will be released on paperback March 7th wherever books are sold. The memoir is a self-reflective look at Garrison's life from his early childhood to reflections on creating and hosting A Prairie Home Companion. In That Time of Year, Garrison Keillor looks back on his life and recounts how a Brethren boy with writerly ambitions grew up in a small town on the Mississippi in the 1950s and, seeing three good friends die young, turned to comedy and radio. Through a series of unreasonable lucky breaks, he founded A Prairie Home Companion and put himself in line for a good life, including mistakes, regrets, and a few medical adventures. PHC lasted forty years, 750 shows, and enjoyed the freedom to do as it pleased for three or four million listeners every Saturday at 5 p.m. Central. He got to sing with Emmylou Harris and Renee Fleming and once sang two songs to the U.S. Supreme Court. He played a private eye and a cowboy, gave the news from his hometown, Lake Wobegon, and met Somali cabdrivers who’d learned English from listening to the show. He wrote bestselling novels, won a Grammy and a National Humanities Medal, and made a movie with Robert Altman with an alarming amount of improvisation.
He says, “I was unemployable and managed to invent work for myself that I loved all my life, and on top of that I married well. That’s the secret, work and love. And I chose the right ancestors, impoverished Scots and Yorkshire farmers, good workers. I’m heading for eighty, and I still get up to write before dawn every day.” Pre-order the book from our store >>>
Get the memoir read by Garrison Keillor >>> Nickel Creek returns with new music! The group first appeared on A Prairie Home Companion in the early '90's and quickly became a fan favorite guest. They will release Celebrants on March 24th. This album is their first new music in over five years. Hopefully they will tour close enough for you to catch a performance. Pre-order Celebrants >>>
View tour schedule >>> The Wailin' Jennys are Nicky Mehta, Ruth Moody and one of Garrison's favorite duet partners in Heather Masse — three distinct voices that together make and achingly perfect vocal. They will be hitting the road for a spring concert tour. They will be featuring some fan favorites as well as working on new music for a new recording.
View tour schedule >>> Billy Collins, one of Prairie Home’s and The Writer’s Almanac favorite pets, just released a collection of short poetry and sat down for an extended interview on Poetry Passages to support Musical Tables. Get the book >>>
Watch the interview >>>
Willie Nelson is commemorating his 90th Birthday at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles on April 29-30! This performance will be star-studded celebrating this stellar songwriter’s birthday. Many of the announced guests have appeared on Prairie Home, including the featured guest himself.
Get ticket information >>> |
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Garrison Keillor & Company on Tour Keillor & Company (featuring Prudence Johnson and Dan Chouinard) hit Bellefontaine, Ohio on Feb 3rd and then continue a trek through Kansas, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee and Florida throughout the remainder of the month.
Thus show is a performance of classic love songs, poetry, The News from Lake Wobegon, and a conversation about “Why You Should Go On Getting Older”. Get Ticket information >>>
Just announced, three concerts in Fargo, Sioux Falls and Omaha! GARRISON KEILLOR at 80 (featuring Heather Masse and Richard Dworsky) is a show of music, stories, and stand-up on the theme of cheerfulness — happiness depends on circumstance, but cheerfulness is a choice. The show includes Keillor’s sung sonnets (“Prayer,” “Longevity,” “Love Song”) and duets with Masse on songs by Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, Tom Waits, Greg Brown, Mark Knopfler, and Ann Reed, plus an extended medley of sung classic poems and jokes.
Keillor also does the News from Lake Wobegon, reflecting on his generation, the one that knew about outhouses, slaughtered chickens, hitchhiked, drove a straight-stick transmission, skated on outdoor rinks, and told jokes.
The program concludes with the audience singing a cappella an impromptu medley of familiar songs — “America,” “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,” “Oh Susannah,” “In My Life,” “Going to the Chapel,” etc. “We are the last generation who knows all the words,” says Keillor. “When we’re gone, they’ll disappear.” Get Ticket information >>> |
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Gospel Birds and Other Stories Three hours of Lake Wobegon stories including “Bruno, the Fishing Dog,” “Pastor Ingqvist’s Trip to Orlando,” “A Day at the Circus with Mazumbo,” plus 6 other stories. Gospel Birds is Garrison Keillor at his very best — endearing insights, gentle humor, and warm affection for the human foibles we all share. Includes musical interludes by Chet Atkins. Over 3 hours on 3 CDs. This is many fans’ favorite collection of stories. Purchase the CDs >>> |
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A Year in Lake Wobegon Our staff and volunteers worked on this collection for about a year, picking the very best newer stories to represent each month. Despite what Keillor often says about its being a quiet week in Lake Wobegon, a lot happens in “the little town that time forgot and the decades cannot improve.”
These 12 stories capture family gatherings and holiday celebrations, both humorous and touching, that happen during one calendar year. Material includes more than 3 hours of monologues culled from live broadcasts of A Prairie Home Companion that aired between 2014 and 2016. Also included: a poem by Garrison for each month of the calendar year, plus music by Peter Ostroushko. Get the CDs >>>
Read our interview with Peter Ostroushko >>> Note: Peter provided all the music heard on A Year in Lake Wobegon and was with the show since its first year. Before Peter’s passing, he was working his way through the A Prairie Home Companion archives and was creating podcasts through his appearances. If you ever wondered what the very early shows sounded like, these podcasts are for you! The Podcasts >>> |
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