It’s all about independence — from Virus and Virtual Life, back to what’s real. Poetry and Stories and Classic Duets.
June 30, 2021, 5:30 PM – 8:30 PM THE AVALON, STILLWATER, MN
St. Croix Boat & Packet Co., 525 Main Street South, Stillwater, MN 55082 We depart the beautiful historic city of Stillwater for an evening of humor and insight, fine dining, and beautiful views of the St. Croix River Valley aboard the Avalon.
July 2, 2021, 7:30 PM BIG TOP CHAUTAUQUA, BAYFIELD, WI The Lake Superior Big Top Chautauqua is a 900-seat music venue and performing arts center, located near Bayfield, Wisconsin. It is an all-canvas tent-theater that has operated since 1986, primarily during the summer.
JULY 4, 2021, 4:00 PM SUMMERFIELD AMPHITHEATER
4300 O’Day Ave. NE, St. Michael, MN 55376 (Just 30 minutes north of Minneapolis)
In 2021 we are going bigger, better, bolder, and in the field! That’s right. The parking lot was a fun place to be for the 2020 “pop-up” concert series, but this year the cinema will be open and therefore we will need the parking lot for parking cars. So off to the field we go just south of the building. Unlike last year, where we used the cinema’s restrooms inside, this year Summerfield will be self-contained with full bar service, food, restrooms, and everything you will need for a great night.
GARRISON KEILLOR
Garrison Keillor did A Prairie Home Companion for forty years, wrote fiction and comedy, invented a town called Lake Wobegon where all the children are above average, even though he himself grew up evangelical in a small separatist flock where all the children expected the imminent end of the world. He’s busy in retirement, having written a memoir and a book of limericks and is at work on a musical and a Lake Wobegon screenplay, and he continues to do The Writer’s Almanac sent out daily to internet subscribers (free).
He and his wife, Jenny Lind Nilsson, live in Minneapolis, not far from the YMCA where he was sent for swimming lessons at age 12 after his cousin drowned, and he skipped the lessons and went to the public library instead and to a radio studio to watch a noontime show with singers and a band. Thus, our course in life is set.
PRUDENCE JOHNSON
Prudence Johnson’s long and happy career as a singer, writer, and teacher has landed her on the musical theater stage, in two feature films (A River Runs Through It, A Prairie Home Companion), a national radio (several long stints on A Prairie Home Companion), and on concert stages across North America and occasionally Europe. She has released more than a dozen recordings, including albums dedicated to the music of Hoagy Carmichael and Greg Brown, and a collection of international lullabies.
ADAM GRANGER and BOB DOUGLAS
Adam:
More than four decades ago, guitarist Adam Granger moved from his native Oklahoma to Minnesota, where he became a charter member of the Powdermilk Biscuit Band, A Prairie Home Companion’s first house band. He continued to be a frequent guest on the show. He’s written books and articles on music in general and flatpick guitar technique in particular. Granger’s Fiddle Tunes for Guitar, a book-CD set, is the largest collection of fiddle tunes in guitar tablature in the world. A Minnesota Bluegrass Guitarist of the Year, Adam has served as a judge at the International Flatpick Guitar Contest in Winfield, Kansas, as well as doing judging duties for the Minnesota Flatpick Guitar Contest. He has recorded over sixteen album projects.
Bob:
Texas-born Bob Douglas has lived in Minnesota since his college days. During that time, he worked with acoustic ensembles and jug bands, performing on Minneapolis’s fabled West Bank. Music became a full-time vocation in Germany when he teamed up with a Canadian group called The String Band, completing three European tours and two recording projects. As a regular performer in the early years of A Prairie Home Companion, Bob did mandolin duties and played spoons in the show’s first house bands, the Powdermilk Biscuit Band and the New Prairie Ramblers. In addition to duos with Adam, he currently performs with the Show’d Up Band, Pop Wagner, the House of Mercy Blood-washed Band, and the Tune Jerks.
DAN CHOUINARD
Dan Chouinard is a St. Paul-based honky-tonk pianist, concert soloist and accompanist, street accordionist, sing-along enabler, Italian and French teacher, and bicycling vagabond. He’s been writer and host of a number of live history-with-music shows broadcast on Minnesota Public Radio and Twin Cities Public Television. He played on a dozen live broadcasts of A Prairie Home Companion plus a half dozen APHC cruises, and served as rehearsal pianist for Meryl Streep, Lily Tomlin, and Lindsay Lohan on the 2005 movie. He’s featured on a number of recordings with APHC regulars Peter Ostroushko (RIP), Prudence Johnson, and Maria Jette.
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