The Nashville Scene Nashville is coming up quickly and we have a few tickets remaining for an American Revival. We cannot wait to have the full cast gather together in song with a full house at the Ryman Auditorium, the “Mother Church of Country Music.“ All is ready for an evening of stories, songs, and sketches as A Prairie Home Companion returns for another show. The stage is set for a beautiful night on July 10th. We hope to see you there! Get tickets to The Ryman >>>
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A weekend in the wilds of Connecticut I have seen some of the future lately and I must admit it’s very appealing to me. My wife drives through Connecticut, a woman’s voice in the dashboard directing her along a twisting route through small towns laid out in the 18th century, a street plan designed to frustrate intruders, and my daughter in the back seat FaceTimes her roommate Saamiya who is in India, visiting relatives. My daughter is drawn to people, loves to be in a group, and the phone is her instrument of choice, and soon Marisa joins from London, and Erin in New Jersey, Hindu, Orthodox, and Jewish, joined in small talk. Remarkable to me, not to her. Go to Garrison Keillor and Friends on Substack
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This week on A Prairie Home Companion This week’s classic show comes from the Ravinia Festival in Highland Park, Illinois, an annual tradition for the show at the end of its broadcast season. With special guests, skydiving Texas soprano Kiri Deonarine, author and storyteller Jack Zimmerman, and singer-songwriter Joe Pug. Also with us, The Royal Academy of Radio Actors (Tim Russell, Sue Scott, and Fred Newman), singer Andra Suchy, Windy City sketch comic Lila Newman, and Rich Dworsky & The Guy’s All-Star Shoe Band. And there’s News from Lake Wobegon too.
Highlights include an original song about Ravinia, a Beach Boy medley, “Rolling Stone” by Pat Donohue, “How Good You Are” by Joe Pug, “Here it Is Beautiful” by Kiri Deonarine, plus Guy Noir, Catchup, the return of Fritz Electronics, and more. The link is posted on Saturdays at 5 p.m. CT each week on our Facebook page. Listen to the Show >>>
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More about this week’s guests
The apple didn’t fall far from the tree. Soprano Kiri Deonarine, daughter of renowned baritone Kim Josephson, wanted to be an opera singer from the time she could talk. After earning a degree in music education from Baylor University, she studied at the Technische Universität Dresden Institute of Advanced Studies, then pursued a master’s in vocal performance at Indiana University. With the Houston Grand Opera, she appeared in The Elixir of Love, Cosi fan tutte, The Marriage of Figaro, and other productions, and was a member of Lyric Opera of Chicago. These days, Kiri practices law in Dallas, Texas. At the piano for this performance: Craig Terry, who is now artistic director of Beyond the Aria, a recital series presented by the Harris Theater in collaboration with Lyric Opera of Chicago. “Bell Song” from Lakmé >>>
The day before his senior year as a playwriting student at the University of North Carolina, Joe Pug decided to pack up his belongings and point his car toward Chicago. There, he worked as a carpenter by day and spent nights playing the guitar he hadn’t picked up since his teenage years. He took ideas originally slated for a play he’d been writing and created songs for his 2008 seven-song EP, Nation of Heat. Word of this singer-songwriter got around and soon he was crisscrossing the country playing clubs and festivals. His latest album is 2021’s The Diving Sun. “Hymn 101”>>>
Andra Suchy spent her childhood on a farm near Mandan, North Dakota, the daughter of two talented singers. By the time she was in grade school, she was traveling around, doing concerts and festivals with her family. Fast-forward, and Andra has sung with several groups in the Twin Cities area — including the all-girl trio The Dollys. And she has worked as a back-up singer and as a jingle singer on commercials for White Castle, Target, and more. “When I Dream” >>>
Andra Suchy
Tell us your favorite Prairie Home memory — either as a guest performer or a listener.
As a listener, I remember driving home with Andrew from a gig in Lutsen. It was a beautiful, sunny North Shore day, and my dad was a guest on the show. It was wonderful to get to hear him sing his songs on the radio as we drove along Lake Superior.
As a performer, I remember walking through the stage door for rehearsal on one of my first Prairie Home shows and there was Garrison on the stage going over songs with none other than EMMYLOU HARRIS! My mind couldn’t believe my eyes … couldn’t process the information. Then Garrison saw me and brought me over to meet her and to sing with her. She gave me a kiss on the cheek. That was beyond my comprehension factor at that moment, but some survival or emergency-light instinct took over, and I just opened my mouth and sang. It was incredible, and I will never forget it. When we were in Nashville I rode in the car with Garrison to the venue and he turned to me and asked if I had been there before. I hadn’t, and said so. He then handed me a twenty and had the car drop me off at the Country Music Hall of Fame and told me to be back in an hour. It was such a sweet gesture, and the Hall of Fame is amazing! It added so much humility and depth to the experience of singing at the Ryman.
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Lake Wobegon Watertower Hat The Lake Wobegon water tower stands for everything tall, proud, and useful. When you wear it, you’re saying something. Embroidered cap is blue washed cotton twill. And even though in Garrison’s recent novel it may seem that Lake W. has become a boom town, we still want to show support for the “little town that time forgot and decades could not improve.” Get the Hat >>>
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Home on the Prairie: Stories from Lake Wobegon |
Home on the Prairie: Stories from Lake Wobegon |
From Publisher’s Weekly:
Those who love Keillor’s long-running radio broadcast, A Prairie Home Companion, will cherish this collection of stories harvested from shows aired between 1999 and 2003. The hushed intensity of Keillor’s voice lulls listeners into a world where good people live good lives, and for a little while, we are allowed to live them too. Keillor gently coaxes his stories through fertile territory, meandering into a childhood memory and then veering back to a central theme. In one story, a bride at a Labor Day wedding rejects her Lutheran background only to be buoyed up later by these same values. In another, listeners drop in on a tomato growing contest at the county fair. Never have tomatoes seemed so tempting as they do when Keillor describes the row of plump offerings awaiting verdicts. These stories are like the tomatoes: lovingly tended, juicy and bursting with life. Snippets of old-fashioned music dance between each tale, evoking the songs Mrs. Ingqvist, the preacher’s wife, might play in the parlor on a Sunday afternoon. With its welcoming atmosphere and the stories’ warmly familiar opening and closing lines, this cozy collection reminds listeners that life in Lake Wobegon still goes on, even in these troubled times. (Aug.) Listen to “Tent Caterpillars” >>>
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