Flying through the clouds coming home The class of 2021 has now matriculated into our midst, those lean exuberant people with lead weights of debt around their ankles, and they’ve set aside the commencement speaker’s advice to take this imperfect world and make it better and instead are trying to make car payments and avoid parental curiosity and enjoy some wild Saturday nights dancing in an amphitheater to a cover band and drinking buckets of beer... Go to Garrison Keillor and Friends on Substack
for THE COLUMN >>> Did you know that you can read Garrison's column in the New Hampshire Union Leader & other small newspapers? Contact your local paper and let them know you'd like to see Garrison's column there, too! |
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Guy Noir and the Dolly Lama Join us in The Back Room as we write a progressive Guy Noir story. The Back Room also opens up a 20% discount to the merchandise shop as well as gives you access to previously unpublished works.
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This week on A Prairie Home Companion This week’s classic A Prairie Home Companion show comes to you from the Blossom Music Festival in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, as we travel back to 1997 to be entertained by guests including Diana Krall and Leon Redbone. Also with us, the Royal Academy of Radio Actors (Tim Russell, Sue Scott, and Tom Keith), and The Guy’s All-Star Shoe Band.
Highlights include “If I Had You” and “Peel Me a Grape” from Diana Krall, “I Ain’t Got Nobody” and “She’s My Gal” from Leon Redbone, a medley of Beatles tunes, our talented acting company with “Celebrity Rock & Roll,” the house band’s version of “Everybody Loves My Baby,” and the latest news from Lake Wobegon. The link is posted on Saturdays at 5 p.m. CT each week on our Facebook page. Listen to the Show >>>Like our Facebook page >>>
More about this week’s featured guests
Diana Krall grew up in a musical family in Nanaimo, British Columbia. A great-great-aunt of hers played the New York vaudeville circuit. From her dad’s collection, young Diana heard music from the earliest days of recording — via wax cylinders and 78s of opera, classical, and jazz galore: the Paul Whiteman Orchestra, Thelonious Monk, and lots of Fats Waller, who was the family’s favorite musician. At age four, Krall began studying classical piano, but turned toward jazz during high school after being in a jazz band led by her high school band teacher, a former professional bassist. Later she became friends with bass great Ray Brown, who did much to further Krall’s career. She has won multiple Grammy and Juno Awards and in 2005 was honored as an Officer of the Order of Canada. This Dream of You, her 15th studio album, was released in 2020.
“Let’s Fall in Love” >>>View available music >>>
Guitarist and singer Leon Redbone got his start in Toronto in the 1970s. He characterized his repertoire — songs that were popular in America in the late 1800s and early 1900s — as “forgotten music.” One admiring critic asked, “Is this wry, cane-toting, masterful guitarist really on a one-man preservation mission for early 20th-century American popular music?” Redbone’s first album, On the Track, was released in 1976, and he came into the national spotlight that year when he made an appearance on Saturday Night Live, which was just starting out at that time. Among his many albums was the 2014 release, Flying By. He once prompted an audience to sing along on “Polly Wolly Doodle,” saying, “This song’s more than a hundred years old, so you’ve had plenty of time to learn it.” Leon Redbone died in 2019.
“Walking Stick” >>>View available music >>> |
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Garrison Keillor on Late Night (1983) A gem from the archives! While promoting his bestseller Happy to Be Here, Garrison visits David Letterman on Late Night and discusses why he published a collection of short stories instead of a novel: “I tried to write a novel, David, but I had a basic problem, which was that I was able to move people into a scene, but I was never able to get them out again.” Watch to the end to see Garrison perform a feat that had never before been accomplished on live television: reciting every county in Minnesota. Watch the video >>> "Spring" from Life These Days It's almost the 20th anniversary of the audio CD set Life These Days, a collection of News from Lake Wobegon monologues that was first issued in 1998. Below is an excerpt from the bonus story that is tucked into the packaging of this classic three-disc set:
This is what life should be like more often, this April day, lilacs in the air, the sun shining as it has all week, a glorious spring after a gentle winter, and if this were a reward for goodness, one might almost consider being good on a regular basis. It is Palm Sunday, and Carl Krebsbach comes chugging up the street on his John Deere tractor to low up his garden and his sister Eloise's and several of the neighbors' gardens as well. A good day to be out on a tractor. His wife has not spoken to him for two days because of what he said to his daughter Carlene who is seventeen and a member of the Prom Committee that has been meeting all week planning the affair and trying to reach consensus on a band to hire and everyone favors Eldon Miller and His Orchestra except Eric Hedlund, who is holding out for Big Pooty and the Snarks, because they are alternative rock and do all original material, unlike Eldon Miller who comes in a white tux and plays mostly Glenn Miller tunes, and last night Carlene came home in tears and said that she was so tired of the haggling that the Prom had lost all of its meaning for her, and Carl said, "Fine. Stay home. We'll return the dress." And the Duchess turned from kneading the bread dough and shot him a black look and hasn't said a pleasant word to him since.
Continue reading >>>
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Make America Great Again Hat |
| An alternative to President Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan. While America has never NOT been great, it has always been intelligent! Price has been REDUCED! |
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| Live from the Hollywood Bowl Garrison Keillor’s final show in July of 2016 at the Hollywood Bowl was a magical evening. Over 18,000 people attended this duet extravaganza! Garrison recently posted what he called his swan song: a collaboration on the hymn “Only Remembered” with a group of heavenly singers including Sara Watkins, Sarah Jarosz, Christine DiGiallonardo, Heather Masse, and Aoife O’Donovan. Watch the video >>>
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