Better Late than Never from 2008

featuring Old Crow Medicine Show, Maria Jette, and Butch Thompson

Prairie Home 50th tour to stop in Akron, OH

The APHC 50th Anniversary Tour leads up to the half-century milestone in the summer of 2024. On May 26th, Garrison and his rollicking troupe will be at the Akron Civic Theatre. Joining them are singers Heather Masse and Christine DiGiallonardo, the Royal Academy of Actors (Tim Russell, Sue Scott, and sound-effects wizard Fred Newman) will be there, along with music director/keyboardist Richard Dworsky leading the band.

Sunday, May 26, 2024 — 7:00 p.m.
Akron Civic Theatre, Akron, OH

TICKETS

This show is part of our upcoming series of EVENTS — Garrison performing solo or in concert with others along with 50th Anniversary performances in New York City, Nashville, Tennessee, Manhattan, Kansas, Galveston, Texas, Wilmington, NC, and Akron, Ohio.

VIEW ALL EVENTS

Listen to the classic show from October 8, 2008

This week, we’re heating things up a bit as we revisit a classic show from 2008 that served as the first show of that broadcast season from the Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul. With special guests Old Crow Medicine Show, Maria Jette, Butch Thompson, The Guy’s All-Star Shoe Band with additional Shoe Horns: Dale Mendenhall, Michael B. Nelson, and Steven Strand, and The Royal Academy of Radio Actors: Tim Russell, Sue Scott, and Tom Keith.

Highlights include a few duets from Garrison and Maria Jette; “Let It Go” from Pat Donohue, plus talk about his new guitar; some energetic picking from Old Crow Medicine Show on “Fire on the Mountain”; “The Working-Class Blues” from Butch Thompson; plus The Lives of the Cowboys, Guy Noir, Cafe Boeuf, and the latest News from Lake Wobegon. Listen to the show.

Old Crow Medicine Show

With a little luck and a whole lot of talent, Old Crow Medicine Show went from playing their slash-and-burn brand of old-time music on the streets of Boone, North Carolina, to bringing down the house at the Grand Ole Opry. Now based in Nashville, these Grammy winners and Grand Ole Opry inductees are bringing audiences to their feet coast to coast and then some.

The band for this broadcast: Critter Fuqua, Kevin Hayes, Morgan Jahnig, Gill Landry, Chance McCoy, Ketch Secor, and Cory Younts.

Butch Thompson

For 12 years of his five-plus-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 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 performed 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. Butch passed away in 2022.

MARIA JETTE

Versatile soprano Maria Jette can sing dozens of operatic roles. She also performs pop songs, chamber music, oratorio, and show tunes. She has appeared with orchestras nationwide, including the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, New York Chamber Symphony, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, and Minnesota Orchestra. Among her recordings are two albums of P.G. Wodehouse songs, with pianist/accordionist Dan Chouinard: In Our Little Paradise: Songs of P.G. Wodehouse and The Siren’s Song: Wodehouse & Kern on Broadway.

Garrison has been in a “Cheerful” mood as he travels around the country performing solo shows, shows in combination with some of his favorite guests, or full-on A Prairie Home Companion shows. One thing he hasn’t done is a book tour and signing for Cheerfulness — something that was mostly stopped during the COVID years. But long ago, he may have gotten the “Book Tour Blues” while promoting one of his past novels. Here are the lyrics to the song featured on this week’s classic show.

I finished a novel, the best I ever wrote
And six months later I went out to promote
I did a book tour from New York to LA
Did 47 cities in 12 and one-half days
I sat at a table in the bookstore
Back in the corner by the loading dock door
I was an author but they thought I was a clerk
They said, “Can you direct me to John Grisham’s latest work?”
I GOT THE BOOK TOUR BLUES
Down in the holes in the soles of my shoes
You write a masterpiece in prose or verse
Then you sit around waiting for customers
AND THAT’S THE BOOK TOUR BLUES
I went to Seattle and nobody came
In San Francisco no one knew my name
In Chicago I was a great big flop
Book sales came to a sudden stop
Once I was big, I was huge, I was global
Now they send me to barns but there is no Nobel
Just pigs and chickens and piles of hay
And nobody comes, they all stay away
I GOT THE BOOK TOUR BLUES
Down in the holes in the soles of my shoes
If a man doesn’t win a Nobel Prize
He’s got to get out and advertise
I GOT THE BOOK TOUR BLUES
So I came to a bookstore here in St. Paul,
I sat by the door, straight and tall
When who should walk in but my own mama
Looking for a book by Barack Obama
I said, “Mama, I’ve written one too”
She gave me a look. She said, “You’re kidding. You?”
She looked at the book and saw the amount
And demanded a forty percent discount.
I GOT THE BOOK TOUR BLUES
Down in the holes in the soles of my shoes
I’m no genius, no Bertrand Russell
Can’t stay at home, got to go out and hustle
I GOT THE BOOK TOUR BLUES
I was on tour when David Sedaris
Came in on a private jet from Paris,
Leading his wolfhound, wearing a mink coat
People rushed to buy the book he wrote
They carried stacks of books on their backs like coolies
They bought thousands of his and not one of yours truly’s
I said, “David, my man, would you give me a blurb?”
And his wolfhound squatted down at the curb.
I GOT THE BOOK TOUR BLUES
Down in the holes in the soles of my shoes
Big-time authors like Roy Blount
I come in the back, they go out the front
I GOT THE BOOK TOUR BLUES
You might see me sitting on the sidewalk
On a piece of cardboard on your block
With a sign: “Will work, can clean or cook,
Will wash your clothes if you buy my book.”
And maybe you’ll shake your head and say,
“I don’t think Fitzgerald would’ve done it this way.”
Thanks for the thought, but I’m not Scott.
I’m just doing the best with what I’ve got.
I GOT THE BOOK TOUR BLUES
Down in the holes in the soles of my shoes
John Updike doesn’t tour, nor Philip Roth
Me, I got a tin cup and a little loincloth
I GOT THE BOOK TOUR BLUES

You can preview the first chapter of Garrison’s newest book on our website. Read

English Majors

Scripts and bits from A Prairie Home Companion celebrate the secret society of people who possess excellent spelling and punctuation skills. (You know who you are.) Selections include “The Six-Minute Hamlet,” a tribute to Emily Dickinson, a Guy Noir adventure that exposes an MFA scam, a riveting “Lives of the English Majors” drama, and literary guests Billy Collins, Robert Bly, Roy Blount Jr., and Calvin Trillin, including Meryl Streep’s reading of “Wild Geese.” Get the CD or download.

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Anyone who has listened to A Prairie Home Companion knows that POEM is an acronym for the Professional Organization of English Majors, our most literate sponsor! Available in both long- and short-sleeve variations.

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