Dream a Little Dream from 2002

featuring Odetta, Kristen Chenoweth, and Vince Giordano

Onward to Pennsylvania and Ohio!

Stories were told and songs were sung this past week in Bethesda, MD, and Burlington, VT. Crowds were awesome — Garrison cites the shows among the best PHC performances and crowds ever — with a full choir assembled by listeners joining together on a few memorable tunes. Mom doled out some sage advice, Dusty joined a wonderful trio, and of course there were some magical musical memories. Also words from Coffee and Duct Tape, and a twisting and turning News from Lake Wobegon that had audiences chuckling. Thanks for joining us!

And now we are off to Scranton, PA, and Akron, OH, for the next 50th anniversary celebration of the old show. The acting company, Rich and the band, plus Heather Masse and Christine DiGiallonardo will entertain you and make you laugh as PHC celebrates this notable milestone. We hope you can be there!

May 24th at 8:00 pm in Scranton, PA

May 26th at 7:00 pm in Akron, OH

Listen to the APRIL 27, 2002 classic show

The April 27, 2002, show was performed Live from The Town Hall in New York City, with blues and folk singer Odetta, Vince Giordano and the Nighthawks, actress and Broadway singer Kristin Chenoweth, mezzo-soprano Alexandra Hughes, and pianist Rob Fisher.

Highlights include some talk about The Town Hall, a Garrison and Kristin Chenoweth duet of “His Eye Is on the Sparrow, “ plus Kristin’s version of “Dream a Little Dream” accompanied by Rob Fisher. Vince Giordano and the Nighthawks tackle “Jimmy’s Tiger” and “Limehouse Blues”; Odetta thrills on “Midnight Special”; and there are sketches about Bonding, New York, and Earth Day, plus the latest News from Lake Wobegon. Listen to the show.

ODETTA was born in the South, in Birmingham in 1930, but she grew up in Los Angeles; she came to her music not through the usual folk process but through musical theater. She began performing at the Turnabout Theatre in Hollywood as a teenager and was a music student at Los Angeles City College. From there, she joined the touring company of the musical Finian’s Rainbow. Her folksinging debut came in 1950 at the Hungry i in San Francisco.

She was in the Civil Rights march in Selma and in the 1963 and 1983 Washington marches. Her fabulous career took her around the world; she was an inspiration to Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Janis Joplin, Joan Armatrading, and countless others.

She was the recipient of the Duke Ellington Fellowship Award from Yale University and an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from Johnson C. Smith University in Charlotte, NC, and she served as Artist-in-Residence at Evergreen State College in Olympia, WA. Her many albums include Lookin’ for a Home, a tribute to Leadbelly.

KRISTIN CHENOWETH is from Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, and how could a city with a poetic name like that not send an artist off to Broadway? She was dancing as soon as she could walk, and her mother remembers her singing herself to sleep. Kristin said, “When I was about four, we were watching ballet on TV, and I said, ‘I want to do that.’ My mom went, ‘What?’”

She was brought up Baptist and began her singing career in church. She was so good at it that she ultimately won a scholarship to the Academy of Vocal Arts in Philadelphia, after graduating from Oklahoma City University. In Philly, she added an “n” to her original name, figuring Kristi might be a little light for opera. When she first arrived in New York she would say “Hello” to everyone she met on the street. Made for a tiring day, she said, saying hello to 3,000 people. She has won a Tony Award, a Drama Desk Award, the Clarence Derwent Award, the Outer Critics Circle Award, and others.

VINCE GIORDANO was born in Brooklyn and grew up on Long Island. He’s been at the big band jazz business in some way since he was five, when he discovered old 78s in his grandmother’s attic. There was a lot there, all the way up to grand opera, but it was music from the likes of Joe “King” Oliver that caught his imagination. He started playing violin early but switched to tuba in 7th grade. He joined the musicians union at 14 and played tuba with Long Island banjo bands. He learned bass violin and bass saxophone in high school and joined the 22-piece Navy Show Band when he graduated. In 1976, he formed the Nighthawks Orchestra.

He has some 30,000 scores in his stockpile of vintage big band music, most of them collected by rummaging through musicians’ basements during cross-country road trips, and he’s the archivist for Victor Company, now BMG Music, custodian to thousands of pieces going all the way back to 1901.

He has performed at the Smithsonian, Carnegie Hall, the JVC Jazz Festival, Lincoln Center, and the Breda Jazz Festival in Holland; the Nighthawks have been booked for black-tie events at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the New York Public Library, the New York City Ballet, the Waldorf Astoria, the Rainbow Room, the Carlyle Hotel, “21,” and the Copacabana.

ROB FISHER is known to longtime listeners of A Prairie Home Companion for his 1989–1993 tenure as music director and as conductor of the Coffee Club Orchestra, which he formed for the program. Fisher grew up in Norfolk, Virginia, where he started playing the piano at age six. He went from pianist to assistant conductor at the Goodspeed Opera House in Connecticut, and he made his first major New York appearances as a conductor at the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s concert revivals of the Gershwin musicals Of Thee I Sing and Let Them Eat Cake. He has since conducted a number of musicals on Broadway and on tour, including Me and My Girl, with Tim Curry, A Threepenny Opera with Sting, and Chicago. As a pianist, he has played solo performances with orchestras around the country, and he’s performed the music of George Gershwin at Carnegie Hall and at concert halls across the U.S. and around the world. He was the artistic director for Carnegie Hall’s two-year Gershwin Centennial Celebration, and served many years as music director of the City Center’s Encore! series.

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