Gettin' By on Central Time

Jim and Joan from Crosby, Minnesota, are wearing the APHC Thermal Shirt (which is a favorite among staff) that she purchased at the 2010 Minnesota State Fair show. She ventured to the merch stand only because it was so cold that her teeth were chattering. This was her introduction to the show, and she is now a fan of both the live shows and the old broadcasts.

Jim discovered the show while stationed in Hawaii serving in the Marines. He’s been a faithful listener ever since. Memorable shows include the post-Katrina show in New Orleans and one at the Ryman, but their favorite is still the State Fair show because of Tom Keith and Fred Newman and all the sound effects.

They added their many live shows to the back of their shirts.

ATLANTA BOUND

After a solo trek to Washington and then abroad, Garrison assembles the entire A Prairie Home Companion troupe for the final 50th Anniversary Show in Atlanta. We hope you can join us and salute the old show one last time. Come wearing your favorite PHC gear and we just may capture your listening story.

November 8th in Atlanta, Georgia

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Listen to the October 5, 2013, show

This week on A Prairie Home Companion with Garrison Keillor, we travel back to October 2013 for a show from downtown Saint Paul, Minnesota. With special guests, free-spirited troubadour Pokey LaFarge, bluegrass utility man Joe Newberry, and vocalist Heather Masse with pianist Jed Wilson. Plus, the Royal Academy of Radio Actors (Tim Russell, Sue Scott, and Fred Newman), Rich Dworsky and the October Boys (Richard Kriehn, Dean Magraw, Gary Raynor, and Marc Anderson), and the latest News from Lake Wobegon. Listen to the show.

As a kid, Pokey LaFarge was drawn to the music of Howlin' Wolf and Muddy Waters, later tempered with a big helping of Bill Monroe and Bob Wills. Since his first album release in 2006, he has won fans worldwide with his own creative spin on a mix of early jazz, string ragtime, country blues, and Western swing.

Missouri native and North Carolina transplant Joe Newberry has made music most of his life. He grew up in a family full of singers and dancers, took up the guitar and banjo as a teenager, and learned fiddle tunes from great Missouri fiddlers. He has played with Bruce Molsky and Rafe Stefanini as the Jumpsteady Boys, in a duo with mandolinist Mike Compton, and in a quartet with old-time music legends Bill Hicks, Mike Craver, and Jim Watson.

Growing up in rural Maine, Heather Masse sang hymns and folk songs around home with her family. Now based in New Mexico, this New England Conservatory of Music alum is well known as one-third of the Juno Award-winning Canadian trio The Wailin' Jennys.

A bonus song about Garrison’s grandfather called “Farther Along.”

From the Archives: The News from Lake Wobegon — 1983

We have raided the vault and assembled the fourth chronological look at the origin stories of Lake Wobegon!

When A Prairie Home Companion went national in 1980, Garrison Keillor started turning his vignettes, updates, and letters from Lake Wobegon into a full-fledged story each week. In this vintage collection, you can hear America’s favorite storyteller hone his craft in front of a live audience, regaling them with stories about what takes place in “the little town that time forgot and decades could not improve.” This collection includes monologues from A Prairie Home Companion that aired in the year 1983.

These stories will enchant you today as much as they did four decades ago. Many haven’t been heard since about 1987, and so you might think of this compilation as a new Lake Wobegon story collection. It’s time to return to your favorite small town.

From the Archives: 1983 CDs >>>
From the Archives: 1983 mp3 downloads >>>

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From the Archives: 1980 >>>
From the Archives: 1981 >>>
From the Archives: 1982 >>>

Friendship Sonnet Cards — Set of 8

Petrarch to Shakespeare, John Milton to John Berryman, Elizabeth Barrett Browning to Longfellow to Langston Hughes — poets across centuries have found the sonnet to be a compelling form of poetic expression.

Garrison Keillor has too. Now eight of his uplifting sonnets — echoing aspects of friendship or kindness — are printed on quality card stock, each poem paired with a handsome photographic illustration.
 
Friendships are important so why not send your pals a card!
 
Four different poems paired with four different photographs. 2 cards of each, 8 envelopes.

Themes: “Walking,” “Summer’s Bounty,” “Quietude,” “Friends — the most valuable acquisition.”

Here is the sonnet featured on the “Walking” card:

WALKING
 
It’s good to take a brisk walk every day
And it does wonders to improve your mood.
And you may run into Claude Monet
Or hear Chopin humming his sweet étude.
Jack Benny, Bessie Smith stand not far apart,
Marilyn Monroe, Bill Monroe, you never know,
The Duke of Earl, Amelia Earhart,
Vincent van Gogh out looking at the snow,
Melville whose book you meant to read,
Out walking, despite all he’s been through.
“To comprehend a nectar requires sorest need,”
Said Emily Dickinson. (She’s here, too.)
     Life is hard. Lord, the injuries we bear
     And yet it’s good to get out in the open air.

Get the cards >>>

A Year in Lake Wobegon

One might think not a lot happens during a course of a year in a small town, but one would be wrong! This collection gathers 12 “above-average” stories representing all the goings-on in Lake Wobegon during one calendar year. Family get-togethers, holiday celebrations, the predictable, the unexpected — it all happens in “the little town that time forgot and decades could not improve.” Each monologue is culled from episodes of A Prairie Home Companion that aired between 2014 and 2016.

As an added bonus, liner notes contain a poem for each month written by Garrison Keillor. Plus, between monologues you will hear music by Peter Ostroushko.

 Get the CD set >>>