Ode de Toilet from 2008

A Prairie Home Companion Fan Presale — Wednesday, August 21, 10:00 a.m. ET to Friday, August 23, 9:59 a.m. ET

CODE: APHC

General sale — Friday, August 23, 10:00 a.m. ET

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THE PRAIRIE HOME COMPANION 50TH ANNIVERSARY SHOW celebrates the half-century milestone of Garrison Keillor’s one-of-a-kind radio broadcast, which first hit the airways in July of 1974.

Expect a look back at the show’s origins in Minnesota and a sampling of Keillor’s droll stand-up on the beauty of being in his eighties. Comedy sketches might include favorites like “Guy Noir, Private Eye,” “The Lives of the Cowboys,” “Duane’s Mom,” or “Ruth Harrison, Reference Librarian.” There could be a word or two from the American Duct Tape Council, Coffee, Guy’s Shoes, Powdermilk Biscuits, or the Catchup Advisory Board. The Royal Academy of Actors (with sound-effects wizard Fred Newman) will be there, along with music director/keyboardist Richard Dworsky leading the band. Count on songs, jokes, the grand audience sing-along intermission, and more.

Listen to the April 5, 2008, show

This week on A Prairie Home Companion, we’re revisiting a classic show from The Town Hall in New York City from 2008. This week's special guests include the phenomenon in boots and a hat, Brad Paisley, American film actress Kimberly Williams-Paisley, poet Ron Padgett, and the subject of more email inquiries at APHC than anyone else, legendary Scottish folk-singer Jean Redpath. Also, The Royal Academy of Radio Actors: Tim Russell, Sue Scott, and Fred Newman, The Guy’s All-Star Shoe Band, and The News from Lake Wobegon. Join us this week from action-packed West 43rd & Broadway.

Highlights include the tender duet “Steal Away” by Garrison and Jean Redpath, who also kicks in several solo songs, “Ode de Toilet” and “Waiting on a Woman” plus others from Brad Paisley, poems from Ron Padgett, Kimberly Williams sitting in on a few sketches, the band “Cruising Downtown,” and so much more. Listen to the show.

More about our guest performers:

Brad Paisley has earned his place in country music history as one of the genre’s most talented and decorated male solo artists. His songwriting and unmatched showmanship have won him piles of awards — multiple GRAMMYs, American Music Awards, Academy of Country Music Awards, and Country Music Association Awards, including a highly coveted Entertainer of the Year honor and recognition as the most successful CMA Award cohost in history, alongside Carrie Underwood. A member of the Grand Ole Opry since 2001, Paisley has written most of his No. 1 hits, and in 2008 became the first artist to achieve 10 consecutive Billboard Country Airplay No. 1 singles. 

Jean Redpath was a foremost interpreter and champion of traditional Scottish music. The Edinburgh Daily News once suggested that calling her a folk singer was “a bit like calling Michelangelo an Italian interior decorator.” She attended Edinburgh University, and during her years there, she made use of the university’s vast research archives, material documenting the traditions, legends, and music of the Gaelic and Scottish-speaking people. In 1961, she arrived in the U.S. and joined in a few “hootenannies” — first in San Francisco and then in Greenwich Village. In 1977, Redpath was chosen as one of only four performers commanded to appear before Queen Elizabeth II during the Queen’s Jubilee Year. She was also awarded the prestigious MBE (Member of the British Empire). A tireless performer, Redpath played hundreds of concerts throughout the U.S. and recorded dozens of albums, including Songs of Robert Burns (volumes 1–7) and A Woman of Her Time (Jean Redpath Records). Appearing with Redpath on this performance are Abby Newton (cello), Jacqueline Schwab (piano), and Sue Richards (Celtic harp).

Ron Padgett was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1942. When he was growing up, Oklahoma was a dry state, and his father made a living as a bootlegger. Padgett read voraciously as a child and began jotting down poems in spiral notebooks when he was 13. He went to Columbia University and studied at the Sorbonne in France on a Fulbright scholarship. A 2018 recipient of the Frost Medal from the Poetry Society of America, presented for distinguished lifetime achievement in poetry, Padgett’s poetry collections include Tulsa Kid (1979), Poems I Guess I Wrote (2001), How Long (2011), Big Cabin (2019), and Dot (2022).

A Word from this week’s sponsor:

... brought to you by Bob’s Bank, the friendly bank in the green mobile home. No marble, no sculpture, no big parking lot, and the savings are passed on to you, the saver. Where every check you write has a picture of Bob on it and the inscription, “Cash this. I know these people.” Save at the sign of the sock at Bob’s Bank.

Relive all the glory of past joke shows with our selection of pretty good merchandise. A selection of joke books and CDs containing every morsel of comedy from most of our (in)famous Joke Shows. Hundreds of snickers, howlers, one-liners, and groaners, audience-tested and certified Pretty Good. Get the book.

Scripts and bits from A Prairie Home Companion celebrate the secret society of men and women 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 "Professional Organization of English Majors" drama, and guests Billy Collins, Robert Bly, Roy Blount Jr., and Calvin Trillin. Get the CDs.