The old show closed out Y2K with a big bang! This week, we travel back to the year 2000 for a show loaded with special guests and performances, classic sketches and songs — all leading to a fast-paced two hours that will leave a nice smile on your face plus a hopeful outlook for the new century. Join us Saturday for a listen via our Facebook page at 5 p.m. CT (or click the link below).

Highlights include Vern Sutton singing “There in Your Smile,” Bill Hinkley and Judy Larson duetting on “Yellow Rose Waltz,” Tom Keith’s New Year’s Eve, Maria Jette and Mozart, “Puckett’s Farewell” from Peter Ostroushko, plus a host of others.    
More about this week’s featured guests

Butch Thompson first became interested in jazz as a child in Marine-on-St. Croix, Minnesota, where he discovered the piano at age three. He joined the Hall Brothers New Orleans Jazz Band in 1962 and became one of the few non-Orleanians to guest occasionally at Preservation Hall. 
Singer-songwriter-storyteller-author Ann Reed grew up in Minnetonka, Minnesota, and as a kid taught herself to play guitar. Later, she started playing at coffeehouses and cafés in the Twin Cities area, and has since performed throughout the country, winning many local and national awards — not to mention, legions of fans — along the way.  
A superlative mandolinist, fiddler, composer, arranger, Peter Ostroushko grew up listening to tunes played at family get-togethers northeast Minneapolis. He had a remarkable career, from his uncredited mandolin set on Bob Dylan’s “Blood on the Tracks” to his many recordings to his compositions that underscored Ken Burns films and Twin Cities Public Television’s “Minnesota: A History of the Land,” for which Peter won an Emmy.
Born in Athens, Georgia, Leo Kottke taught himself to play the guitar after learning theory and harmony from trombone lessons. In 1969, he released 6- and 12-String Guitar (Takoma Records; reissued on Rhino Records) and began touring extensively. Since then, Kottke’s fingerpicking style has become legendary and his compositions have become standards in their own right.
A Twin Cities resident, soprano Maria Jette has performed with such varied groups as The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Minnesota Orchestra, the Wratislava Cantans Festival in Poland, and the New York City Chamber Symphony. Her wide-ranging roles include Handel’s Galatea, Monteverdi’s Poppea, Britten’s Fido, and the Countess in The Marriage of Figaro. For this performance, Maria is joined by pianist Sonja Thompson.

Today is New Year’s Eve, in which the old year is ushered out, and the new one welcomed in, with parties, socializing, and alcohol — often champagne. In the United States, we have a tradition of dropping, or raising, a large object exactly at midnight. The custom of dropping a ball arose out of the time signals given to ships at harbor starting in 1859. A large ball was dropped exactly at one p.m. every day (noon in the United States), so sailors could check their ship chronometers.

The Times Square celebration dates back to 1904, when The New York Times opened its headquarters on Longacre Square. The newspaper convinced the city to rename the area “Times Square,” and they hosted a big party, complete with fireworks, on New Year’s Eve. Two hundred thousand people attended, but the paper’s owner, Adolph Ochs, wanted the next celebration to be even splashier. In 1907, the paper’s head electrician constructed a giant lighted ball that was lowered from the building’s flagpole. The first Times Square Ball was made of wood and iron, weighed 700 pounds, and was lit by a hundred 25-watt bulbs. Now, it’s made of Waterford crystal, weighs almost six tons, and is lit by more than 32,000 LED lights. The party in Times Square is attended by up to a million people every year.

Other cities have developed their own ball-dropping traditions. Atlanta, Georgia, drops a giant peach. Eastport, Maine, drops a sardine. Ocean City, Maryland, drops a beach ball, and Mobile, Alabama, drops a 600-pound electric Moon Pie. In Tempe, Arizona, a giant tortilla chip descends into a massive bowl of salsa. Brasstown, North Carolina, drops a Plexiglas pyramid containing a live possum; and Key West, Florida, drops an enormous ruby slipper with a drag queen inside it.In Scotland, New Year’s Eve marks the first day of Hogmanay, a name derived from an Old French word for a gift given at the New Year. There’s a tradition at Hogmanay known as “first-footing”: If the first person to cross your threshold after midnight is a dark-haired man, you will have good luck in the coming year. Other customs vary by region within Scotland, but most involve singing and whiskey. Craig Ferguson said Hogmanay “is a time when people who can inspire awe in the Irish for the amount of alcohol that they drink decide to ramp it up a notch.”

A New Year's Song from A Prairie Home Companion

May we still love our loved ones
on good days and bad.
May our fights be no worse
than the ones we have had.
May the house not burn down
(at least not when we’re here)
and I wish you a happy new year.

Garrison Keillor and The Guy’s All-Star Shoe Band perform a “New Year’s Song” during the January 4, 2014 broadcast.

Watch the performance >>>