San Francisco Blues from 2007

A 50th Anniversary EVENT: LIVESTREAM THE RYMAN

WE HAVE GREAT NEWS FOR YOU — A LIVESTREAM will be available for the APHC 50th Anniversary show at The Ryman Auditorium on January 11th!

Join us from the comfort of your own home for our show at the historic Ryman Auditorium as Garrison returns to the venue on last time for a show that gave him the idea to create A Prairie Home Companion. The Mother Church of Country Music shares a history with the show: PHC was the first performance and a live national broadcast at the renovated Ryman in 1994. These dates are each reflected on the walls within the building. Join us for an unforgettable evening.

$19.99 Tickets for the LIVESTREAM beginning at 7:30 p.m. CT — CLICK HERE TO PURCHASE directly from NUGS.NET.

When you purchase the LIVESTREAM, you will have access to the program for 48 hours following the program.

Purchase - https://www.nugs.net/live-download-of.../35654-WEBCAST.html (click the X to close pop up window for yearly subscription)

Listen to the classic show from January 13, 2007

This week on A Prairie Home Companion, we’ll travel back to 2007 to bring you a broadcast from the War Memorial Opera House in San Francisco. With this week’s special guests: a champion of American roots music and brilliant performer, Maria Muldaur; San Francisco’s female urban old-time teardown, The Stairwell Sisters; and joining the Guy’s All-Star Shoe Band, the rainy-day man, Andy Stein. Also with us, the Royal Academy of Radio Acting: Tim Russell, Sue Scott, and Fred Newman, the News from Lake Wobegon, and much more. Listen now.

It’s San Francisco, it’s streets that go uphill
It’s restaurants where you run up astounding bills
It’s the salt breeze blowing strong and pure
It’s old and cozy
It’s Nancy Pelosi
It is the coastline and the woods of Muir

It has been 50 years since Maria Muldaur released the classic “Midnight at the Oasis,” and she has toured the world extensively and released over 43 albums covering anything from jug band music and jazz to blues, roots, and gospel.

Violinist and saxophonist Andy Stein was a regular member of Guy’s All-Star Shoe Band on A Prairie Home Companion from 1989 to 2001. He collaborated with Garrison Keillor to create the opera Mr. and Mrs. Olson. He has appeared on Saturday Night Live and Late Night with David Letterman, and has performed with such artists as Itzhak Perlman, Eric Clapton, Smashing Pumpkins, Billy Joel, Tony Bennett, Ray Charles, Bob Dylan, and many others.

Garrison has often revisited “Habanera,” which was performed on this week’s classic show. Here are the lyrics:

I thought about moving to San Francisco
In ’67 I was 25
And Minnesota seemed awfully flat
And San Francisco sounded so alive.
Minnesota was tunafish casserole
Cranky uncles and cow manure.
San Francisco was psychedelic
Rock and roll and sweet l’amour.
L’amour, l’amour, l’amour, for sure.
I was a graduate student in English
I had long hair and a big brown beard
And every day I checked my mail
A draft board notice was what I feared.
If it came I would hop a freight
And make my way to the Golden Gate
And change my name to Planet Harmony
And join a commune in Bolinas devoted to love, not hate.
As it happened the letter never came
In ’67 or '’68
And in ’69 I had a little boy
And his grandma said, “You cannot leave this state.”
My mother-in-law was nothing but kind
She laughed at my jokes, she couldn’t do enough
She thought I was some kind of genius
And I became a prisoner of love.
L’amour, l’amour, l’amour, for sure.
Had I gone to San Francisco
Had I left Lake Wobegon
I think that commune would’ve gotten old
In about a year and I’d’ve moved on.
I’d’ve gotten an apartment south of Market
And a job selling shirts for Levi Strauss
And I never would’ve gotten to sing this song
On the stage of the Opera House.
I come here often
I am a tourist and I take the tour
So remember, mon cher —
That sometimes life takes you in a different direction — and your goals go unrealized — and you wind up stuck in a place you were determined to escape, and then you turn around and there it is, the very thing you were dreaming of, it’s walking toward you with its arms out, it is sweet l’amour.

That even if you’re shy like me and a baritone to boot, you can still sing a soprano aria … and laugh at the critics … and have a wonderful time like my fellow Midwesterner, Georges Bizet.

A Texas Two-Step

The 50th Anniversary celebration continues in February with two shows from Texas, as Garrison and the cast visit Galveston and Austin. Special guests include Heather Masse, Christine DiGiallonardo, our actors (Sue Scott, Tim Russell, and Fred Newman), Richard Dworsky and Richard Kriehn, Chris Siebold, and Larry Kohut. We hope you can join us as we visit the Lone Star State!

Ticket info:

February 23rd at 8 p.m. from the Grand 1894 Opry House in Galveston, TX

February 25th at 7:30 p.m. at the Moody Theater in Austin, TX

When I Get Home by Garrison Keillor & the Guy’s All-Star Shoe Band

“I carry this solemn mug around in public to encourage strangers to mind their manners, but when I get home I am glad to make faces, quack like a duck, dance a little dance, and even sing a little. For many years now I have felt at home on the radio. These are some of the songs." —Garrison Keillor

You’ve heard Garrison Keillor and the Guy’s All-Star Shoe Band perform on the radio, and you saw them in the Robert Altman movie. Now you can enjoy their feel-good music on an all-new CD collection.

Prairie Home Companion listeners are frequently treated to a song — sometimes to a familiar tune, sometimes to original music — with words by Garrison Keillor. In them, he sings of home, love, friendship, family, faith, or just plain fun. These sixteen songs, specially recorded for this collection, are some of his best. Get the CD.

That Time of Year: A Memoir by Garrison Keillor

As a special way to mark the 50th Anniversary shows of A Prairie Home Companion, we have made chapter 19 available for previewing . It covers a few of Garrison’s own favorite memories and a bit of a timeline of the radio show. We hope you enjoy and join us along the road to celebrate and salute the show!

READ chapter 19: A Prairie Home Companion

Get the Book