A new year, more concerts! Garrison Keillor takes his show “Stories from Lake Wobegon” to the Smith Center in Las Vegas, Nevada, on January 21. Join him for an evening of stories (and a few songs, we are sure). Gamble on a good night! Get tickets >>>
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A man walking through a big snowstorm
A beautiful snow fell in Manhattan on Epiphany, the feast of light, and the city was cheerful that morning and my cabdriver said out of the blue, “It’s a beautiful day and we’re here and that’s what matters,” which is extraordinary coming from a cabdriver, an epiphany. I worry about cabdrivers in the Uber age. I hear him talking top-speed in a Slavic tongue and wonder how much he’s invested in this cab and can he earn it back by picking up people hailing him on street corners. I doubt it.
I am an American, born and bred, and as such am romantic about the little entrepreneur, the corner grocer, the stationery store around the corner, the independent druggist, but Amazon is ever at your fingertips and if you type a word beginning with the letters A-M its central computer the size of Detroit trembles with amatory anticipation or if someone in the room says, “I wonder where we could find —” it is picked up by the company’s satellites circling the globe that send out transactional vibrations and before long the website is on your screen and it reads your unconscious and without your checking a single box, $1345.34 worth of merchandise is due to arrive on your doorstep tomorrow by 8 a.m.... Go to Garrison Keillor and Friends on Substack to read the rest of THE COLUMN >>>
Become a member of THE BACK ROOM on our Substack page for exclusive access to News from Lake Wobegon stories, archived goodies, excerpts from unpublished works, previews of other works, a second weekly column, and on occasion, a full-length video stream of a show from 2015 to 2016.
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This week on A Prairie Home Companion This week on A Prairie Home Companion, we’re back home at the Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul, Minnesota, with the Statesboro Blues Band, Connie Dover and Roger Landes, The Ensemble Singers of the Plymouth Music Series, and Prairie Home favorite Mr. Greg Brown. Join us Saturday for a listen via our Facebook page at 5 p.m. CT (or click the link below). Listen to the Show >>>
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More about this week’s featured guests
Greg Brown was raised in southeastern Iowa, with a banjo-playing grandfather, a poet grandmother, an English teacher mother who played guitar, and a Pentecostal preacher father. The environment, combined with abundant talent, produced one of the most acclaimed singer-songwriters of the past half-century. Said a Boston Globe music critic, “Brown is to this country what Richard Thompson is to Britain: its most essential modern troubadour.” Greg’s dozens of recordings may just prove the point. “#14: Jesus and Elvis” >>>
Available Music >>>
Acclaimed by the Boston Globe as “the finest folk ballad singer America has produced since Joan Baez,” Connie Dover is a singer-songwriter who primarily writes and performs Celtic music and American folk music. Born in Arkansas, she was raised in Kansas City where she began her music career by forming the Celtic band Scartaglen. In the early ’90s, she struck out on a solo career, finding success as both a singer and as an Emmy Award-winning composer. ”Rosemary’s Sister” >>>
Available Music>>>
Since 1991, the VocalEssence Ensemble Singers — the 32-voice core of the full VocalEssence Chorus — have toured widely and garnered acclaim at every stop. The Oxford Times (UK) wrote, “VocalEssence have a blend that could — and should — be the envy of every choir in the business.” Under the direction of founder and artistic director Philip Brunelle, the Minneapolis-based group has released a number of recordings, since their formation as the Plymouth Music Series Ensemble Choir. “La Cucaracha” >>>
Available Music>>> |
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Songs for Winter from this show It’s January and that means it is time to sing in Minnesota! Here is the first of the winter popsicles from this show, by VocalEssence.
Now it’s January
It’s freezing on the prairie
We’re feeling mean and crabby
And pale and dull and flabby
And here in the Midwest
Were terribly depressed
Oh let’s stay home from work
And simply go berserk.
And here is a song sung by Garrison and the band — written just for winter!
They say it might get down to 30 below
Nothing but bare trees and miles of snow
You ask why we live in this desolate spot
And I tell you it’s simple: because they do not
Those people in loud clothes with very big hair
And very big pickups and not much upstairs
And they’re crazy for Elvis and banana cream pie
And they think that space aliens live somewhere nearby.
They live in a trailer by a big parking lot
At 6 in the morning, already it’s hot.
They sit in their lounge chairs in that Miami dawn
And drink beer for breakfast as the cartoons come on.
And the dad is holding a snake, a big cottonmouth
The way people do down there in the South
There’s snakes in the attic and snakes down below
And he says, come on, Jim Bob, let’s go get some more.
And they jump in the pickup and head for the marsh
While the women stay home and hang up the wash
And tend to the babies and fix gator stew
Now what if these people live next to you?
The only condition that keeps them away
Is the fact that it will hit minus 30 today.
Winter is a challenge but it can be faced,
When you’re among people of pretty good taste. |
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| The Lake Wobegon Virus Softcover Now in paperback. Bestselling author and humorist Garrison Keillor returns to one of America’s most beloved mythical towns — a town beset by a contagion of alarming candor. Get the BOOK >>> |
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| A NEW "Winter" Quotation Shirt “Winter: It’s not just a season, it’s who we are.” A perfect Garrison Keillor quotation to summarize why Minnesotans are so STRONG. Celebrate the season with this 100% cotton navy shirt. Available in sizes S–XXL Get the Shirt >>> |
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| A Prairie Home Companion Socks If your friends in warmer climates wonder how you survive northern winters, why it’s with a warm pair of socks. These socks are red and classy with the show’s original logo centered on the leg . . . so to match the host’s red socks, shoes, and tie he wore weekly on each broadcast. Get the Socks >>> |
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