A Prairie Home Companion

The annual pre-Fourth of July performance of “A Prairie Home Companion, with Garrison Keillor” at Tanglewood allows the audience an afternoon of unabashed fellowship, giving us a glimpse at our heritage that is strong enough to quiet the clamorous ire aroused by today’s power-mongers and a feeling that it’ll be all right (if only we keep Powdermilk biscuits in our diet).

Inhabiting a media-soaked world, we’re seldom free of the streaming messages of Washington, DC and Wall Street, and so we need to tune into the News from Lake Woebegon and find the truth about who we are. And those of us fortunate to attend the performance get the extra reward of participating in the pre- and post-show songfest, that has us, unwittingly or not, professing faith while expressing kinship and national devotion.

It’s some bit of alchemy for Garrison Keillor, as politically engaged and insightful an entertainer as Mark Twain was, to somehow channel Pollyanna and send his audience on its way full of hope when their first inclination upon resuming their plugged-in lives would be less spiritual.

This year’s show, the seventh consecutive performed in Tanglewood’s Koussevitsky Music Shed, was as good as it gets even though it was almost devoid of local color. All the previous shows included at least one musical component showcasing Tanglewood musicians as well as skits with Berkshire themes. The “Guy Noir” episode this year, though set at Tanglewood, was really about the current national talent show craze.

Instead, it got its theme from the new Robert Altman movie about the Prairie Home Companion, featuring (as does the movie) a Berkshire neighbor, Meryl Streep, Gospel singer Jearlyn Steele, the Hopeful Gospel Quartet with Robin & Linda Williams, and the Guy’s All-Star Shoe Band.

Ms. Streep was a casually beautiful and charming presence throughout the show: in conversation with Mr. Keillor, in the skits, in singing “What’ll I Do?,” in skillfully reading a selection of poems, and poignantly (arm in arm – cheek to tear-dripping cheek) with Ms. Steele for the post-show singalong.

And re-joining the Royal Academy of Radio Acting was actress Erica Rhodes to play the part of Ms. Streep’s prodigal daughter in an hilarious episode of True Stories from Scripture. This was the second star turn here for Ms. Rhodes, who in 2001 played the role of a teen-aged Emily Dickinson hiking Monument Mountain with Herman Melville and Nathaniel Hawthorne.

The musical selections were splendid, including a surprisingly sublime rendition of the Reggae anthem “One Love” done by the Hopeful Gospel Quartet and Guy’s All-Star Shoe Band and Jearlyn Steele’s soulful treatment of Bob Dylan’s “I Shall Be Released,” accompanied by Hopeful Gospel Quartet, and Guy’s All-Star Shoe Band.

Special guests were the luminous Wailing Jennys from Canada, Ruth Moody, Nicky Mehta, and Annabelle Chvostek, whose a capella version of “Bring Me A Little Water, Sylvie” brought to light the genius of Huddie Ledbetter, a.k.a.Leadbelly. On other numbers, “One Voice,” and “Calling All Angels,” their instrumental skills were on display as well.

(Originally published on NewBerkshire.com)

July 1, 2001 Tanglewood concert review by Dave Read

When we arrived at the Koussevitsky Music Shed at Tanglewood around 1:30 pm Saturday, the Julliard String Quartet was fiddling around with its Debussy segment while nearly a dozen stagehands, engineers, and foctotems bustled about, doing what needs to be done to put a live radio show together.
Once producer Christine Tschida logged the time of the Debussy segment, she informed the quartet that their Guy Noir scripts were in their dressing room, adding “your initials are next to your lines.” One of them reminded her that they’d need to allow for a moment of applause when she was telling them what to expect by way of introduction from Garrison Keillor.

“Oh no, we want to squelch the applause – this is radio and we need to keep the show rolling.” – producer Christine Tschida

Regardless, the audience showered the Julliard String Quartet with ample applause, both for the brilliance of their musicianship and for the color they brought to the Guy Noir episode. The auditory sundae that millions treat themselves to every Saturday goes down so smoothly because Tschida is so good at her job, an aspect of which is to cajole musicians into cutting out music.

Special guest (and former music director) Rob Fisher and The Guy’s All Star Shoe Band leader Richard Dworsky did a piano duet – a medley of patriotic music. After a run-through, Tschida approached, “It’s 4:40 now; I think a nice juicy 4 minutes would be fine – if you could cut it by 10%.” Being all stars, of course the boys made the cut, and the segment delighted the audience.

Sound effects wizard Tom Keith had the opportunity for advanced research on the sound of thunder, especially during rehearsal. It stood him in good stead during the show’s Melville/Hawthorne + Dickinson skit. The skit expanded upon the locally well-known (even among non-English majors) meeting of Herman Melville and Nathaniel Hawthorne in 1850, during a rain-interrupted hike up Monument Mountain in Gt. Barrington.

Since nobody said Emily Dickinson wasn’t there, Keillor and the cast showed us how much fun the outing could’ve been if the belle of nearby Amherst had made the trip. Erica Rhodes’ portrayal of a 19 year old Dickinson, eager for the affirmation of her literary elders, made the skit a winner.

The audience roared when she reached the closing lines of a re-working of “Time and Eternity,”

(which begins, “Because I could not stop for death/He kindly stopped for me…)

“The woods are lovely, dark with dew,/Do-wacka-do-wacka-do-wacka-do.”

Conveying the local flavor when the show is on the road (and skewing it for laughs), is endearing to the locals and educational for the vast radio audience. A Prairie Home Companion’s local-history maven is Russ Ringsak, who has been with the show since its beginning in 1974. He drives the show’s equipment truck, and getting to the venue a day or two in advance affords him the opportunity to visit local libraries and other establishments in search of information for Keillor to use on the show.

It was interesting to eavesdrop on the conversation between guest Mary Chapin Carpenter and band onstage and Sam Hudson, the show’s sound man, situated near the back of the shed.

Jon Carroll (MCC’s pianist): Can we get a little bit of the mandolin spread around?

Mary Chapin Carpenter: I don’t need too much mandolin.

Duke Levine (electric guitar): Neither do I.

Eventually, Ms. Carpenter says, “I don’t know how specific I can get with you, but on the quieter songs, less bass, and on the up-tempo songs, more.”

The audience was more than satisfied with the mix finally settled upon. Toward the end of the show, she dedicated her new song, “Late for your life,” to Chet Atkins, who died earlier that day. (Four days after this show, Garrison Keillor delivered a eulogy for his longtime friend Chet Atkins at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville.)

July 2, 2000 Tanglewood concert review by Dave Read

The 2000 Tanglewood season got underway Saturday with the live broadcast of A Prairie Home Companion with Garrison Keillor and special guests Emanuel Ax, Norumbega Harmony, and the Berkshire Highlanders. It was a pretty good show, mostly – except for the parts that were brilliant.

It seems silly to use superlatives to describe a show that had as casual and relaxed a feel to it as this one did, but Keillor used some himself when he introduced Tanglewood and the Berkshires to his vast radio audience, so it’s OK for us to wax laudatory.

The selection of special guests was perfect and they all gave great performances. The show’s regulars, The Guy’s All-Star Shoe Band, piano player Richard Dworsky, Tim Russell, Sue Scott, and sound effects master Tom Keith, all turned in their usual excellent performances.

A few highlights:

• Russell’s uncanny impersonation of President Clinton reciting Bob Dylan’s “Like A Rolling Stone” in response to Keillor’s query, “How does it feel to be leaving the White House?”
• Keith’s oral fireworks display to the accompaniment of “Stars and Stripes Forever” played by Ax and Dworsky;
• Keillor’s monologue, about one of the last of the dying breed of Norwegian bachelor farmers and his struggle to maintain his independence and dignity in the midst of a town full of Pumpkin Heads.

Berkshire Highlanders at Tanglewood

It was wonderful to see and hear The Berkshire Highlanders in the Shed. Their Greylock Tartan kilts are perfect representations of the subtly beautiful Berkshire hills, and their repertoire is unusually engaging, as indicated by the Shaker hymn, Simple Gifts they played on stage.

In addition to providing the show’s classical music interlude with “Estampes” by Claude Debussy, Emanuel Ax also made his acting debut, starring in an episode of the very funny radio drama, “Guy Noir: Radio Private Eye.” Ax was sharp in both roles.

Norumbega Harmony, one of New England’s largest and most active groups of Sacred Harp and shape-note singers, gave beautiful performances of the Shaker hymn “The Good Samaritan,” and a 19th centruy anthem, “Millennial Praise.”

Garrison Keillor’s Tanglewood connection

Garrison Keillor’s wife was a student at the Boston University Tanglewood Institute when she was sixteen, and their second date was at Tanglewood eight years ago, which he memorialized in a song that displayed his poetic acuity (e.g.: “I couldn’t see how a redneck’s gonna judge Seiji Qzawa.” Another bon mot was his rhyming admonition, “Music is a gift from God – please shut up, and at the end, applaud.”

Somehow it seems especially fitting that this Tanglewood season, which celebrates the 100th anniversary of the birth of Aaron Copland, the quintessential American composer, was opened with A Prairie Home Companion, which celebrates everything that’s pretty good about America.