[Watch What A Result A Non Fridged 14 Year Old Video
Julieann Rohde
This is the problem with a free society, which ours is: people are allowed to pursue their own whims and wishes regardless of the national interest. I, for example, pursued a career in comic fiction when America had twice as many humorists as it needed and we ridiculed national leaders, the military, law enforcement, all forms of authority, the very idea of patriotism, even the sacred institution of marriage. Our nation is under threat from insidious forces and here I am writing humorously about it. This is not good.
Keillor & Company with Prudence Johnson and Dan Chouinard bring their show in Crystal Falls, MI for a performance of classic love songs, poetry, The News from Lake Wobegon, and a conversation about Why You Should Go On Getting Older.
Today is the birthday of English author G.K. Chesterton (1903), born Gilbert Keith Chesterton in London (1874). He was a large man, well over six feet, and rotund. He disagreed sharply with many people, most notably H.G. Wells and George Bernard Shaw, but he was so agreeable and full of good humor that he kept them as close friends. He was also remarkably prolific, writing fast and scarcely editing what he wrote.
Acclaimed guests: Bob and Ray, Bobby McFerrin, Taj Mahal, Pete Seeger, Doc Watson, Yo Yo Ma, Minnie Pearl, Chet Atkins, The Everly Brothers, Willie Nelson, Emmylou Harris, Greg Brown, Jean Redpath, Carl Perkins, Ray Stevens, The Judds, Vince Gill, Allison Janney, Lynn Thigpen, Alison Krauss, Brad Paisley, The Dixie Chicks, James Taylor, Meryl Streep, Lily Tomlin, John C. Reilly, John Lithgow, Martin Sheen, Elvis Costello, Rene, Fleming, Marilyn Horne, Nathan Gunn, Dixie Carter, James Earl Jones, Roger Miller, Carole King, Debra Monk, Sara Bareilles, Joshua Bell, Tom Brokaw, Harry Smith, Charles Kurault, Brandi Carlile, Roseanne Cash, Rosemary Clooney, Kristin Chenoweth, Victoria Clark, Joel Grey, Harry Connick Jr., Lyle Lovett, Sheryl Crow, Heart, Emmanuel Ax, Jeremy Denk, Dr. John, Linda Ronstadt, Al Franken, James Galway, Nanci Griffith, Arlo Guthrie, Kathy Mattea, George McGovern, Walter Mondale, Itzhak Perlman, Sydney Pollack, Bonnie Raitt, Leon Redbone
After a nomadic tour of available, rentable auditoriums, the show made a deal with the Dworsky family to rent the World Theater, a movie house that had long been closed. Volunteers drained water out of the basement and scraped the gum off the seats. The rent was paid by the sale of popcorn and a sub-rental to a group that wanted to show Asian-language films on weeknights.
Garrison returned to the U.S., but to New York, where he worked out of his small office in the New Yorker building. I went to visit him one day and talked about a return, doing a big show, bigger than anything we had tried before, and he liked the idea. We were walking along Sixth Avenue talking about venues for a big, big show. We found ourselves standing under the marquee of Radio City Music Hall, and it hit like bolt of lightning: That was the answer.
We explored Radio City with the theater manager, who explained to us how the stage could rise up from the basement and rotate like a railroad roundhouse. And he described a variety of other incredible special effects.
Garrison scheduled three shows at the storied 6,000-seat venue: Friday, a Saturday matinee, and Saturday night, with Saturday night being a national APR radio broadcast. The Disney Channel was back on board too.
Smiley is a big name in Augusta County, Virginia, where we live, so we used that last name, and he most likely added the first names and the Manhattan Valley Boys. We continued to be asked to bring back Marvin and Mavis many times over the years, sometimes with other themes, like Down Home Diva with bluegrass snippets of familiar opera arias.
It was always very hard to get through a Marvin and Mavis segment without us breaking into laughter. We used to get lots of requests to do that in concert, which was impossible to do without the band, especially the drummer.
Looking back, I like to think that we took our work and our music seriously, but not ourselves. That was partly the secret to the early success of the show. The beginnings of A Prairie Home Companion grew out of the West Bank folk scene that passed for Greenwich Village around Minneapolis in the 1970s. We had a lot of good times, comradery, and encouragement, and got to share our songs and the music we loved with the world.
Nashville, the home of the Ryman Auditorium, where we enjoyed the likes of Emmylou Harris, Mark Knopfler, and Brad Paisley, sitting in with the band and, one time, bringing us a moment with Little Jimmy Dickens.
Lanesboro, Minnesota: a stormy Rhubarb Festival on-air show on a baseball diamond, where the weather knocked the satellite off the air, but Garrison soldiered on walking the muddy fields, microphone in hand joining the drenched crowd in song. Memorialized on film for the PBS American Masters documentary by Peter Rosen, The Man on the Radio in the Red Shoes.
New Orleans, LA. The rickety but famous St. Charles Streetcar takes you to within a few blocks of the WW2 museum, discovering the importance of a man named Higgins, the creator of the Higgins Boat, the heroic landing vehicle responsible for making D-Day a success. Trying to master the Cajun parlance for a script the morning of the show by listening to local talk radio.
The Cruises. Garrison chartered Holland American Ships some 11 times for a cruise experience that brought talent and fans together for a chance to see the world. We did many APHC-like shows in the big showroom, and our guest musicians, singers, and poets would take over the smaller venues. Sue Scott and I would spend a couple of months putting together our own shows for the Showroom. Fine-tuning one of those shows would remind us of the skill Garrison had in putting together a 2-hour show each week for a national audience, an incredible feat.
Today the technicians use a computer; however, the original backstage control panel resembled the wall of a battleship. Large hand cranks, knobs, buttons, dials, and steering wheels to move the screens, curtains, and lights. During rehearsal, I asked one of the techs to explain the controls and he informed me that the ceiling could be illuminated to produce a sunset, stars, and sunrise. I showed Garrison and he talked the procedure through on the radio. The ceiling had not been lit for some time and everyone was thrilled to see it. There were ooohs and aaahs from the audience just like you hear during the Fourth of July fireworks.
I remember when Garrison went down to Nashville in the spring of 1974 to see the final Grand Ole Opry show held in the Ryman Auditorium. For several months, he had been taking music lessons from me, and at our next session, he brought me a picture of the Carter Family, which I still have. He also returned with an idea for a live radio show: A Prairie Home Companion.
I performed on A Prairie Home Companion five or six times a year until the show folded its tent (the first time) in 1987. And a couple of years after the program was resurrected (as American Radio Company of the Air before returning to the original title), I was offered the position of associate producer, in charge of booking talent.
I typed it up on the best quality paper I had (yes, this was before word processing, so it was actually put through a typewriter), and the next day I reported to the American Humor Institute. It was a simple office, with a couple of rooms, one of which was occupied by Jennifer Howe, the endlessly cheerful and efficient manager of a million things GK. She greeted me and then Garrison came out, we shook hands, he was taller than I had anticipated, and we sat down in his office.
During that time, I found myself riding back to Manhattan in a limo with Bob Elliott and his son Chris. I was introduced to Rene Fleming and Pete Seeger and Victor Borge. I traveled to the Grand Ole Opry and London and Seattle and Memphis. I was friends with Rob Fisher and Broadway musicians and Rich Dworsky and Tom Keith. (The sweetest man in the world; much missed.) Years later, I met Robert Altman and sat next to Kurt Vonnegut at the premiere of the PHC movie. It was the ride of a lifetime.
I learned many things from Garrison over the years. (I wrote for the radio show steadily for four or five years, until my TV writing took up too much time. I then shared a story credit with Garrison for the PHC movie, and I wrote again for the radio show the fall he was getting back to full steam following his stroke.)
I have lots of memories about the show in the early days of its reincarnation as The American Radio Company of the Air, then, The American Radio Company, and eventually A Prairie Home Companion once again.
My husband used to drive me to the airport and pick me up, and could come right to the gate with us. One week when I had left my stopwatch in my desk at MPR, he dropped me off, drove back to MPR to pick it up, and delivered it to the door of the aircraft for the stewardess to bring to me.
I began working for Prairie Home in 1986 just after the big success of Lake Wobegon Days. I worked two years as an elementary music teacher when the state of Minnesota suffered a budget crisis, which meant the laying off of art and music teachers. Typing only 46 words a minute, I got the Minnesota Public Radio job, which entailed answering the phone and responding to the mail. After his hiatus from A Prairie Home Companion, Garrison started broadcasting American Radio Company from New York. I remained in Minnesota but became the business manager, responsible for payrolls, unions, and contracts. In 2002, I became Managing Director of our own company, Prairie Home Productions. Over the next 23 years, we produced 34 broadcasts per year, chartered cruise ships, did crazy summer tours (30 shows in 40 days), opened a bookstore, produced TV shows, theater events, and of course, the A Prairie Home Companion movie.
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