A Prairie Home Companion and its Guests

I should sound old in this post because I am going to write a little bit about seeing a live recording of A Prairie Home Companion in Milwaukee on Saturday, and the average age of the audience was more than twice my age…as expected. So, what shall I say? Saturday night was a hoot.

Garrison Keillor always starts off the program with a little nod to the location he is broadcasting from. (Read: it was time to make fun of Milwaukee.) Keillor told the crowd that Milwaukee is adapted from a Native American language and it means “on the way to Chicago.” That roused a good chuckle from the crowd, who were most likely all Milwaukee residents, and all distinctly aware, like anyone who spends a chunk of time in Milwaukee, that Chicago is incredibly superior to Milwaukee and Brew City natives seem a little bitter about that. This was a crowd though with a sense of humor and the joke folded us up with laughter.

Another favorite was Keillor’s reference to Milwaukee as the home of beer and bratwurst, both of which create exhaust. At this cue, APHC’s sound effects man did his best to distinguish between beer farts and bratwurst farts. That was pretty hilarious. Kate loved it too because we are immature and laugh at fart jokes still.

The musical guests were the Bodeans, from Waukesha, Wisconsin which is about 25 minutes from where we are in Oak Creek. Completely unknown to me, the Bodeans sang four beautiful songs and I really enjoyed them. I didn’t recognize their name or their music. When we got home that night I read through the program and discovered that these local musicians were extremely successful and perhaps I should have known about them a little earlier, even if I didn’t live near Waukesha. Their 1986 debut album, Love & Hope & Sex & Dreams, launched them into the national music scene. Rolling Stone named them “Best New Band”. I read that their song “Closer to Free” was selected as the theme for Fox’s Party of Five. A refresher:

Well, anyways. They are still singing and making albums and are pretty chill and refined now. They got a lot of applause and Kate and I feel completely naïve for not knowing about them because we definitely recognized “Closer to Free” when we found it on iTunes.

Leon Redbone was also on the show. Redbone always performs in a Panama hat, sunglasses, and bowtie. He is quite the mysterious figure. Even Wikipedia can’t scrape up that much information on the dude. He was a regular on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. His disguise and ability to hide his true identity from the media and fans led to rampant speculation that he was actually Andy Kaufman or Frank Zappa. However, those men are dead now and Redbone still performs. Redbone survived a plane crash in 1979 and travels to “engagements exclusively by car.” His sound is very unique. I didn’t expect a rumbling baritone to come out of that small man. His voice can also be very smooth. I didn’t love his music. It was too folksy for me. The best comparison I can make is to Louis Armstrong.

Anyway, we had a wonderful time and I know that performance will remain fresh in our minds for a long time because Garrison Keillor and A Prairie Home Companion, whether you listen or not, are certainly slices of Americana that are not going to be replaced when the show comes to an end.