By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
It’s not like Garrison Keillor hasn’t left me before.
Back in 1987, he deserted “A Prairie Home Companion” to go to Denmark in pursuit of an old flame.
Then he came skulking back two years later. Said he’d changed. Took up residence in New York City, the metropolis he’d dreamed about as he read The New Yorker back in Minneapolis.
Now the show had a grander moniker, “American Radio Company of the Air.” He drew on New York talents, including those from Broadway, notably Walter Bobbie who went on to direct a smash revival of “Chicago.” Keillor himself sang more, engaging in duets with a dazzling rotation of female vocalists. When that show moved back to Minnesota, it still carried some of its cosmopolitan airs. A year later it returned to its maiden name and has been faithful to its listeners in the intervening decades. Now the show hit the road and high seas. Traveling more to Hawaii and Iceland.
Tonight (July 2), the last “A Prairie Home Companion” with Keillor as host will be broadcast on public radio stations across the country, including WGTE-FM in Toledo. Maybe it’s telling that the show was done in the Hollywood Bowl, far removed from its prairie roots and is a rare recorded original broadcast. The last live broadcast was last weekend from the tony environs of Tanglewood in the Berkshires of Massachusetts.
Maybe it’s just me, but this seems less momentous than the 1987 departure. That show was a must listen and extended well beyond its scheduled closing time. This season has been more of an extended fade out, a fade to black for many local listeners given WGTE has announced it will stop broadcasting the show after Saturday.
My waning interest as the show ends mirrors my slow acceptance of it. I remember hearing a bit of it back in 1980 or so. It hadn’t been airing nationally all that long.
The clip I heard struck me as nostalgia for a better time that never was. Still like a mosquito it was buzzing in the air. I remember hiking on Camel’s Hump with a group of University of Vermont researchers who were gathering water samples to study acid rain. They were talking about the News from Lake Wobegon. It took me awhile to figure out what they were talking about. Oh, that show, I realized. Then another time Linda and I came home and turned on the radio, and the strains of some fine jazz piano emerged from the speaker. Yes, it was “A Prairie Home Companion.” I can’t be positive, but I think the pianist was Finnish. Keillor’s humor, notably “The Finn Who Would Not Sauna,” also touched the sensibilities of Linda, a native of the Upper Peninsula and of Finnish and Norwegian heritage. The show helped educate this New Englander on the culture of the Upper Midwest. And as I listened, I appreciated the subtle satire and darker undertow in these bucolic scenes.
So we became devoted listeners. The radio clicked on at 6 every Saturday, usually accompanying the fixing and consuming of supper.
I was not alone in my reluctant adoption of the show. Early on it was offered to National Public Radio for distribution. Keillor was already an occasional guest on “Morning Edition Sunday.”
As I’ve heard it many times, NPR officials passed, doubting a variety show coming out of Minnesota and focusing on regional humor would have national appeal. (They learned their lesson, and, despite similar reservations, did not repeat the error when offered “Car Talk.”)
Minnesota Public Radio organized an alternative distribution company and American Public Radio, now American Public Media, was born.
In its heyday “Prairie Home Companion” reached more than 4 million listeners a week, all tuned in at the same time, a rarity in these times of binge watching. That audience has declined in the past 10 years or so. (Martin Moylan offers insights in the business side at: https://www.mprnews.org/story/2016/07/01/prairie-home-post-keillor.)
Still, I must say I was a little surprised when I was informed in a letter to members that WGTE-FM was jettisoning the show as soon as Keillor signed off.
Unlike in 1987, when the show ended, Keillor has a succession plan in place. When he announced his retirement, he also announced that frequent guest Chris Thile, of Nickle Creek and Punch Brothers, was taking over as host.
Keillor even let Thile take the show out for a few test drives. Now Thile, who has received a MacArthur Award, the so-called “genius grants,” is a very fine musician. But I, and I’m not alone, was not impressed. Granted Thile was in the position of being injected into Keillor’s world, cast in established skits such as “Lives of the Cowboys,” “Guy Noir,” and the routine involving phone calls between the adult Dwayne and his meddling mother that always climax with her vivid description of the pain of childbirth. These Thile-hosted episodes did nothing so much as remind us that no matter how many other cast members there are (including a radio sound effects man – talk about a dying art) and how many guest musicians, actors and poets are on hand, this show sails the waters of Keillor’s distinctive stream of consciousness.
Support Local Media!Keillor always seemed the best testimonial for his faux advertiser Powder Milk Biscuits which “give shy persons the strength to get up and do what needs to be done.”
His veneer of reticence only heightens the effect that Keillor is pulling this material up from some deep place because like Dwayne’s mother it demands to be heard.
I’ve seen the show live once, at Town Hall in New York City about 10 years ago. It was great to see the show unfold, but even more enjoyable were the two solo Keillor performances at Owens Community College.
In both shows, which were completely different, Keillor held forth for two and a half hours, without a break. He spun tales, recited poetry and sang. He tapped into our communal memory, or at least for a couple hours convinced us we were all citizens of Lake Wobegon. When at his second Owens appearance the crowd was late getting settled, he appeared at the podium, precisely at the appointed hour. He’s a radio guy, after all, and in radio the show starts on time. So as the latecomers shuffled to their seats, he intoned in his homespun bass “oh beautiful, for spacious skies.” He continued through five verses of “America the Beautiful” until everyone had settled right where they belonged, in the palm of his hand.
That voice will now be absent from “A Prairie Home Companion.” Chris Thile will be left to shape his own vision for the show, though undoubtedly for fewer listeners and more than a few nervous program directors.
Keillor’s departure left APR and public radio with a dilemma. Back in 1987 the show ended. A replacement was launched in its place. I remember very little about it, and that very little does not even include its name. The show tried for that mix of music, humor, homespun skits and storytelling. But it always felt like a knock-off. We did listen, but not always, or to the end. The radio no longer snapped to attention at 6 on Saturday. I’m sure public radio programmers were relieved when Keillor returned from Denmark.
So instead they’ll launch a new show inside the shell of the old “A Prairie Home Companion.” It’s like what my father did when he needed to replace our garage. To save the bother and expense of getting a building permit, he built the new garage inside the old one, and I think eventually he finished the job. Thile won’t have that much time.
WGTE’s decision comes after a survey of its listeners, and I’m sure a perusal of its books. “A Prairie Home Companion” is an expensive show. A station is essentially buying a new show albeit with an old name at the same price. (Moylan reports stations are being offered a 10 percent discount.) Why not just go with a proven show that’s new to your listeners? That’s what WGTE is doing. “Mountain Stage,” a show featuring a wide range of new and veteran musical acts, will replace “Prairie Home” on Saturdays. For local listeners, they can expect the same familiar musical mix they hear every year at the Black Swamp Arts Festival. Pokey LaFarge, one of this year’s headliners, just performed on “Mountain Stage.”
I doubt the show will reach the levels of listenership that Keillor’s “Prairie Home Companion” did. That was a phenomenon. Lake Wobegon was the right place for public radio listeners, and 6 on Saturday evening was the right time to gather there. So this week, in the spirit of the old Kris Kristofferson song, I’ll turn on the radio, “for the good times.”
