Music from Lake Woebegon

Last year, A Prairie Home Companion celebrated its 40th anniversary with a three-day event.  As I've mentioned, I first came across the show when my brother was living in St. Paul, Minnesota, and wrote me about this odd, wonderful local radio show, and we went to see it at the World Theater when I went to visit.  It wouldn't become a national broadcast for several years after that.

The day before the official 40th Anniversary Show, they had an outdoor broadcast on the Fourth of July, held at Macallister College.  The video is titled 40 Years, 40 Songs, but I don't think it's that many songs -- I haven't counted them, but it seems closer to 20.  It's largely a number of performers who've appeared on PHC over the years, come together for the event.

There a couple of nice things here which I particularly like.  One is that they brought back Butch Thompson, who had been music director for several years, and who I really loved and wrote about a couple of time here and here. He shows up early in the video, around the 2-minute mark.  And then for those of you who loved Northern Exposure or remember the article I wrote here about its last episode and closing song, "Our Town," written and performed by Iris DeMent, you'll appreciate that she makes an appearance in the video, as well, singing a duet with Garrison Keillor around 10-minutes in.

So, he's a bit of celebrating before the 40 year gala.