All That Matters
hosted by Garrison Keillor
Show #1568September 17, 2016
From Fitzgerald Theater | Saint Paul, MN
0:00 | 01:58:59
Mark Knopfler
Geoff Muldaur
This week: a rebroadcast from October 2004 at our home base in Saint Paul, the Fitzgerald Theater. Singer, songwriter, and guitarist Mark Knopfler plays "Back to Tupelo" and "Song for Sonny Liston"; folk and blues singer Geoff Muldaur performs "The Whale Swallowed Jonah" and "Small Town Talk"; and accordionist Dan Newton sits in with The Guy's All-Star Shoe Band for a medley of Bob Dylan tunes, polka-style. Plus: Guy Noir visits a psychologist, and an exploration of Saint Paul, City of Ambiguity. In Lake Wobegon, the host wades into frigid water to help Uncle Dean and Aunt Evelyn bring the dock in.
Read notes from Rich Dworsky about this week's rebroadcast:
Richard Dworsky:
This show featured the great singer/songwriter/guitarist Mark Knopfler playing with his band. His repertoire included "Back to Tupelo" (a dark song about Elvis and Hollywood) and "Song for Sonny Liston" (exploring the heroic and dark side of the legendary boxer). Not your ordinary subject matter for a rock and roller. Add Mark's instantly recognizable haunting electric guitar to the mix and it's always a great musical journey. Geoff Muldaur, the great folk and blues singer, whose high and reedy voice sounds like a voice from the earliest days of recordings, joined forces with The Guy's All-Star Shoe Band for a few tunes. Geoff is also a scholar and preserver of jug band music, and it was always a thrill to play those tunes with him. And my very entertaining buddy, accordionist Dan Newton, created a Bob Dylan polka medley. Mark Knopfler, who co-produced Dylan, and has toured with him in recent years, must've really enjoyed it. We closed the show with Mr. Knopfler's classic country tune "The Next Time I'm In Town," which he recorded and often performed with guitar legend Chet Atkins. Garrison has made it one of his own signature "farewell" tunes over the years; and it was great to hear Garrison sing it with Mark and our Shoe Band. If you want to hear a couple more great renditions of this song, pick up the album A Prairie Home Companion: Duets, where you'll hear the song performed by Garrison and Chet Atkins in 1995, as well as a version sung by Mark Knopfler and Emmylou Harris in 2006.
Mark Knopfler
He was born in Glasgow, Scotland, in 1949. His family moved to Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England, when he was seven. He took up the electric guitar and listened to everyone from Jimi Hendrix to Django Reinhardt. He studied journalism, became a junior reporter for the Yorkshire Evening Post, got a degree in English at Leeds, met some musicians and in late 1977, with his brother David on second guitar, his Cafe Racers made their debut at a punk festival in a vacant lot. Two months later they cut an album under the name Dire Straits. Knopfler's own latest album is Shangri-La (Warner Bros Records), a natural marvel, recorded on our western seacoast in a 1960's studio. New songs on old guitars and an old electric piano, played through old amplifiers, with lava lamps on a side table.Geoff Muldaur
"There are only three white blues singers," Richard Thompson once said, "and Geoff Muldaur is at least two of them." Once you hear Muldaur's otherworldly voice, you know what he meant. He was a founding member of the Jim Kweskin Jug Band and Paul Butterfield's Better Days group, and he has collaborated with Bonnie Raitt, Maria Muldaur, Jerry Garcia and many other notables. An Emmy-winning composer of scores for television and film, Muldaur's solo recordings include Beautiful Isle of Somewhere (HighTone Records).Garrison Keillor
Garrison Keillor was born in 1942 in Anoka, Minnesota. He went to work for Minnesota Public Radio in 1969, and on July 6, 1974, he hosted the first broadcast of A Prairie Home Companion in St. Paul. He is the host of The Writer's Almanac and the editor of the Good Poems series of anthologies from Viking.The Guy's All-Star Shoe Band - October 2, 2004
Richard Dworsky Keyboardist, composer, and arranger Richard Dworsky is APHC's music director. He leads the band, composes themes, improvises script underscores, and collaborates with such diverse guests as Yo-Yo Ma, James Taylor, Brad Paisley, Kristin Chenoweth, and Sheryl Crow. He has provided music for documentaries on HBO and PBS, and has released many recordings of original material, including his latest, All In Due Time. Pat Donohue Chet Atkins called Pat Donohue (guitar) one of the greatest fingerpickers in the world today. And he writes songs too - recorded by Suzy Bogguss, Kenny Rogers, and others. Blue Yonder (Bluesky Records) is the most recent of Pat's 11 albums. Arnie Kinsella Arnie Kinsella hails from Staten Island, and holds a B.A. in percussion performance from Brooklyn College. In addition to his tenure on A Prairie Home Companion, he has performed with Vince Giordano and the Nighthawks, and has recorded and performed with The Manhattan Rhythm Kings, and Leon Redbone. Gary Raynor A Minnesota resident since 1977, bassist Gary Raynor has performed with the Count Basie band and Sammy Davis Jr., with whom he toured for several years. He has been first call for dozens of touring Broadway shows, including the first presentation of The Lion King. Gary teaches at the McNally Smith College of Music in St. Paul. Andy Stein Andy Stein (violin, saxophone) definitely has far-flung musical leanings. He collaborated with Garrison Keillor to create the opera Mr. and Mrs. Olson, and he has performed with artists such as Itzhak Perlman, Eric Clapton, Smashing Pumpkins, Billy Joel, Tony Bennett, Ray Charles, and Bob Dylan. Dan Newton The man is in eight bands, in addition to the one on stage tonight. He also does solo acts in two incarnations, one as the sophisticated Accordioniste and the other as the funky Daddy Squeeze and His Ethnoclectic Accordion. The bands all get good reviews; people write things like "quietly dazzling" and "the Cafe' Accordion Orchestra is the real deal." He says he just likes to play music and the only way to do that is to keep working. His bands cover everything from Paris, France, to Paris, Texas, and they can stop in Chicago, Nashville, Memphis and New Orleans on the way.Tim Russell
One minute he's mild-mannered Tim Russell; the next he's George Bush or Julia Child or Barack Obama. We've yet to stump this man of many voices. Says fellow APHC actor Sue Scott, "He does a better Ira Glass than Ira Glass." A well-known Twin Cities radio personality and voice actor, Tim appeared in the Robert Altman film A Prairie Home Companion and the Coen brothers' A Serious Man. Tim has also been reviewing films professionally for over 10 years.Sue Scott
On APHC, Sue Scott plays everything from ditzy teenagers to Guy Noir stunners to leathery crones who've smoked one pack of Camel straights too many. The Tucson, Arizona, native is well known for her extensive commercial and voice-over work on radio and television, as well as stage and movie roles, including the part of "Donna" in Robert Altman's A Prairie Home Companion.Tom Keith
Is that water dripping? Footsteps coming this way? Car tires spinning on an icy driveway? Nope - it's sound effects wizard Tom Keith. With vocal gymnastics and a variety of props, Tom worked his magic on A Prairie Home Companion from the mid-1970s until his passing in 2011.