November 26, 2016 rebroadcast with Vince Giordano and the Nighthawks, Roy Blount Jr., Aoife O'Donovan, and Heather Masse
hosted by Garrison Keillor
November 26, 2016
From The Town Hall | New York, NY
0:00 | 01:58:54
Vince Giordano and the Nighthawks, Roy Blount Jr., Aoife O'Donovan, Heather Masse, Erica Rhodes
This week's classic rebroadcast: a look back to November 2013 and a Turkey Day show from The Town Hall in New York City. Vince Giordano and the Nighthawks play "Crazy Rhythm," Roy Blount Jr. shares a poem about Thanksgiving Eve, and Aoife O'Donovan and Heather Masse team up for "A-Rovin' on a Winter's Night." Plus: Erica Rhodes joins the Royal Academy of Radio Actors, our music director Richard Dworsky with a medley for Hanukkah, and a message from the Professional Organization of English Majors. In Lake Wobegon, Pastor Liz's boyfriend attends a service at the Lutheran Church.
Thoughts from Roy Blount Jr. on this week's rebroadcast:
Thoughts from Roy Blount Jr. on this week's rebroadcast:
Garrison invited me to contribute a Thanksgiving poem, and maybe I should have responded in a spirit of thankfulness, but I couldn't pass up a chance to strike a blow for turkeys, or more precisely to portray turkeys striking a blow for themselves, so I imagined turkeys carjacking a family on their pre-Thanksgiving way to grandmother's house. "Over the River and Through the Trees" meets "A Good Man Is Hard to Find." As far as I know, the poem -- with musical and gobble-related sound effects from Rich Dworsky and Fred Newman -- did not provoke a groundswell of either pro- or anti-turkey sentiment, but it gave me a new perspective on all the giblet gravy I have eaten over the years.
Vince Giordano
Vince Giordano and the Nighthawks are longtime favorites on the New York jazz scene. Bandleader Giordano grew up on Long Island listening to 78s on his grandmother's Victrola. Maybe that's what fueled his passion for tunes of the 1920s and '30s. The band's music from the HBO series Boardwalk Empire has been collected on two albums: Boardwalk Empire Volumes 1 and 2. Vince Giordano (tuba, string bass, bass sax, vocals), Andy Stein (violin, bari sax), Mike Ponella (trumpet), Andy Schumm (trumpet), Jim Fryer (trombone), Dan Block (alto sax, clarinet, soprano sax), Mark Lopeman (tenor sax, clarinet, soprano sax), Will Anderson (alto sax, clarinet), Peter Yarin (piano, celeste), Ken Salvo (banjo, guitar), Paul Wells (percussion).Roy Blount Jr.
The New York Times Book Review has called Roy Blount Jr. "one of America's wittiest writers." Readers of his articles in The Oxford American, Sports Illustrated, Esquire, Vanity Fair, GQ, National Geographic, Rolling Stone and The New York Times could tell you that. So could fans of his 23 books, including the most recent, Alphabetter Juice: or, The Joy of Text (Farrar, Straus and Giroux). On radio, Roy is a frequent panelist on NPR's news quiz show, Wait Wait ... Don't Tell Me.Aoife O'Donovan
With her ethereal voice and substantive songwriting, Aoife O'Donovan captivates fans and critics alike. She was lead singer of the string band Crooked Still, and was a featured vocalist on The Goat Rodeo Sessions, the Grammy-winning album by Yo-Yo Ma, Stuart Duncan, Edgar Meyer, and Chris Thile. Her own recordings include 2016's In the Magic Hour, follow-up to her critically acclaimed solo debut, Fossils. Her most recent release, Man In A Neon Coat: Live From Cambridge, is a collection of original songs and covers, recorded live at The Sinclair.Heather Masse
Growing up in rural Maine, Heather Masse sang hymns and folk songs around home with her family. Now based in New York, this New England Conservatory of Music alum is a one-third of the Juno Award-winning Canadian trio The Wailin' Jennys. Lock My Heart is her recording with piano legend Dick Hyman. A new album, August Love Song -- on which she joins forces with trombone great Roswell Rudd -- was recently released on Red House Records.Erica Rhodes
Erica Rhodes is known to many for her role as Sandy in more than 200 webisodes of the popular Web series Upstairs Girls. She has also appeared in motion pictures, including Go West, Javatown, Plague Town, Waiting for Dracula, and Big Sky. Erica produced and starred in the award-winning short film Posey, about a young woman who takes her Alzheimer's-afflicted grandmother to a nursing home.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.Richard Dworsky
Keyboardist, composer, and arranger Richard Dworsky is music director for A Prairie Home Companion, where he is often called upon to improvise on the spot -- in styles ranging from classical to bluegrass and everything in between. He has accompanied Garrison Keillor on U.S. and European concert tours and has collaborated with numerous other performers, including Al Jarreau and Kristin Chenoweth.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.Sue Scott
Since 1992, Prairie Home fans have heard Sue Scott play everything from well-intentioned moms and ditzy teenagers to Guy Noir stunners and leathery crones who've smoked one pack of Camel straights too many. She recently climbed back on stage in a variety of theater roles. She is well known for her commercial and voice-over work on radio and television, as well as movie roles, including the part of "Donna" in Robert Altman's A Prairie Home Companion.Fred Newman
Sound effects man Fred Newman is an actor, writer, musician, and sound designer for film and TV. Turns out, no one is more surprised than Fred that he's made a career out of doing what he used to do behind the teacher's back -- crossing his eyes, making sounds, and doing voices. He readily admits that, growing up, he was unceremoniously removed from several classrooms, "once by my bottom lip."