June 7, 2014 rebroadcast with Ann and Nancy Wilson, Greg Brown, Jearlyn Steele, and Hilary Thavis

Heart first stormed the charts in the 1970s with hits like "Crazy on You," "Magic Man," and "Barracuda." Back then, Ann and Nancy Wilson were the first women to front a hard rock band. Almost four decades later, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductees are still recording, touring, and performing sold-out concerts worldwide. Heart's story is chronicled in the Wilson sisters' 2012 book, Kicking & Dreaming: A Story of Heart, Soul, and Rock & Roll (HarperCollins). Their new CD/DVD, Fanatic Live from Caesar's Colosseum (Frontiers Records), was released earlier this year.

Greg Brown was raised in southeastern Iowa, with a banjo-playing grandfather, a poet grandmother, an English teacher mother who played guitar, and a Pentecostal preacher father. The environment, combined with abundant talent, produced one of the most acclaimed singer-songwriters of the past three decades. Said a Boston Globe music critic, "Brown is to this country what Richard Thompson is to Britain: its most essential modern troubadour." Greg's 30-plus recordings may just prove the point. The most recent is 2012's Hymns to What Is Left (Sawdust Records).

Growing up in Indiana, Jearlyn Steele sang with her siblings as The Steele Children. One by one, they moved to Minnesota and started singing together again. Now music is the family business. Jearlyn also hosts Steele Talkin', a Sunday-night radio show that originates on WCCO in Minneapolis. Her most recent solo CD is Jearlyn Steele Sings Songs from A Prairie Home Companion.

Funny how things come together. Born in Rome, Italy, to parents from Minnesota, Hilary Thavis grew up loving music -- especially folk music -- from Woody Guthrie to Italian folk singers like Fabrizio De Andre and Francesco De Gregori. But it was the blues that ultimately captured her attention. Trouble & Truth is the 2011 recording from her band Gaia Groove. Now making her home in the Twin Cities, Hilary is working on a solo album of original songs.

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 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 released many recordings of original material and has provided music for documentaries on HBO and PBS.
Bernie Dresel has been in the percussion game since he got his first drum kit at the age of two. After graduating from the Eastman School of Music, he headed to Los Angeles. He's worked with countless artists, from Chaka Khan and Maynard Ferguson to David Byrne and Brian Wilson, and spent 15 years with the Brian Setzer Orchestra and Gordon Goodwin's Big Phat Band. He recently started a swinging big band called The BBB & Bernie Dresel, whose first album is called Live n' Bernin'. When Richard Kriehn turned 10, his mom bought him a mandolin; at 19, he'd won the Buck White International Mandolin Contest. He went on to play with the Nashville Mandolin Ensemble and bluegrass group 1946. On the classical side, he has performed with numerous orchestras and was principal second violin for the Washington/Idaho Symphony.
Bluegrass to big band jazz, Chris Siebold knows his way around a guitar -- or a bunch of other instruments, for that matter. Based in Chicago, he draws from a deep well of influences and styles, and has put his talents to work in ensembles such as Howard Levy's Acoustic Express and Kick the Cat. In 2010, he formed the band Psycles, whose album Live at Martyrs' was released the following year.
In high school, Larry Steen focused on the bass so he could be cool and play in a rock band ("There were enough guitar players!"). His mastery of the instrument led to studies at the University of Miami, California Institute of the Arts, and Berklee College of Music, and to performing or recording with top artists like Ella Fitzgerald, Rosemary Clooney, Steve Vai and Stevie Wonder. The Larry Steen World Jazz Ensemble fuses music concepts from far-flung corners of the globe.

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.

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.

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."