This week on A Prairie Home Companion, our final summer repeat!! A compilation featuring two shows, one to be recorded this week in Chicago from the Gary Comer Youth Center. Gary Comer is the founder of Land's End, a longtime friend to APHC, and one of our nation's great philanthropists. Featured on that show will be gospel singer Jearlyn Steele, award winning pianist Reginald Robinson, world music journeymen Radio Maqam, Chicago community builders The South Shore Drill Team, and our own Rich Dworksy and Fred Newman. The second show is one we did in Chicago in 2002 from the Auditorium Theater, featuring the great American author, historian, and broadcaster Studs Terkel, legendary jazz figure Franz Jackson, and the hero of the modern harmonica, Howard Levy. Join us this Saturday for a very special Chicago windstorm of a show. We promise you'll be blown away.

This week on A Prairie Home Companion, it's a Halloween compilation re-broadcast featuring Rhonda Vincent, The Mid-Winter Tuba Quintet, and Soprano Maria Jette. Our own Tim Russell sings "Can't Take My Eyes off Your Throat", the Guy's All-Star Shoe Band swings with a tune called "Jekyll & Slide", folk-rocker Tim Eriksen sings "O Death", and Garrison reads Edgar Allen Poe's "The Raven". Join us for all that, and a bag of chips, this Saturday on A Prairie Home Companion.

This week on A Prairie Home Companion, we'll test the waters and cannonball into our new season with a show from the Minnesota State Fair. Featured guests include the boss of blazing bluegrass banjo, The Del McCoury Band, the vibrant voice of Becky Schlegel, and talk-radio trailblazer turned cultivated crooner Tommy Mischke. Also featuring the Royal Academy of Radio Acting: Tim Russell, Sue Scott, and Tom Keith, the Guy’s All-Star Shoe Band, with this week’s guest loafer Andy Stein, and of course, the News from Lake Wobegon. Join us this Saturday from the inside straightaway of the old short track, for a show fueled entirely by creamed corn casserole.

This week on A Prairie Home Companion, it's jokes, jokes and more jokes: Ole and Lena jokes, light bulb jokes, blonde jokes, man-walks-into-a-bar jokes, knock-knock jokes, lawyer jokes... You get the idea. It is our special Joke Show compilation broadcast, (from April and November of 2004) featuring Paula Poundstone and Roy Blount, Jr. Paula bravely steps to the mic for a duet with Garrison about friendship, and Roy appears as a "Cowboy Consultant" in an episode of The Lives of the Cowboys. The King of the Bass Sax, Vince Giordano, sings a great old Jelly Roll Morton song called the "Hyena Stomp." And Spider John Koerner sings about his early, rebellious days back in the 60's with a song called "Good Time Charlie." In Lake Wobegon, there was talk of renovating Wally, the talking Walleye. And Arlene Bunsen had to send letters of apology to everyone who came to her Easter dinner. More about that this weekend, along with some great music from The Guy's All-Star Shoe Band and expertly delivered jokes from The Royal Academy of Radio Actors: Sue Scott, Tim Russell and Tom Keith.

This week we present a warm and windy summertime repeat featuring two California shows we did in 2003 from San Luis Obispo and San Diego, with veteran surf-rockers Gil Orr and Paul Johnson (The Duo-Tones), jazz singer Inga Swearingen, and cowgirl poet and singer-songwriter Stephanie Davis. Dusty and Lefty manage to get thrown into the San Luis Obispo county jail, and in Lake Wobegon, Pastor Inqvist and his wife Judy rekindle their romance with a trip up North to the cabin, where memories of Bruno the fishing dog pay them a visit. Join us this Saturday, as we go panning for gold in the Golden State.

This week on A Prairie Home Companion--a summertime rebroadcast featuring two shows we did with a great guitarist: Mark Knopfler. In 2004 he came solo and collaborated a bit with Geoff Muldaur. And this past year, he came with Emmylou Harris. Guy Noir dreams of Bogart, Ruth Harrison dreams of love, and in Lake Wobegon: Arlene Bunsen buried her leftover Easter ham in the backyard ... all coming up on this week's show.

It's not that we don't love the state fair, but it can be a volatile summertime equation: (3 Pronto Pups + 1 large chili fries + 104 degrees Fahrenheit x 1 Tilt-A-Whirl = Losing your lunch, and dignity, in front of family and friends), so wisdom suggests finding some shade in the grandstand and catching this week's show, a re-broadcast featuring highlights from our Minnesota and Kansas state fair productions of 2004, including performances by Shawn Colvin, The Wailin' Jennys, Tonic Sol Fa, and Kelley Hunt.
We'll also have Princess Kay of the Milky Way, The Royal Academy of Radio Acting, The Guy's All-Star Shoe Band, and in Lake Wobegon, you could do a lot with three dollars at the fair and still buy a piece of aunt Myrna's chocolate cake, a perennial blue ribbon winner.

What do you get when you place thirty-five cruised-out, exhausted performers on an outdoor stage? Find out this Saturday, as we present our post cruise finale from the Chateau Ste. Michelle.

This week on A Prairie Home Companion, it's another steamy summertime rebroadcast featuring two shows from our February 2004 micro-tour through the South. The first stop: Hot Springs, Arkansas and then on to Spartanburg, South Carolina for Valentine's Day. Both shows feature the lightning-fast pickin' of Mr. Sam Bush. The legendary Doc Watson takes the stage, and Cindy Cashdollar sits in with The Guy's All-Star Shoe Band. Guy Noir heads south from St. Paul in search of a bad batch of grits, and of course there's the latest news from Lake Wobegon. Also with us, the Royal Academy of Radio Acting: Tim Russell, Sue Scott and Fred Newman.

This week on A Prairie Home Companion, it's another fine summertime re-broadcast. Featuring the best of our 2004 broadcast from Wolf Trap National Park, just outside of Washington, D.C. and from the "other" Washington, highlights from our broadcast from Marymoor Park that same year. Featured guests include tunesmith Kelly Joe Phelps, harmonica wizard Howard Levy, jazz singer Inga Swearingen, radioman Bob Edwards, and the U.S. Army Brass Quintet, who'll boggle the mind with their version of “The Flight of the Bumblebee”. Also with us, the Royal Academy of Radio Acting: Tim Russell, Sue Scott, and Fred Newman, the Guy’s All-Star Shoe Band, and in Lake Wobegon we’ll hear about the perils of inattentive driving, and a fire and brimstone preacher with a very bad wig. All coming up on this week's show!