April, Come She Will from 2008
featuring Brad Paisley and Jean Redpath
Twelve News from Lake Wobegon stories from the last four seasons of live broadcasts lovingly selected by our staff, with one story representing each month of the year to demonstrate that much does happen in the “little town that time forgot.” This collection is a classic! The sale price ends in one week — so grab a copy now.
The liner notes feature a poem for each month of the year and here is April:
March and Lent and we march along on our spiritual journeys
As winter hangs on and the world looks older and duller
And then in the mail comes the spring seed catalog from Gurney’s
And suddenly there is life and audacious color
And excitement rivaling Times Square or Las Vegas —
Blue Lake, Early Fortune, King of the Garden beans,
Stunning onions, phenomenal fennel, and big brutes of rutabagas,
And the beet that can't be beat: the extra-early Ruby Queens.
And O the tomatoes! The bearer of pure joy!
From tasteless store-bought stuff, deliver us!
The Crimson Defender, and Pink Delight, and Big Boy,
And the Beef Eater---the tomato carnivorous.
Lord, whose Arm is powerful, whose Word is valid,
Preserve us until July where we'll have salad.
Listen to the April 5, 2008, show
This week on A Prairie Home Companion, we’re revisiting a classic show from The Town Hall in New York City from 2008. The special guests include the phenomenon in boots and a hat, Brad Paisley, American film actress Kimberly Williams-Paisley, poet Ron Padgett, and the subject of more email inquiries at APHC than anyone else, legendary Scottish folksinger Jean Redpath. Also, The Royal Academy of Radio Actors: Tim Russell, Sue Scott, and Fred Newman; The Guy’s All-Star Shoe Band; and The News from Lake Wobegon. Join us this week from action-packed West 43rd & Broadway.
Highlights include the tender duet “Steal Away” by Garrison and Jean Redpath. Brad Paisley kicks in several solo songs, “Ode de Toilet” and “Waiting on a Woman,” plus “Cruising Downtown” with the Shoe Band. There are poems from Ron Padgett, and Kimberly Williams-Paisley sits in on a few sketches. Listen to the show.
More about our guest performers:
Brad Paisley has earned his place in country music history as one of the genre’s most talented and decorated male solo artists. His songwriting and unmatched showmanship have won him piles of awards — multiple GRAMMYs, American Music Awards, Academy of Country Music Awards, and Country Music Association Awards, including a highly coveted Entertainer of the Year honor and recognition as the most successful CMA Award cohost in history, alongside Carrie Underwood. A member of the Grand Ole Opry since 2001, Paisley has written most of his No. 1 hits, and in 2008 became the first artist to achieve 10 consecutive Billboard Country Airplay No. 1 singles.
Jean Redpath was a foremost interpreter and champion of traditional Scottish music. The Edinburgh Daily News once suggested that calling her a folk singer was “a bit like calling Michelangelo an Italian interior decorator.” She attended Edinburgh University, and during her years there, she made use of the university’s vast research archives, material documenting the traditions, legends, and music of the Gaelic and Scottish-speaking people. In 1961, she arrived in the U.S. and joined in a few “hootenannies” — first in San Francisco and then in Greenwich Village. In 1977, Redpath was chosen as one of only four performers commanded to appear before Queen Elizabeth II during the Queen’s Jubilee Year. She was also awarded the prestigious MBE (Member of the British Empire). A tireless performer, Redpath played hundreds of concerts throughout the U.S. and recorded dozens of albums, including Songs of Robert Burns (volumes 1–7) and A Woman of Her Time (Jean Redpath Records). She passed away in 2014. Appearing with Redpath on this performance are Abby Newton (cello), Jacqueline Schwab (piano), and Sue Richards (Celtic harp).
Ron Padgett was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1942. When he was growing up, Oklahoma was a dry state, and his father made a living as a bootlegger. Padgett read voraciously as a child and began jotting down poems in spiral notebooks when he was 13. He went to Columbia University and studied at the Sorbonne in France on a Fulbright scholarship. He was a 2018 recipient of the Frost Medal from the Poetry Society of America, presented for distinguished lifetime achievement in poetry. Padgett’s poetry collections include Tulsa Kid (1979), Poems I Guess I Wrote (2001), How Long (2011), Big Cabin (2019), and Dot (2022).
April is National Poetry Month so we decided to feature Garrison's most recent book, Brisk Verse, by sharing a poem or two from the book throughout the month. Here is one that is about his father called 'My Old Man.'
MY OLD MAN
Daddy was a gardener,
He loved his corn and peas,
The strawberry beds he kept
While tending all the apple trees.
Tomatoes, melons, row by row
He cultivated with his hoe.
I think of him in the sun,
Mowing the yard till it was done.
Daddy was a carpenter,
He loved to cut and trim.
Whenever I hear a power saw
I always think of him,
Nails in his mouth, hammer in hand
Way up high on a ladder he’d stand.
I think of him in his coveralls
Packing up the tools as evening falls.
Once a month I sat on a chair
With his big hand on my head
And he carefully cut my hair
As clean and true as a carpenter could do.
Daddy liked to work on cars,
Open up the hood,
Adjust the timing, tighten the belt,
Grease the bearings good.
He and my uncles looked at cars
Parked in the driveway
And never tired of arguing
About Ford vs. Chevrolet.
He died in the house he built
And we carried him through town
In a long black Cadillac
And we laid him in the ground.
I think of him when I happen to say
Something he would’ve said
And then I feel his hand
Resting on my head.
We had few conversations,
I can’t recall a one.
He was a Midwestern man
And I am his son.
I think of him when I drive a car
And when a train goes by
And when I hear the hymns he loved
Or smell a homemade pie.
The living leave, they move away,
My friends have drifted far apart
But the dead are with us every day.
On our mind and in our heart
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