Back at Macalester from 2015

featuring Jearlyn Steele, Butch Thompson, Joe Newberry, and more

Chicago & Beyond

A special thank-you to the raucous crowd at The Chicago Theatre on Sunday night to celebrate 50 years of radio! A 3,000-person party featuring plenty of music from Garrison and the band, solos from Howard Levy, Heather Masse, and Christine DiGiallonardo, plus POEM, Mom, Lutheran Air, a great sound effects showcase for Fred Newman, the latest News from Lake Wobegon and a sing-along. A pretty good way to spend an evening! Here are a few pics.

Now, onward to the final two 50th Anniversary Shows — in Moorhead, Minnesota, and at Norsk Høstfest in late September. Join us for a great night to salute the show. Info: Moorhead, MN, tickets Minot, SD, tickets

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Listen to the July 4, 2015, show

We have been having so much fun on the road with the 50th Anniversary Show that we have been revisiting anniversaries of the past online. This week’s show takes us back to the 41st Anniversary show at Macalester College in 2015. There’s great American music with JD McPherson, rock-solid rambles from Joe Newberry, and roof-raising soul from Jearlyn and Jevetta Steele. Butch Thompson adds his quintessential piano and clarinet and Tjärnblom rounds things out with a celebration of Minnesota’s Scandinavian heritage. Also: a crush of characters from Tim Russell and Sue Scott, and sound-effects man Fred Newman sparks fireworks and rockets; music director Rich Dworsky and the band (Bernie Dresel, Larry Kohut, Richard Kriehn, and Chris Siebold) serve up sweltering slices; and the News from Lake Wobegon, with the tried-and-true traditions of Independence Day in the tiny town. Listen to the show.

About our Guest Performers:

Missouri native and North Carolina transplant Joe Newberry has made music most of his life. He grew up in a family full of singers and dancers, took up the guitar and banjo as a teenager, and learned fiddle tunes from great Missouri fiddlers. He has played with Bruce Molsky and Rafe Stefanini as the Jumpsteady Boys, in a duo with mandolinist Mike Compton, and in a quartet with old-time music legends Bill Hicks, Mike Craver, and Jim Watson.

Pianist and clarinetist Butch Thompson was known worldwide as a master of ragtime, stride, and classic jazz. Born and raised in Marine-on-St. Croix, Minnesota, Butch was already playing Christmas carols on his mother’s upright piano by age three, and he led his first professional jazz group as a teenager. For 12 years, he was A Prairie Home Companion’s house pianist, dating back to the show’s second broadcast, in July 1974. Butch’s many albums include a LIVE recording from Crooners Lounge with his Southside Aces band. The album was one of his final performances.

What do you do when the school board eliminates your job as a middle school art teacher? Singer-songwriter-guitarist JD McPherson collected his last paycheck and revisited an interest that had been there all along: music. The Oklahoma native now puts his singular stamp on the sounds of early R&B and rock ’n’ roll.

Richard Dworsky

Our great musical director has a new album coming out this fall! Listen to the first song below, but first read his initial comments:

“The beautiful and inspirational Prayer of St. Francis is timeless and always relevant. This is my musical setting. It features the wonderful young Venezuelan-born singer Miguel Delabarca. My friend Adi Yeshaya did the beautiful orchestral arrangement. Franciscan scholars have expressed doubt that this prayer was actually written by St. Francis of Assisi. To me, that’s not important. The message is universal, and people of any faith can benefit from it. It’s a poetic guide to making the world a better place.”

Bob Newhart

Bob Newhart passed away on July 18 at the age of 94. He had a legendary career in television, movies, radio, and stand-up. Little-known fact is that he is one of a handful of hosts on a radio show called Comedy College, which was executive produced by Garrison Keillor. The series examined the works of legendary comedians. Below, we present the episode that was dedicated to the Button-Down Mind master himself. The entire series, including all episodes hosted by Bob Newhart — and others hosted by Steve Martin, Lily Tomlin, and Rita Rudner — are available to listen to in the BACK ROOM of our SUBSTACK page, along with lots of other archival content.

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“I’m an honest writer, not an inspirational speaker or a sales agent for a seniors’ condo complex, and they believe me when I say old age is a heroic role you’ve been preparing for for decades and now comes the easy part: walking tall, exemplifying wisdom and maturity while maintaining humility while retaining the right to freedom of expression and that includes talking to yourself, and despite your eccentricities and crotchets, being beloved. Belovedness is the point of it all. Why would you want anything less? If you are very very old, of course there are no rules, and you can probably get away with homicide if you choose a truly despicable person to poison and you have a doctor who will testify to your mental instability, but anyway here are some helpful suggestions.”

And so Garrison begins his 23 Rules of the Game, tips on living life to the fullest and why we should all want to keep getting older, better, and wiser. This anchors a full chapter in his recent book Serenity at 70, Gaiety at 80: Why We Should Keep On Getting Older. It’s a great humorous and inspiring take on advancing in years. So grab the book that the Saturday Evening Post described as “a playful yet deeply felt meditation that ought to be a standard in the literature of human aging.”