Backbone of a Nation from 2014
featuring Steve Wariner, Pokey LaFarge, and Joe Newberry
The bags are being packed, and the cast and crew are looking forward to getting together again to celebrate the old show in stories, songs, and sketches. Consider joining us on one of the stops on this outing as the crew revisits two of their favorite locations with each holding many fond memories. We will travel to the Washington, D.C., area for a show in Bethesda, Maryland, and then move on to Tanglewood for our first show at the beautiful venue since 2016. (We can’t wait to hear what you bring to the audience sing-along!)
June 18th at 8:00 p.m. in Bethesda, MD, at the Strathmore
June 21st at 7:00 p.m. in Lennox, MA, at Tanglewood
Listen to the classic show
This week’s classic show takes us back to June 14, 2014, for a broadcast from the Fabulous Fox Theatre in Saint Louis, Missouri, with special guests: innovator and preservationist Pokey LaFarge; banjo player, guitarist, and songwriter Joe Newberry; and guitar heavyweight Steve Wariner. Plus: the Royal Academy of Radio Actors (Tim Russell, Sue Scott, and Fred Newman), The Guy’s All-Star Shoe Band, and the latest News from Lake Wobegon.
Highlights include talk of Father’s Day and the presentation of a song or two Garrison wrote to honor his dad. Joe Newberry kicks in a tune to honor St. Louis called “Missouri Borderlands.” Steve Wariner adds a country blend with “Arrows at Airplanes” and “Missouri Waltz.” Pat Donohue adds a stunning version of “All My Life.” Pokey LaFarge croons “Riverboat Shuffle.” Plus, there’s a special Father’s Day edition of Duane, Guy Noir, Frankenstein, and more. Two hours will pass so quickly you’ll want to listen again. Listen to the classic show.
More about our guest performers:
Singer/songwriter/storyteller and multi-instrumentalist Steve Wariner is a troubadour in the music industry and continues to inspire artists today. More than 20 albums and five decades into his career, Wariner has become a modern-day multigenre icon, earning 14 No. 1 hits, more than 30 Top 10 singles, four GRAMMY Awards, four CMA Awards, three ACM Awards, two TNN/Music City News Awards, a Christian Country Music Association Award, being inducted into the prestigious Musicians Hall of Fame, Nashville Songwriter’s Hall of Fame, Kentucky Music Hall of Fame, the National Thumbpickers Hall of Fame, the Music City Walk of Fame, and is one of only five guitar players in the world to be given the “Certified Guitar Player” (CGP) award by Chet Atkins.
As a kid, Pokey LaFarge was drawn to the music of Howlin' Wolf and Muddy Waters, later tempered with a big helping of Bill Monroe and Bob Wills. Since releasing his first album, Marmalade, in 2006, he has won fans worldwide with his own creative spin on a mix of early jazz, string ragtime, country blues, and Western swing. 2024’s Rhumba Country is his newest release.
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 plays 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.
This week, we present a video along with the lyrics to “My Old Dad,” a song Garrison wrote and performed on this classic show.
Daddy was a gardener,
He loved his corn and peas
The strawberry beds he kept
And tending all the apple trees.
Tomatoes, melons, row by row
He cultivated with his hoe.
I think of him in the sun,
Bending to his work 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
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 fresh homemade pie
My old dad, my old dad,
The living leave, they move away,
But the dead are with us every day.
My old dad.
My friends have drifted far apart
But the dead are living in our heart
My old dad, my old dad.
Lake Wobegon Water Tower Hat
The Lake Wobegon water tower stands for everything tall, proud, and useful. When you wear it on this cap, you’re saying something. Embroidered cap is blue washed cotton twill. And even though in Garrison’s recent novel it may seem that Lake W. has become a boom town, we still want to show support for the “little town that time forgot and decades could not improve.”
Get the Hat >>>
Get Boom Town >>>
Home on the Prairie: Stories from Lake Wobegon
From Publisher’s Weekly:
Those who love Keillor’s long-running radio broadcast, A Prairie Home Companion, will cherish this collection of stories harvested from shows aired between 1999 and 2003. The hushed intensity of Keillor’s voice lulls listeners into a world where good people live good lives, and for a little while, we are allowed to live them too. Keillor gently coaxes his stories through fertile territory, meandering into a childhood memory and then veering back to a central theme. In one story, a bride at a Labor Day wedding rejects her Lutheran background only to be buoyed up later by these same values. In another, listeners drop in on a tomato-growing contest at the county fair. Never have tomatoes seemed so tempting as they do when Keillor describes the row of plump offerings awaiting verdicts. These stories are like the tomatoes: lovingly tended, juicy and bursting with life. Snippets of old-fashioned music dance between each tale, evoking the songs Mrs. Ingqvist, the preacher’s wife, might play in the parlor on a Sunday afternoon. With its welcoming atmosphere and the stories’ warmly familiar opening and closing lines, this cozy collection reminds listeners that life in Lake Wobegon still goes on, even in these troubled times.