F. Scott Fitzgerald
with Butch Thompson & The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra
Garrison Keillor Tonight travels overseas for a few shows featuring poetry, limericks, sing-alongs, and the News from Lake Wobegon. We hope you can join us as we revisit a few foreign cities that previously hosted both A Prairie Home Companion and Garrison solo.
October 18 in Edinburgh, Scotland
Listen to the September 28, 1996, show
Tonight we travel back to 1996 for a show from the 1996-97 season opener, from the Roy Wilkins Auditorium in Saint Paul (connected to the Saint Paul Civic Center). F. Scott Fitzgerald was born in Saint Paul, Minnesota, 100 years (almost to the day) before this 1996 broadcast, so we're dedicating this week’s A Prairie Home Companion to him. The broadcast included Fitzgerald’s granddaughter (Eleanor Lanahan), his secretary while he was in Hollywood (Frances Kroll Ring), authors Joseph Heller, Jane Smiley, Tobias Wolff, Bobbie Ann Mason, Patricia Hampl, and Michael Dorris, 1920s music by Butch Thompson and his band ... and The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, playing the overture to John Harbison’s opera based on The Great Gatsby. Listen to the show.
About our Guest Performers:
The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra formed in 1959, performing its first program under the baton of Leopold Sipe. During Sipe's tenure as music director, the SPCO would become the only full-time professional chamber orchestra in the United States. Now regarded as one of the finest chamber orchestras in the world, the SPCO tours nationally and internationally, and presents more than 80 concerts per year.
Born and raised in Marine-on-St. Croix, a small Minnesota river town, Butch Thompson was playing Christmas carols on his mother’s upright piano by age three, and began formal lessons at six. He picked up the clarinet in high school and led his first jazz group, “Shirt Thompson and His Sleeves,” as a senior. After high school, he joined the Hall Brothers New Orleans Jazz Band of Minneapolis, and at 18 made his first visit to New Orleans, where he became one of the few non-New Orleanians to perform at Preservation Hall during the 1960s and ’70s.
In 1974, public radio’s A Prairie Home Companion as the show’s pianist. By 1980, the show was nationally syndicated, and the Butch Thompson Trio was the house band, a position the group held for the next six years.
From the early days on APHC, Butch remembers, “It was pretty casual back then. Margaret or somebody would call me and ask if I was busy on Saturday. More than once I remember saying I couldn’t get there by showtime, and being told to show up as soon as I could. Sometimes I’d go onstage without remembering what key something was in. If Garrison was going to sing, I usually couldn’t go wrong with E major.”
By the late ’90s, Butch was known worldwide as a leading authority on early jazz. He served as a development consultant on the 1992 Broadway hit Jelly’s Last Jam, which starred Gregory Hines. He also joined the touring company of the off-Broadway hit Jelly Roll! The Music and the Man, playing several runs with that show in New York and other cities through 1997.
The Village Voice described Butch’s music as “beguiling piano Americana from an interpreter who knows that Bix was more than an impressionist and Fats was more than a buffoon.”
Butch passed away in 2022.
A Scary Home Companion: HORRORS!
Welcome trick-or-treaters to your home this year with a trick of your own — a bit of A Prairie Home Companion. Garrison Keillor and cast present a wonderful collection of treats every October and this collection gathers together some of the best Halloween-themed comedy sketches, stories, and songs, including an unforgettable version of “The Raven.” It’s a spooky companion for any Halloween gathering! Over 2 hours on 2 CDs. Includes “In the Dark.” Get the CDs or download.
Young Lutheran’s Guide to the Orchestra
A special performance combines a popular Garrison Keillor piece with a renowned orchestra.
Garrison Keillor and The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra perform one of Keillor’s most-requested pieces, “A Young Lutheran’s Guide to the Orchestra,” along with other musical and humorous selections. Originally conceived as a local fundraiser, this collection will delight any Prairie Home fan. Get the CD.