Orphan Girl and more from 1997

featuring Gillian Welch, Kate MacKenzie, and Butch Thompson

Ridgefield, CT, Northampton, MA, Nashua, NH, and Rutland, VT, are up next for Garrison’s one-man solo show. This swing begins April 16th. A smaller trek in May and June and then it’s a return to Bethesda, MD, and Lennox, MA, with full-on A Prairie Home Companion shows! We hope to see you on the road.

VIEW full performance schedule here

Listen to the Classic Show!

The classic show travels back to April 19, 1997, for a show originally performed Live from the Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul, Minnesota, with Gillian Welch, Kate MacKenzie, and Butch Thompson.

Highlights include a plethora of scripts and sketches plus the Guy’s All-Star Shoe Band tackling “Singing the Blues.” Gillian Welch shares “Orphan Girl” and “Caleb Meyer.” Butch Thompson plays the “Arkansas Blues.” And Garrison duets on a series of songs by the Driftwoods with Kate MacKenzie and also puts a spin on the audience favorite “Under the Stars.” Plus the sketches and the latest News. Listen to the show.

Gillian Welch grew up in Los Angeles, where her musical parents wrote for The Carol Burnett Show. In the early 1990s, she met Dave Rawlings at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, while the two were students waiting to audition for the country-band class. Over the past three decades, they have built highly successful careers as singers and songwriters, individually and as a duo.

Kate MacKenzie was a favorite Prairie Home Companion guest starting in 1981. For many years, she was lead singer of Stoney Lonesome, with whom she recorded six bluegrass albums, toured Japan and North America, and was featured in the public television series Showcase. With the Hopeful Gospel Quartet, Kate recorded a live album from Carnegie Hall, performed at folk festivals in Scotland and Denmark, and appeared on PBS’ Austin City Limits. Her work with A Prairie Home Companion included coast-to-coast tours, farewell and reunion shows, 20 Disney Channel television broadcasts, the 1993 Book of Guys tour, and a recurring dramatic role as Sheila, the Christian Jungle girl (wild, yet pure). Read our guest interview or grab her newest album.

For 12 years, Butch Thompson was A Prairie Home Companion’s house pianist, dating back to the show’s second broadcast, in July 1974. 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. Also an ace clarinetist, he developed a worldwide reputation as a master of ragtime, stride, and classic jazz. Butch passed away in 2022.

We’ve added a new item to the store!

Proclaim your affection for Lake Wobegon in this classic design. The official town crest features the ever-popular Powdermilk Biscuits, the Lake Wobegon water tower, a bachelor farmer, Jack’s Auto Repair, and the town’s motto, Sumus Quid Sumus (We are what we are). Navy shirt is 100% cotton. Sizes S-XXL Get the shirt.