Sweet Baby James from 2007

featuring James Taylor, Inga Swearingen, Andy Stein, and Erica Rhodes

A Prairie Home Christmas

We’ve had such a great time catching up with friends at the 50th Anniversary shows this past year that we have decided to get everyone together for a very short A Prairie Home Christmas tour. We hope you can join us for some festive songs, stories, sketches, characters such as Guy Noir, Dusty and Lefty or Mom and Duane plus words from our sponsors, the News from Lake Wobegon and a five-song holiday sing-along. Should be a great program with Garrison and the entire troupe.

December 13 & 14 at the Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul, MN

December 18 at The Town Hall Theater in New York, NY

December 21 at the Grand 1894 Opera House in Galveston, TX

Ticket info for ALL Prairie Home Christmas Shows

Listen to the June 30, 2007, show

This week on A Prairie Home Companion, we'll revisit a past season finale broadcast that was performed live at Tanglewood, in Lenox, Massachusetts. With special guests, the unpretentious superstar James Taylor, conductor and violinist Jaime Laredo with cellist Sharon Robinson, and jazz singer Inga Swearingen. Also with us, the Royal Academy of Radio Acting (Tim Russell, Sue Scott, Fred Newman, and Erica Rhodes), The Guy's All-Star Shoe Band with maestro Richard Dworsky, and The News From Lake Wobegon. Listen to the show.

About our guests:

Inga Swearingen always loved singing, whether it was with her elementary school choir in San Luis Obispo, California, or performing her own songs in high school, or during her years of voice lessons. But it may have been joining a jazz choir while pursuing her education at Cuesta College that sealed her decision to be a jazz singer. In 2003, after studying with Swiss artist Susanne Abbuehl, she won the Shure Jazz Voice competition at the world-renowned Montreux Jazz Festival. She earned a master’s degree in choral conducting from Florida State University, then returned to California, where she now performs, works on recording projects, and teaches at Cuesta College — her old alma mater.

Safe to say, jillions of people still have a copy of Sweet Baby James on vinyl. How could you part with an album like that? For more than five decades, James Taylor has made dozens of wonderful recordings — each new offering snapped up by legions of fans. A 2016 Kennedy Center honoree, he has a half dozen Grammys to his credit, Billboard magazine's Century Award, and induction into both the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame and the Songwriter's Hall of Fame. He made Rolling Stone's list of "100 Greatest Artists of All Time," and in 2006, the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences selected him as its MusiCares Person of the Year, recognizing his contributions to the preservation of the arts, as well as his commitment to environmental and humanitarian causes.

A Sonnet for Summer

Garrison and Inga have crooned a sonnet that Garrison wrote on a couple shows. Here it is in printed form. The sonnet appears in the liner notes on the A Year in Lake Wobegon story collection. 

Summer Sonnet

O summer, here you are sh-bop sh-bop yeah yeah whoa whoa
And we are driving around town tonight hey hey hey
The windows wide open and the Beach Boys on the radio
And we’ll have fun fun fun till Daddy takes the T-bird away
Which Daddy will do and then we must Make Something of our lives
And climb the steep slope like good little Sherpas
And become daddies ourselves and our good wives
Will frown if we drive anywhere without a clear purpose
But tonight I am cruising for no reason around St. Paul
And I remember those innocent girls I used to hang
Around with when we had no place to go at all
Except around and around, the radio playing shang shang a lang
Driving University Avenue, 19 and wild and free
O baby baby, shoop shoop it’s so beautiful you here with me

Get “A Year in Lake Wobegon” >>>

More from Inga Swearingen in a long-ago interview

How has appearing on A Prairie Home Companion affected you or your audience? Have you noticed a new breed of fans showing up at your concerts?

The opportunity to perform on A Prairie Home Companion has not only provided me with lifetime musical memories, it has also expanded my audience to places that I have not yet been able to tour. I’m an independent artist who books my own shows and plans my own tours, so to receive an email from a PHC listener inviting me to their town is an incredible offer. I’m touched that people take the time to email, and I try to write everyone back.

You have appeared on A Prairie Home Companion as a featured guest many times over the past years. We have been taking a quick look back in honor of the 35th Anniversary of the program. Do you have any favorite memories from your guest performances or of the show? Are there any favorite guest performances that you recall hearing that stand out?

I remember singing a song by Rich Dworsky at Tanglewood a few years ago and the poem mentioned birds, just then birds began to chirp in the rafters and we all heard it. Even the radio listeners heard them! It was magical. And yes, every time Jearlyn Steele is on the show, I am moved by her passion and joyous spirit. She sings from her heart.

Read our full interview with Inga and learn about how her album First Rain came about. Read our guest interview>>>