Welcome to our first APHC newsletter on Substack
This week we feature a show from 2015 with Aoife O'Donovan, Emily Miller and The Steel City Jug Slammers
GARRISON KEILLOR TONIGHT!
Be prepared to laugh and sing along as you celebrate all that unites us.
March 28 The Pace Center, Parker, CO
March 30 Vilar Performing Arts Center, Beaver Creek, CO
March 31 Avalon Theater, Grand Junction, CO
FEATURE SHOW THIS WEEK - TO LISTEN CLICK HERE
Our Fitzgerald 2015 broadcast features sizzling vocalist and songwriter Aoife O’Donovan, singer and fiddler Emily Miller, and old-time juke-joint band the Steel City Jug Slammers. Of course, along for the ride: the Royal Academy of Radio Actors (Tim Russell, Sue Scott, and Fred Newman); our pianist and music director Rich Dworsky with The Exchange Street Quartet (drummer Bernie Dresel, bassist Larry Kohut, Richard Kriehn on mandolin and fiddle, and Chris Siebold on guitar); and the News from Lake Wobegon.
Highlights include Richard Dworsky’s homage to winter called “Frostbite Blues,” Aoife’s take on “Let’s Have a Party,” Mel’s Big Boy Buffet, a few words of advice from Mom, a check in with Bob, and some talk about winter. Join us on Facebook at 5:00 p.m. CT this Saturday. Or if you can’t wait, click the link now.
Aoife O’Donovan
Appearing on A Prairie Home Companion over a dozen times, Grammy Award winner Aoife O’Donovan remains one of Garrison’s favorite duet partners. She is cofounder of the bands I’m With Her (with Sara Watkins and Sarah Jarosz) and Crooked Still, and a featured vocalist on the recording The Goat Rodeo Sessions (Yo-Yo Ma, Stuart Duncan, Edgar Meyer, and Chris Thile). Aoife’s latest album, The Age of Apathy, was nominated for a 2023 Grammy.
Emily Miller
From the start, singer and fiddler Emily Miller seemed destined to a career in music. Raised by journalist parents in a home that was always ringing with the sounds of early country and old-time, Emily began performing in the Miller Family Band. These days, you can hear Emily in her country band, the Sweetback Sisters, as well as in a duo with her husband, Jesse Milnes.
Steel City Jug Slammers
The Steel City Jug Slammers are an American jug band from Birmingham, Alabama. They have been featured on the TV show Pit Bulls and Parolees and Louisville, Kentucky’s National Jug Band Jubilee. And in 2015, they won the Minneapolis Battle of the Jug Bands. Hot Butter is the band’s most recent album, released in fall of 2019.
LYRICS FROM THIS WEEKS SHOW TO THE TUNE OF “IN THE PINES”
The longest winter ever there was
Hit Boston in Ought Fifteen.
Three blizzards came in just two weeks
Till the city could not be seen.
And it snows, and it snows
And the snowbank grows
And we shiver when the cold wind blows.
The longest winter ever there was
Has buried the folks of Beantown.
Fenway Park is deep in snow
And will home plate ever be found?
Cambridge, Harvard and M.I.T.
And Concord, the home of Thoreau,
Faneuil Hall and the Old North Church
Buried deep in the snow.
The schools were closed and the train shut down
And snow piled up twenty feet.
And it took two hours to get to work
Driving down Boylston Street.
Little girl, little girl, you must stay home
While your mama and daddy must go.
We must earn money to pay for the heat
And our checking account is low.
And it snows, and it snows
And the snowbank grows
And we shiver when the cold wind blows.
THAT TIME OF YEAR: A MINNESOTA LIFE (softcover) - CLICK HERE
The softcover version of 'That Time of Year: A Minnesota Life' is NOW AVAILABLE
From the author:
I sat down and looked at my memoir THAT TIME OF YEAR when it came out and was put off by the sadness, the opening chapter about how much I missed doing “A Prairie Home Companion,” so I sat down to fix it. That’s why a writer shouldn’t read his own work. But I did and so I sat down to cheer it up a little and wrote a new first paragraph.
DEFINITELY ABOVE AVERAGE (2 CDS) - CLICK HERE
After the birth of Garrison Keillor's daughter, the stories, songs, and sketches on A Prairie Home Companion took on a distinctly parental bent.
Filled with stories, sketches, and songs recorded from live broadcasts, Definitely Above Average will delight parents and children everywhere.
A shop for Garrison Keillor fans
A collection of merchandise curated by Garrison Keillor & staff relating to Garrison Keillor, A Prairie Home Companion and The Writer's Almanac.
Long time fan. Enjoy the newsletters. Any possibility of changing the font to something more readable. Something sans serif, maybe? Thank you for your consideration.