Special Guests

Special Guests
Saturday, May 10, 1997

Born Ruth Weston in Portsmouth, Virginia, soul singer Ruth Brown started singing at the local church, where her father was choir director. In 1945, she ran away from home to go on the road with singer-trumpeter Jimmy Brown, whom she soon married. After a one-month stint singing with big-band leader Lucky Millinder, Brown found a job singing at the Crystal Caverns, a Washington, D.C. club operated by Blanche Calloway, sister of Cab Calloway. Brown's appearances at the Crystal Caverns eventually landed her an audition with a new label called Atlantic Records. In 1949, she recorded the soon-to-be-hit "So Long," which was followed by chart-toppers such as "[Mama,] He Treats Your Daughter Mean," "Oh, What a Dream," and "Mambo Baby." By the mid-'50s Ruth Brown had become one of the biggest-selling black female recording artists and her star continued to rise with songs like "Lucky Lips," before walking away from the spotlight in the '60s to become a fulltime mom. In 1976, Brown's old friend, Redd Foxx got her to move to L.A. to play Mahalia Jackson in Selma, a civil-rights musical that Foxx was producing. She got back into the world of song and screen, and was cast in the sitcom Hello Larry by renowned television producer Norman Lear and in the cult film Hairspray by director John Waters. Brown has been inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, and awarded with a Tony for her performance in the musical Black and Blue, and a Grammy for her album Blues on Broadway. In 1990, her hometown of Portsmouth re-named Second Street in her honor: it's now known as Ruth Brown Avenue. Brown's much-publicized legal battle with Atlantic Records over back royalties led to an amicable settlement that established the Rhythm and Blues Foundation. Brown, with writer Andrew Yule, penned Miss Rhythm: The Autobiography of Ruth Brown, Rhythm and Blues Legend (Penguin Books, 1996). Her newest CD is Ruth Brown live at Ronnie Scott's in London (Jazz House/Magnum Records), recorded at the prestigious Euopean jazz nightclub. Joining Brown tonight are Bobby Forrester (keyboards), Rodney Jones (guitar), and Akira Tana (drums).

Rob Fisher is known to longtime listeners of A Prairie Home Companion for his 1989-1993 tenure as music director and as conductor of the Coffee Club Orchestra, which he formed for the program. The American Radio Company "sponsor," Fisher's Coffee, was named for Rob Fisher. Fisher grew up in Norfolk, Virginia, where he started playing the piano at age six. He went on to earn a botany degree at Duke University before giving himself to music. Fisher went from pianist to assistant conductor at the Goodspeed Opera House in Connecticut. He has since conducted many musicals on Broadway and on tour, including Me and My Girl with Tim Curry, A Threepenny Opera with Sting, and the recent smash hit, Chicago. As a pianist, he has played solo performances with orchestras around the country, and has played the music of George Gershwin at Carnegie Hall and at concert halls across the U.S. and around the world. Fisher has conducted City Center's Encores! series from its inception in 1994. The New York Times praised his role in the series: "In one "Encores!" show after another, [Fisher] and his hand-picked Coffee Club Orchestra have found the pulse of the music and delivered exquisitely textured performances that recapture the glorious sound of oldtime Broadway pit orchestras."

Mike Seeger's music is true to its British Isles and African-American origins. Seeger sings and plays in an extraordinary range of traditional styles, accompanying himself on a multitude of instruments such as banjo, guitar, fiddle, mandolin, jaw harp, harmonica, quills, dulcimer, and autoharp. He has collected traditional music since his childhood, and in 1958, he was one of the founding members of the prolific group The New Lost City Ramblers, who produced a series of recordings that have become a reference encyclopedia for traditional music. A driving force for traditional music in general: Seeger has produced the first recordings of musical pioneers performers such as Elizabeth Cotton, and he has produced concerts for hundreds of other great traditional musicians. Since 1960, Seeger has toured as a solo act across North America and abroad. His wide repertoire and recordings have won him numerous accolades and awards, including the several Grammy nominations and the 1995 Ralph J. Gleason Lifetime Achievement Award from the Grateful Dead's Rex Foundation. Seeger's list of nearly 75 recordings encompasses solo and New Lost City Rambler recordings and more than two dozen documentary recordings on a variety of labels: Rounder, Folkways, Flying Fish, County, Mercury, Arhoolie, and Vanguard. He is signed to Rounder Records, where his latest recordings include the Grammy-nominated 3rd Annual Farewell Reunion (1994), 23 tracks Seeger recorded with 23 different soloists and groups, and Way Down in North Carolina (1996), done with Seeger's longtime friend Paul Brown: most of the songs/tunes on this CD were learned directly from older musicians on Brown's and Seeger's travels in the South.