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Special Guests
Saturday, April 25, 1998
La Bottine Souriante, a nine-person group from Quebec, has been playing traditional music of the Quèbècois area since 1976. Four of the musicians play in the horn section: Jean Frchette (saxophone), Jocelyn Lapointe (trumpet), AndrŽ Verreault (trombone), and Robert Ellis (bass trombone). The other five sing and play a variety of instruments: Yves Lambert (diatonic accordion, harmonica), Règent Archambault (acoustic/electric bass), Michel Bordeleau (foot tapping, mandolin, violin), Denis Frèchette (piano, piano accordion), and Andrè Brunet (violin, guitar). The original group that formed in 1976 was a quintet. The horn section was added in 1990. La Bottine Souriante's latest CD is the live recording En Spectacle (Mille-Pattes). This album once again earned La Bottine Souriante a Fèlix award and a nomination for a Juno Award. The Fèlix and Juno awards are Quebec's and Canada's respective equivalents to the U.S. Grammy Awards.
Kate MacKenzie has been a favorite guest of A Prairie Home Companion since 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, MacKenzie has recorded a live album from Carnegie Hall, performed at folk festivals in Scotland and Denmark, and performed on PBS' Austin City Limits. The Hopeful Gospel Quartet's newest recording is Climbing Up on the Rough Side, on the HighBridge label. MacKenzie's work with A Prairie Home Companion has 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). Her first solo album, Let Them Talk (Red House Records), was on the National Bluegrass Charts for 10 months. A second solo album, Age of Innocence (Red House), was released last fall and earned MacKenzie a Grammy nomination for Best Bluegrass Album. MacKenzie's success was noted in The New York Times, which grouped her in "the new wave of strong female voices."
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A national holiday in Lake Wobegon is always gaudy and joyful. But what is going on between Clint Bunsen and Miss Liberty?
Everyone is here—Pastor Ingqvist, the Sons of Knute, Sister Arvonne of Our Lady of Perpetual Responsibility and her ocarina band, the Norwegian bachelor farmers, Dorothy and the Chatterbox Café, Wally in the Sidetrack Tap—as crowds converge on the little town to celebrate American independence, even as the chairman of the event broods on the great question of the day: Shall we struggle on valiantly here or shall we burst the bonds and find beautiful life in the golden west?
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Scripts and bits from A Prairie Home Companion celebrate the secret society of men and women who possess excellent spelling and punctuation skills. (You know who you are.)
Selections include "The Six-Minute Hamlet," a tribute to Emily Dickinson, a Guy Noir adventure that exposes an MFA scam, a riveting "Professional Organization of English Majors" drama, and guests Billy Collins, Robert Bly, Roy Blount Jr., and Calvin Trillin.
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