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Special Guests Chicago native Ann Hampton Callaway was born into a talented family. Her father is John Callaway, a former CBS News correspondent and current host of the PBS show Chicago Tonight; and her mother, Shirley Callaway, is a prominent Broadway vocal coach. The apples don't fall far from the tree: both Hampton Callaway and her younger sister, Broadway-musical star Liz Callaway, have become successes in their own right. A few years ago, the two sisters collaborated on Sibling Revelry (DRG Records), a CD recorded live at New York's famed club, Rainbow & Stars. In her solo career, Ann Hampton Callaway has earned rave reviews from critics such as Rex Reed, who said that she "is the definitive singer of her generation to inherit the mantle the legendary Ella Fitzgerald left behind." In 1996, Callaway recorded a tribute CD to Fitzgerald called To Ella With Love (After 9 Records). And she has combined efforts with Cole Porter himself. After Porter's lyric, "I Gaze In Your Eyes," was posthumously discovered a few years ago, she set his words to music. The Cole Porter estate liked the result and licensed it as a Porter song, thus making Callaway the only composer officially recognized as a Cole Porter collaborator. TV audiences know her songwriting from the theme song for the CBS sitcom The Nanny, which Callaway performed and composed. Callaway has won 10 MAC Awards from the Manhattan Association of Cabarets & Clubs, including one for her latest CD, After Ours (Denon Records). A new CD is scheduled for release in January; she'll debut selections from it in November during a two-week engagement at Rainbow & Stars. Tonight's performance marks Callaway's first appearance on A Prairie Home Companion. She'll once again appear on the program on December 12, live from the Town Hall in New York City.
The Tannahill Weavers began in Paisley, Scotland, in the mid-'70s. The group was named for the town's historic weaving industry and for local poet laureate Robert Tannahill. The Tannahill Weavers' self-titled third album won the Scotstar Award for Folk Record of the Year and their 1994 release, Capernaum, won the Indie Award for Celtic Album of the Year. The band has recorded more than a dozen albums, the latest of which is Epona (Green Linnet). The band has been on a three-week U.S. tour-tomorrow night, they perform across the river at the Cedar Cultural Centre in Minneapolis. The Tannahill Weavers' founding members Roy Gullane (lead vocals, guitar, banjo, mandolin) and Phil Smillie (flute, whistles, bodhran) are joined by John Martin (fiddle), Duncan Nicholson (pipes, whistles), and Les Wilson (bouzouki, keyboards, guitar, harmonica).
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 Europe, Japan and North America, and was featured in the public television series Showcase and the Nashville Network's Fire on the Mountain. With the Hopeful Gospel Quartet, MacKenzie has recorded a live album from Carnegie Hall, performed at folk festivals in Scotland and Denmark, and was featured 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 co-host roles in several Prairie Home broadcasts, 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). MacKenzie's first solo album, Let Them Talk (Red House Records), received enthusiastic reviews and 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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Singer and songwriter Andra Suchy talks about singing duets with Garrison, and her latest album, Little Heart.
Old Sweet Songs: A Prairie Home Companion 1974-1976
Lovingly selected from the earliest archives of A Prairie Home Companion, this heirloom collection represents the music from earliest years of the now legendary show: 1974–1976. With songs and tunes from jazz pianist Butch Thompson, mandolin maestro Peter Ostroushko, Dakota Dave Hull and the first house band, The Powdermilk Biscuit Band (Adam Granger, Bob Douglas and Mary DuShane).
