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Choir Story COME LIVE WITH ME AND BE MY LOVE 1st verse But in their heads the choir was hearing a different drummer, what they
heard in their heads was SUGAR SUGAR And when the spring concert was over and it was time to go to the church
basement for the reception and the coffee and the strawberry punch, the
choir skipped it, and they snuck away and went to a bar in south Minneapolis
and got sixteen pitchers of margaritas and stood around the piano and
they sang as they had never sung before: THE AGE OF AQUARIUS And a record producer heard them, a guy in a gold vest who wore dark
glasses at night, and immediately wrote out a check for a half a million
dollars and they said, "Double that and you've got a deal,"
so he tore up the check and wrote one for a million, and in six weeks
they were on the record charts. No. 1 with a bullet. And they weren't
called the Vocalessence Ensemble Singers anymore. No. They were called
The Angels of Hell. MANDY Pop music hadn't had a hit choir in years. Pop music had forgotten about
choirs. And when something goes out of fashion, then when it comes back,
it comes back really big, that's the whole thing about being cool, if
you try to be cool you'll only ever be semi-cool, to be really cool you
have to know how to be totally uncool and not care about cool, and what
could be more uncool than to sing in a choir, and now here they were,
a rock 'n' roll choir, riding in limos, trashing hotel rooms, going onstage
in a cloud of smoke in a huge arena, lights flashing, fans rushing the
stage, people going nuts, screaming, when they did their huge hit---- BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY The Angels of Hell. A rock 'n' roll choir flying around on their own
757, earning millions, spending multi-millions, buying homes in Jamaica
and Santa Fe and Aspen, all of them divorcing and re-marrying, in and
out of treatment, in the papers every day for some kind of misbehavior,
and on the road in Paris, Hong Kong, Berlin, playing soccer stadiums in
Rio, Tokyo, Cairo, Moscow---- But it was soon over. All of their albums went platinum and then one
album went copper, it just didn't click at all, and the next album went
zinc, and then the bills came due, and they discovered that they weren't
rich, they were bankrupt, and the next thing, they were on a bus, doing
a tour of casinos in Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Michigan….. They were singing in casinos in the Dakotas and dreaming of making a
comeback as they sang to smaller and smaller audiences of old ladies with
plastic buckets of quarters, and it's an old story, the same thing happened
to the Beach Boys, the Rolling Stones, Crosby Stills Nash & Young,
one day they sang at the nursing home and there were all their old fans,
smiling up at them from wheelchairs. SUNSHINE ON MY SHOULDERS The Angels of Hell no longer got the casino gigs, now they were singing
at bingo parlors, but nonetheless, coming home late to the Motel Six and
ordering a pizza, late at night, looking up at the ceiling, they could
remember when they were big, when they owned the world, when they were
young and beautiful…… MEMORY And one year they looked at each other and said, "Maybe it's time,"
and they threw away their old costumes and put on robes and went back
to the church and there he was, their old conductor, and it was like nothing
had changed. This is the beauty of classical music; it's so old, it makes
you feel young. COME LIVE WITH ME AND BE MY LOVE 2nd verse © Garrison Keillor 2003 |
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An Interview with Heather Masse
In a 2009 interview, Heather Masse tells us about her earliest influences, auditioning in a women's bathroom, and a few memorable moments from A Prairie Home Companion.
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).
