A Prairie Home Companion: November 13, 2004

Special Guests
Saturday, November 13, 2004

Roy Blount, Jr.

He has, by his own admission, written nineteen books and has accepted payment for work as a humorist, a novelist, journalist, dramatist, lyricist, lecturer, reviewer, performer,versifier, cruciverbalist, sportswriter, screenwriter, anthologist, columnist, philologist, and biographer of sorts. (Random House does not have a listing for a "cruciverbalist.") He is a listed artist on Don't Quit Your Day Job Records and has performed with the Rock Bottom Remainders, a group of literary types, who, Dave Barry says, "play as good as Metallica writes novels." He was the host and main character in the two-hour documentary The Main Stream, filmed by Roger Weisberg and premiered on PBS in December of 2002; an inside view of America from the decks of boats, ridden the length of this Mississippi River here. He is also the author of quotation #746 in Michael Moncur's (Cynical) Quotations, which is: "The last time somebody said, 'I find I can write much better with a word processor...' I replied, 'They used to say that about drugs.'"

Prudence Johnson

She was a founding member of the jazz ensemble Rio Nido, with whom she recorded three albums, one of which, High Fly, is still available on cassette from Red House Records. She stepped out on her own with Vocals, a successful debut bringing on board some 30 musicians from various facets of the Twin Cities music scene, plus an appearance in there by Manhattan Transfer. She recorded three albums on her own and did two tours to the Soviet Union-- one with Women Who Cook, and the other with The Good Life, her own band. She appeared on stage in the Steven Dietz play, Ten November (Actor's Theater of Saint Paul), in The All Night Strut (Music Box Theater, Minneapolis), and in Gershwin's The Klezmer (San Diego Repertory Theatre). She also had a cameo role in Robert Redford's A River Runs Through It.

Doyle Lawson and Quicksilver

He was born in East Tennessee, in 1944; he grew up looking forward to Saturday night and the Grand Ole Opry, and especially to Bill Monroe and the Bluegrass Boys. He taught himself to play the mandolin on a borrowed instrument at age eleven, listening to the radio and singing with his family. He went to Nashville in 1963 to play banjo with Jimmy Martin. In 1966 he joined J.D. Crowe and in 1971 went to work with The Country Gentlemen in Lexington, Kentucky. He started his own band in 1979, using for a framework the four-part harmonies of the gospel quartets. They have released 32 albums in the last 25 years, the most recent titled A School of Bluegrass. From our show they travel to the Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago, and will be playing some 37 venues between now and next April.

Butch Thompson

He first became interested in jazz during his childhood in Marine-on-St. Croix, Minnesota, where he discovered the piano at age three. In high school he collected jazz LP records and in 1956 went with his father to see Louis Armstrong at Northrop; stood in a long line to meet him afterwards and got his autograph. He led his first band, Shirt Thompson and his Sleeves, and played his first professional engagements as a teenager. In 1962 he joined the Hall Brothers New Orleans Jazz Band on clarinet and began a series of pilgrimages to New Orleans. He studied with clarinetist George Lewis and became one of the few non-Orleanians to guest at Preservation Hall. His playing was described by the Wall Street Journal as "...the incomparable jazz piano of Butch Thompson." He writes articles and reviews on jazz and produces his own weekly show, Jazz Originals, on KBEM radio in Minneapolis. His writing has appeared in Down Beat, The Mississippi Rag, Keyboard Classics and New Orleans Music. He will be at the old Village Hall in Marine-on-St Croix for the annual Christmas program on December 5th; the information number is 651-433-2049.