A Prairie Home Companion from American Public Media

Special Guests
Saturday, February 11, 2006

Tim Sparks

When Tim Sparks was growing up in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, a bout of encephalitis kept him out of school for a year. To pass the time, he started picking out gospel and country tunes on an old Stella flat top. Later, Tim studied classical guitar at the North Carolina School of the Arts, while he worked up guitar adaptations of Jelly Roll Morton, Scott Joplin and Fats Waller compositions. After moving to Minnesota, Tim recorded three albums with the vocal jazz ensemble Rio Nido. And he keeps branching out: He adapted Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite to the guitar—a feat that ultimately earned him the 1993 fingerstyle guitar championship in Winfield, Kansas. He developed an interest in the music of the Balkans; he played Greek music and Klezmer; he studied fado and Portuguese guitar in Lisbon. Tim's most recent CD release is At the Rebbe's Table (Tzadik), a collection of Klezmer and Sephardic tunes—Tim's third album of Jewish music. Currently he's working on a CD of American roots music—which brings us back to where we began.

Doyle Lawson and Quicksilver

Doyle Lawson was born in East Tennessee—where he still makes his home—and grew up in a family that sang gospel music. He remembers looking forward to Saturdays when the Grand Ole Opry was on the air and he could hear the likes of Bill Monroe and the Bluegrass Boys. At age 11, Doyle taught himself to play the mandolin, and when he was still in his teens, he got a job playing banjo with Jimmy Martin. In 1966 he joined J.D. Crowe and five years later went to work with The Country Gentlemen. He started his own band in 1979, calling it Doyle Lawson & Foxfire, before settling on Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver. They've released some three dozen albums in the last 27 years, the most recent titled He Lives In Me (Horizon). In 2004, they celebrated the band's 25th anniversary with a concert, now available on DVD. The group has earned multiple Grammy nominations and innumerable International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA) awards, including five consecutive Vocal Group of the Year awards. The band: Jamie Dailey on guitar, Terry Baucom on banjo, fiddler Mike Hartgrove, and Darren Beachley on bass.

University of Minnesota Morris Concert Choir

The University of Minnesota Morris Concert Choir was founded by its current director, Ken Hodgson, in 1978, and since that time the group has established a national—and international—reputation. Under Hodgson's direction, the choir has collaborated with the Minnesota Orchestra and conductor Eiji Oue, and has made numerous tours. They have traveled the East and West Coasts and throughout the Midwest. They've also done concert tours to Canada, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Germany and the United Kingdom. Next month they are off to the West Coast again, and in May, they return to Europe to give concerts in Norway, Sweden, Finland and possibly Estonia. Over the decades, this organization has come to exemplify professionalism, enthusiasm and an excellence in choral artistry that is a credit to Minnesota's choral music tradition.

Prudence Johnson

Prudence Johnson's career in music has taken her from stage (honky-tonks to Carnegie Hall) to silver screen (Robert Redford's A River Runs Through It). As one music critic put it, "[There's] not a genre she hasn't interpreted with her ducky, sensual alto voice and terminally good taste." Her 10 album releases include Moon Country, featuring the music of Hoagy Carmichael, and 'S Gershwin with pianist Dan Chouinard. Collaborating with four Minnesota composers, she created A Girl Named Vincent, the poetry of Edna St. Vincent Millay set to music and scheduled for CD release. Prudence also appears on (and produced) a new recording of Gales of November, the concert version of the play Ten November, chronicling the sinking of the S.S. Edmund Fitzgerald. The CD is on the Sleeper label.

Andy Stein

Violinist and saxophonist Andy Stein collaborated with Garrison Keillor to create the opera Mr. and Mrs. Olson. He has appeared on Saturday Night Live and Late Night with David Letterman, and has performed with artists such as Itzhak Perlman, Eric Clapton, Smashing Pumpkins, Billy Joel, Tony Bennett, Ray Charles and Bob Dylan.