A Prairie Home Companion from American Public Media

Special Guests
Saturday, March 4, 2006

The Del McCoury Band

When Del McCoury was growing up in York County, Pennsylvania, he learned music from his mother, Hazel, a church organist who also played guitar, piano and harmonica. And he never missed a chance to tune in to the Grand Ole Opry. But when his older brother bought a 78-rpm record of Flatt and Scruggs, that was it. Del started playing bluegrass and, a half-century later, has never looked back. In 1963, Bill Monroe asked McCoury to play in his band, The Blue Grass Boys. He played guitar and sang lead vocals with Monroe and traveled with him for a year before quitting the band and getting married. After a brief stint in California with the Golden State Boys, McCoury ended up back in Pennsylvania, working at a sawmill and playing music on weekends. As his boys got older, they began playing with their dad in his band, the Dixie Pals. Ronnie joined the band in 1981 and Rob followed in 1988. The Del McCoury Band formed in the early 1990s. The group has won numerous honors from the International Bluegrass Music Association's (IBMA), including being named Entertainer of the Year eight times (nine, if you include Del's solo win). This year, after six nominations since 1983, the Del McCoury Band won a Grammy Award for their 2005 album The Company We Keep (McCoury Music). A new, all-gospel album, The Promised Land, will be released later this year. The band: Del McCoury, guitar; Ronnie McCoury, mandolin; Rob McCoury, banjo; Jason Carter, fiddle; Alan Bartram, bass.

Chuck Suchy

Chuck Suchy is a folksinger, songwriter and storyteller. He's also a working farmer on the land along the Missouri River south of Mandan, North Dakota, where he was born and raised. Back in 1982, an acquaintance gave him a tape of Canadian troubadour Stan Rogers singing his classic "Field Behind the Plow." Suchy says, "It was at that moment that I realized that the life I was immersed in was worthy of song." That was the start of his songwriting career, and he continues write and perform his compositions celebrating the Great Plains region and lifestyle. As Acoustic Guitar Magazine wrote, "This is country music with its fingers in the soil and its heart heading down the highway on an Indian motorcycle." The most recent of Chuck's five CDs is titled Evening In Paris (Little Bluestem Records).

The Hopeful Gospel Quartet

As the Hopeful Gospel Quartet (Garrison Keillor, Robin and Linda Williams, and Carol Elizabeth Jones) explains it, the group "began its career backstage at Prairie Home shows, when we stood waiting for the balloon to go up and sang to pass the time and found out that we all like gospel songs and that they sound wonderful in a stairwell." Now, countless gigs (and a couple of personnel changes) later, they are still finding great four-part harmonies in stairwells and on stages across the country.

Singing the music they love—be it bluegrass, folk, old-time, or acoustic country—Robin and Linda Williams have carved out a three-decade career that has taken them from Carnegie Hall to the Hollywood Bowl. They've have written dozens of terrific songs, ones that have been covered by the likes of Emmylou Harris, Tom T. Hall, Tim & Mollie O'Brien, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Kathy Mattea, and The Seldom Scene. Robin and Linda's latest CDs are Deeper Waters and The First Christmas Gift, both on Red House Records.

Carol Elizabeth Jones hails from the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. She has made her mark as a singer of traditional mountain music and as a writer of new songs in the old tradition. She has recorded several acclaimed albums of original material. Ridin' Along (Yodel-Ay-Hee Records), released this year, is a collection of classic country and bluegrass duets with Laurel Bliss.