A Prairie Home Companion from American Public Media

Special Guests
Saturday, March 24, 2007

The New Cardboard Avenue Jaywalkers

The New Cardboard Avenue Jaywalkers are the musicians of Ry Cooder's latest recording project, My Name is Buddy: Another Record by Ry Cooder (Nonesuch). This song cycle about Buddy Red Cat and his pals was inspired by a real cat who was found in an alley sleeping in a suitcase and became the mascot of a small Vancouver record store, Red Cat Records. The album brings together the considerable talents of traditional music master and folklorist Mike Seeger, Chieftains founder and leader Paddy Moloney, bluegrass mandolin maestro Roland White, percussionist Joachim Cooder (Ry's son), and others. Buddy — follow-up to the Grammy-nominated CD Chávez Ravine — is the most recent in Cooder's long string of groundbreaking musical projects and collaborations. He is a top-flight guitarist (eighth in Rolling Stone's list of the 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time), composer and producer whose musical interests have taken him from playing with Captain Beefheart, Randy Newman and Taj Mahal to work with Ali Farka Touré, Flaco Jiménez and Vishwa Mohan Bhatt. His 1997 Grammy-winning album, Buena Vista Social Club, brought to light many of Havana's premier musicians, previously unknown outside Cuba. Cooder has composed soundtracks for more than 20 films, including Wim Wenders' acclaimed Paris Texas.

Deborah Garrison

Born in Ann Arbor and educated at Brown University and New York University, poet Deborah Garrison spent 15 years on the editorial staff of The New Yorker. She is now the poetry editor at Alfred A. Knopf and a senior editor at Pantheon Books. Her first book, A Working Girl Can't Win, was published nine years ago and chronicled the progress and predicaments of a young woman. A second book of poetry, The Second Child: Poems (Random House), came out just last month. It is an exploration of all the facets of motherhood — the joys, the sorrows, the frustrations. Garrison lives with her husband and three children in Montclair, New Jersey.

Andy Stein

Andy Stein (violin, saxophone) definitely has far-flung musical leanings, He collaborated with Garrison Keillor to create the opera Mr. and Mrs. Olson, and he has performed with artists such as Itzhak Perlman, Eric Clapton, Smashing Pumpkins, Billy Joel, Tony Bennett, Ray Charles and Bob Dylan.