A Prairie Home Companion with Garrison Keillor

"I've got a bunch of people who say I'm a genius," Cowboy Jack Clement once said. "That don't make me a genius. But you've got to be pretty smart to get all them people to say that on cue." Clement is a producer, songwriter, recording studio pioneer, publisher and performer. He was born in Whitehaven, Tennessee, in 1931. After a stint in the Marines, he played in a bluegrass band, then got a job at Sun Records, mixing sessions with the likes of Johnny Cash, Charlie Rich, Jerry Lee Lewis, Roy Orbison and Carl Perkins. Later, he moved to Nashville and went to work for Chet Atkins. He launched the careers of Charley Pride and Don Williams, and over the years he has collaborated with a who's who of musicians - from George Jones to U2, Townes Van Zandt to Doc Watson, Garth Brooks to Emmylou Harris. Clement has recorded two of his own albums: All I Want to Do in Life came out in 1978, and Guess Things Happen That Way (Dualtone) was released in 2004.

Born in Oklahoma, poet Louis Jenkins has made his home in Duluth, Minnesota, for decades. His poems have been published in numerous literary magazines and anthologies, including The Best American Poetry 1999 and Great American Prose Poems, both published by Scribner. His books include An Almost Human Gesture (1987), All Tangled Up With the Living (1991), Just Above Water (1997), The Winter Road (2000) and Sea Smoke (2004). The Minnesota Humanities Commission awarded him the 1995 Minnesota Book Award for Nice Fish: New & Selected Prose Poems (Holy Cow! Press) and the 2005 award for his Fine Press edition, Distance from the Sun: Thirty Prose Poems from Thirty Years (Minnesota Center for Book Arts). Jenkins' latest collection of prose poems is North of the Cities- the inaugural edition of Will o' the Wisp Books, his new small press.

Mandolinist Peter Ostroushko grew up listening to mandolin, balalaika, and bandura tunes played at family get-togethers in the Ukrainian community of northeast Minneapolis. It's the music that provides the basis for many of his compositions. His first recording session was an uncredited mandolin set on Bob Dylan's Blood on the Tracks. Since then, his works have been performed by the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra and the Kremlin Chamber Orchestra, among others. Ken Burns used Ostroushko's music for his PBS documentary Lewis & Clark, and Twin Cities Public Television commissioned Peter to provide music for The Dakota Conflict. Among Peter's recent CDs are Postcards: Travels with a Great American Radio Show (Red House Records) and The Mando Boys Live - Holstein Lust, the Midwestern Tours 1987-1995 (Borderland Productions).

In 2001, Carrie Rodriguez was playing back-up fiddle at an in-store gig at Cheapo Records during Austin's South by Southwest festival when she was spotted by veteran songwriter Chip Taylor, who was so impressed that he invited her to join him on some shows. Three acclaimed albums of duets later, Rodriguez is now taking center stage on her own. Born and raised in Austin, Texas, she began studying classical violin at age five, after seeing an Itzhak Perlman in concert. She played with the Austin Youth Symphony and the Austin Civic Orchestra in her teens and was in her first year at the Oberlin College Conservatory of Music when she decided to take a musical turn: She transferred to Berklee College of Music in Boston and studied traditional fiddle styles. Back in Texas, she played fiddle with various bands around Austin. Which brings us back to Cheapo Records and that chance meeting with Chip Taylor, who produced Rodriguez's debut solo album, Seven Angels on a Bicycle (Back Porch Records/EMI), released last year. Joining Carrie for tonight's performance are Hans Holzen (guitar) and Kyle Kegerreis (bass).