A Prairie Home Companion with Garrison Keillor

Suzy Bogguss

Growing up in Aledo, Illinois, Suzy Bogguss loved music. She joined the church choir, played the piano and drums, and bought her first 12-string with the money she earned from babysitting. Now, more than a dozen albums later, and awards ranging from the Academy of Country Music's Top New Female Vocalist of 1989 to a Horizon Award given by the Country Music Association, Suzy has won acclaim in both country and contemporary music circles. Her new CD is Sweet Danger (Loyal Dutchess Records).

Nappy Brown

R&B pioneer Nappy Brown grew up in Charlotte, North Carolina. He started singing in the choir when he was about nine years old. When he was 16, he and his cousins formed a gospel group, the Golden Crowns. He went on to sing with the Golden Bell Quintet, the Selah Jubilee Singers and the Heavenly Lights. But he always loved the blues, even though his mother called it "the devil's music." Among his early hits were "Don't Be Angry" and "I Cried Like A Baby." And there was "Night Time Is the Right Time" — written and recorded by Brown and a chartbuster for Ray Charles. His new CD, released more than 50 years after his first recording, is titled Long Time Coming (Blind Pig).

The Red Clay Ramblers

The music of The Red Clay Ramblers is difficult to pinpoint: the band's music contains a blend of bluegrass, country, gospel, spirituals, swing, folk, mountain, polka, ragtime, jazz, and other styles within its eclectic string-band structure. The Ramblers play an even wider set of instruments: fiddle, mandolin, banjo, autoharp, accordion, bouzouki, tuba, trumpet, tin and penny whistles, kazoo, pump organ, piano, and more. The Red Clay Ramblers formed first as an Appalachian trio in 1972 in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. The band has appeared off-Broadway in Diamond Studs and Roger Miller's Big River. They performed their original scores for two projects by playwright Sam Shepherd: his 1986 play, A Lie of the Mind, and his 1988 film, Far North. The band played on Broadway last fall for a revival of the 1993 hit Fool Moon. Earlier this year, they debuted Kudzu, a musical version of the comic strip. The quintet's members are: Bland Simpson, Clay Buckner, Jack Herrick, Chris Frank, and Robb Ladd.

Sweet Honey in the Rock

For more than two decades, Sweet Honey in the Rock has traveled around the globe, singing African-American religious music to sold-out audiences. Entertainment Weekly says that the group's singular a cappella style "could raise goosebumps on Formica." Bernice Johnson Reagon formed Sweet Honey in the Rock in 1973-she named the group after a spiritual that tells of land so fruitful that rocks yield honey. Based out of Washington, D.C., tonight's ensemble includes Reagon and four others: Ysaye Maria Barnwell, Yasmeen Williams, Carol Maillard, and Arnae Burton. Reagon, the group's artistic director, holds a doctorate in history and has devoted to her life and her music to the preservation of black oral culture. The daughter of a Baptist minister, Dr. Reagon grew up in rural Georgia. During the '60s civil rights movement, she was arrested during a protest march. During her two-week stay in jail, she led her fellow protestors in African-American hymns and freedom songs. She soon became active with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and formed the Albany Freedom Singers, which performed across the country to galvanize support for civil rights. While working on the highly acclaimed radio series, Wade in the Water, a 1994 collaboration with the Smithsonian and National Public Radio, Dr. Reagon worked with historical sacred songs from the African-American tradition. The group's latest album, Sacred Ground(Earthbeat!/Warner Bros. Records), is dedicated to those songs of faith, first sung by African Americans under the bonds of slavery.