A Prairie Home Companion with Garrison Keillor

Vince Giordano and the Nighthawks

Vince Giordano and the Nighthawks are longtime favorites on the jazz scene. Bandleader Giordano grew up on Long Island listening to 78s on his grandmother's Victrola. Maybe that's what fueled his passion for music of the 1920s and '30s. By age 14, he had joined the musicians' union. And right after high school, he signed up with the Navy and toured with the U.S. Navy Show Band. Back in New York, he put together his own band, the Nighthawks. Also a music historian and collector, he owns more than 30,000 original jazz charts. He appeared in the Woody Allen film Sweet and Lowdown and in Martin Scorsese's The Aviator, for which the Nighthawks recorded a slew of vintage hits. The band: Vince Giordano (string bass, bass sax, tuba), Andy Stein (violin, bari sax), Randy Reinhart (trumpet), Jon-Erik Kellso (trumpet), Jim Fryer (trombone), Dan Block (alto sax, clarinet, soprano sax), Mark Lopeman (tenor sax, clarinet, soprano sax), Andy Farber (alto sax, clarinet, soprano sax), Peter Yarin (piano), Ken Salvo (guitar, banjo), and Rob Garcia (drums).

Ricky Ian Gordon

Composer Ricky Ian Gordon has emerged as a leading writer of vocal music that spans art song, opera and musical theater. His compositions have been performed by renowned singers such as Renée Fleming, Dawn Upshaw, Audra MacDonald, Kristin Chenoweth and Frederica Von Stade. Earlier this year, his adaptation of John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath for the operatic stage made its world premiere at the Ordway Center in St. Paul. The Minneapolis Star Tribune described it as "a splendid, almost perfect production of an opera that is smart, funny, touching and harrowing, in all the right places." Other works include Orpheus and Euridice, a song cycle in two acts, and Green Sneakers, for "baritone, string quartet, and empty chair."

Heather Masse

Heather Masse grew up in rural Maine and currently makes her home in New York. She has appeared on A Prairie Home Companion a number of times, always with her band the Wailin' Jennys. Now, while the Jennys take a break from touring, Heather is keeping busy with other projects. She performs regularly with her Brooklyn-based outfit, Heather and the Barbarians — a group that first formed when the members were students at the New England Conservatory of Music. Their album Tell Me Tonight was released in 2007. Look for a solo recording from Heather Masse sometime in 2009.

Jearlyn Steele

Jearlyn Steele grew up in Indiana and first sang with her siblings (as The Steele Children). After she left home and moved to Minnesota, one by one the rest of the Steele kids followed. They started singing together again as The Steeles, and now music is the family business. Fans still remember their participation in The Gospel at Colonus at the Guthrie Theater and on Broadway. Jearlyn Steele has recorded with top acts including George Clinton and Prince. She also hosts Steele Talkin', a Sunday-night radio show that originates on WCCO in Minneapolis and is heard in some 30 states nationwide. Steele Praising Hymn is her most recent CD.

Erica Rhodes

Richard Dworsky

Richard Dworsky, who week in and week out leads A Prairie Home Companion's Guy's All-Star Shoe Band, is a classically trained pianist and composer who rocks, swings, plays great blues and gospel, tears it up on Hammond B3 organ, and keeps up with world-class pickers playing his unique "bluegrass piano" style. He writes all the show's script themes and underscores, and during his 16-year APHC stint, he has accompanied guests from James Taylor to Renée Fleming. His latest CD is So Near and Dear to Me (Prairie Home Productions).