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spicedogsThe Rhubarb Tour is one of the type of shows that GK gives that I've yet to see. Here's a great review:
ESSEX JUNCTION — At most, the average performer at a Champlain Valley Fair show will give you a “How ya doin’, Vermont?,” and that’s about all the customizing you’ll get.
Garrison Keillor, on the other hand, built the bulk of his recording of his radio show “A Prairie Home Companion” Saturday night around allusions to Vermont. This is, after all, the place where so many young people grow up being forced to listen to “A Prairie Home Companion,” Keillor joked early in his show, so a program in Vermont for Vermont only made sense for such a public-radio-happy state.
For more than 2 ½ hours – the two-hour radio show portion plus preshow and intermission entertainment by Keillor and his band – the “Prairie Home Companion” crew crammed music and Vermont-themed humor into a variety-show mix that was sometimes hilarious, often simply funny, occasionally sweet and beautiful, at times sentimental and hokey, but always entertaining.
At the center of it all is the gangly, bespectacled baritone who drew his first big cheer when he began the radio broadcast with “Coming to you from the Champlain Valley Fair in Essex Junction, Vermont.…” Though it was a stage show for an audience of several thousand, it had all the trappings of radio, from headset-wearing directors giving orders to Keillor and the talented sound-effects crew (Fred Newman, Sue Scott and Tim Russell) reading from scripts.
The show also had a lot for Vermonters to recognize, and to laugh at, about themselves.
Keillor called the Champlain Valley Fair “one of the great fairs in America,” though he noted that one of the rides with a particularly strong centrifugal force is actually a giant mesclun dryer. He and his crew made repeated jokes about the crunchy reputations of Vermont and Burlington.
Keillor’s famous private eye, Guy Noir, flew to Vermont on Northeast Kingdom Airlines with a stewardess named Conifer who rattled off the company’s politically correct ways, from extracting its jet fuel from fields where workers earn full health benefits to both of the plane’s pilots being hearing-impaired. Noir wound up at a Wheat Gluten Foundation event where Barry Manilow provided the entertainment by singing (in Newman’s voice to the tune of “I Write the Songs”) “I make the gluten and the smoothies, too.”
A “Lives of the Cowboys” skit found the ‘boys in Vermont at an alternative-energy festival where they were supposed to give a demonstration on cow-flop power. “Guess we better break out the bran flakes, huh?” Russell’s character said. The cowboys tried to urge a cow to produce its energy – “This is a first for public radio,” Keillor said as an aside — but were unable to until Hillary Clinton (portrayed by Scott) came on stage to give a pedantic lecture that gave the animal all the incentive it needed. “You certainly evacuated that cow,” Keillor joked.
One of the appealing things about Keillor’s humor is the comfort it provides. It sounds safe, but it’s also complex. It’s easy to make fun of boorish people doing stupid things, but Keillor takes generally likable people and pulls on the string until their foibles are revealed. Instead of tearing others down to lift himself up, his humor directed toward fictional characters or the real traits of Vermonters pokes gentle fun without an air of superiority.
The humor is what most people think of with Garrison Keillor, but the music holds his show together. His excellent band led by pianist Rich Dworsky features guitarist Pat Donohue and, on Saturday, the renowned country singer Suzy Bogguss.
Bogguss and Keillor sang a beautifully sad duet, she with her soaring vocals and Keillor with his deep baritone, on Merle Haggard’s “Somewhere Between (Your Heart and Mine).” Near the end of the show they combined again for a similarly beautiful, sad duet on The Everly Brothers’ “Sleepless Nights.” Keillor sang several songs favored by the late Helen Schneyer, a folk singer from Plainfield who appeared regularly on his show, including “The Arthritis Blues” as a duet with Donohue.
Donohue and the band also played a lovely instrumental version of (naturally) “Moonlight in Vermont,” though the light from the fair’s Ferris wheel was brighter than the moon Saturday night. The mostly slower, sentimental music of the night got a boost with Dworsky’s boogie-woogie piano work on “Pumpkin Pie.”
A little song, a little humor, a little poetry, a little bit of everything – Garrison Keillor gave a variety show Vermont-style Saturday night.
ESSEX JUNCTION — At most, the average performer at a Champlain Valley Fair show will give you a “How ya doin’, Vermont?,” and that’s about all the customizing you’ll get.
Garrison Keillor, on the other hand, built the bulk of his recording of his radio show “A Prairie Home Companion” Saturday night around allusions to Vermont. This is, after all, the place where so many young people grow up being forced to listen to “A Prairie Home Companion,” Keillor joked early in his show, so a program in Vermont for Vermont only made sense for such a public-radio-happy state.
For more than 2 ½ hours – the two-hour radio show portion plus preshow and intermission entertainment by Keillor and his band – the “Prairie Home Companion” crew crammed music and Vermont-themed humor into a variety-show mix that was sometimes hilarious, often simply funny, occasionally sweet and beautiful, at times sentimental and hokey, but always entertaining.
At the center of it all is the gangly, bespectacled baritone who drew his first big cheer when he began the radio broadcast with “Coming to you from the Champlain Valley Fair in Essex Junction, Vermont.…” Though it was a stage show for an audience of several thousand, it had all the trappings of radio, from headset-wearing directors giving orders to Keillor and the talented sound-effects crew (Fred Newman, Sue Scott and Tim Russell) reading from scripts.
The show also had a lot for Vermonters to recognize, and to laugh at, about themselves.
Keillor called the Champlain Valley Fair “one of the great fairs in America,” though he noted that one of the rides with a particularly strong centrifugal force is actually a giant mesclun dryer. He and his crew made repeated jokes about the crunchy reputations of Vermont and Burlington.
Keillor’s famous private eye, Guy Noir, flew to Vermont on Northeast Kingdom Airlines with a stewardess named Conifer who rattled off the company’s politically correct ways, from extracting its jet fuel from fields where workers earn full health benefits to both of the plane’s pilots being hearing-impaired. Noir wound up at a Wheat Gluten Foundation event where Barry Manilow provided the entertainment by singing (in Newman’s voice to the tune of “I Write the Songs”) “I make the gluten and the smoothies, too.”
A “Lives of the Cowboys” skit found the ‘boys in Vermont at an alternative-energy festival where they were supposed to give a demonstration on cow-flop power. “Guess we better break out the bran flakes, huh?” Russell’s character said. The cowboys tried to urge a cow to produce its energy – “This is a first for public radio,” Keillor said as an aside — but were unable to until Hillary Clinton (portrayed by Scott) came on stage to give a pedantic lecture that gave the animal all the incentive it needed. “You certainly evacuated that cow,” Keillor joked.
One of the appealing things about Keillor’s humor is the comfort it provides. It sounds safe, but it’s also complex. It’s easy to make fun of boorish people doing stupid things, but Keillor takes generally likable people and pulls on the string until their foibles are revealed. Instead of tearing others down to lift himself up, his humor directed toward fictional characters or the real traits of Vermonters pokes gentle fun without an air of superiority.
The humor is what most people think of with Garrison Keillor, but the music holds his show together. His excellent band led by pianist Rich Dworsky features guitarist Pat Donohue and, on Saturday, the renowned country singer Suzy Bogguss.
Bogguss and Keillor sang a beautifully sad duet, she with her soaring vocals and Keillor with his deep baritone, on Merle Haggard’s “Somewhere Between (Your Heart and Mine).” Near the end of the show they combined again for a similarly beautiful, sad duet on The Everly Brothers’ “Sleepless Nights.” Keillor sang several songs favored by the late Helen Schneyer, a folk singer from Plainfield who appeared regularly on his show, including “The Arthritis Blues” as a duet with Donohue.
Donohue and the band also played a lovely instrumental version of (naturally) “Moonlight in Vermont,” though the light from the fair’s Ferris wheel was brighter than the moon Saturday night. The mostly slower, sentimental music of the night got a boost with Dworsky’s boogie-woogie piano work on “Pumpkin Pie.”
A little song, a little humor, a little poetry, a little bit of everything – Garrison Keillor gave a variety show Vermont-style Saturday night.
SOURCE: BurlingtonFreePress.com
