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And I was present on Saturday, Nov. 18, when Keillor brought his variety show to Centennial Hall at the University of Arizona, where a crowd of more than 3,000 squeezed in to enjoy the low-key humor and applaud three local music acts representing Tucson's major ethnic groups.
Showing off the Old Pueblo's various musical styles were Dean Armstrong and the Arizona Dance Hands, who've been entertaining since 1948, many of those years at Li'l Abner's Steak House; International Mariachi America, organized by Gilbert Velez; and Southern Scratch, a waila band from the Tohono O'odham nation featuring Ron Joaquin, his 11-year-old son Brandis on drums, and nine-year-old daughter Sara on maracas.
All three groups were greeted warmly by the live audience, though the most enthusiastic response was given to the mariachi band's rousing rendition of "Guadalajara." Armstrong and the Dance Hands performed a couple of standard western tunes, including "Tumbling Tumbleweeds," and the Joaquin family provided Keillor with his first taste of chicken scratch music with a couple of frisky "cumbias."
While stage hands moved the musical guests smoothly on and off stage left, and the house band and various players (including former Tucsonan Sue Scott) worked stage right, Keillor held center stage in front of a clapboard house facade, singing a song or two of his own and reporting the weekly news from Lake Wobegon.
There were lots of comments about the pleasant weather in Arizona, and in one tune, Keillor sang about the devil luring Lutherans from the cold north down to the warmth of Tucson, where by the time the heat of July rolls around, their souls would be his completely.
Familiar skits included a visit to the Cafe Beouf, where Maurice the maitre d' was preparing his Thanksgiving turkey; and an episode in the life of a cowboy, during which a woman out to find herself on a quest in the desert wreaked some minor havoc for Lefty and his guitar.
Sound effects wizard Tom Keith showed off his skills throughout the program and stepped into the spotlight for a "psychological drama" about a sound effects man struggling with a troubled relationship while trying to record "Chicken Little" for a director wanting lots of emotion in a little bit of clucking.
Keith has been a regular with Keillor since 1976, creating sound effects with both props and vocal gymnastics. As Jim Ed Poole, Keith hosts "The Morning Show" on Minnesota Public Radio.
Tim Russell provided the voices for a bit about celebrity recipes for turkey stuffing, offering suggestions from such personalities as Henry Kissinger, Jack Nicholson, Julia Childs, and Bill Clinton, whose stuffing recipe called for tossing a dozen hamburgers in a blender.
In his second season with "A Prairie Home Companion," Russell has been a familiar radio and TV voice in the Midwest for more than 20 years. He recently produced and performed all the celebrity voices on an audio tape parody of Charles Dickens' classic "Christmas Carol."
Sue Scott provided the feminine touch throughout, stepping up early as the hostess of Tucson's "Hotel Minnesota," where Keillor and company can enjoy all the discomforts of home while in the Old Pueblo.
Scott began her career at Cholla High School and the University of Arizona, but since 1976 she has lived in the Midwest, working as a voice over talent and stage actor, most recently in the one-woman show "The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe" in Minneapolis.
Garrison Keillor's career in radio began when he was a student at the University of Minnesota. In 1969, he began writing for "The New Yorker." While writing an article about the Grand Ole Opry in 1974, he was inspired to create "A Prairie Home Companion." During the show's first 13 years, it and Keillor received a George Foster Peabody Award, an Edward R. Murrow Award, and a medal from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Keillor ended "A Prairie Home Companion" in 1987 and moved to New York. Two years later, he started a new program, "The American Radio Company," which played to sold-out houses for four seasons. The show resumed the name "A Prairie Home Companion" in the fall of 1993 and is currently heard by almost two million listeners on more than 330 public radio stations.
He is a contributor to "The New York Times" and "The Atlantic," and is the author of several books, including "Lake Wobegon Days" and "The Book of Guys." He has received a Grammy Award for his recording of "Lake Wobegon Days" and was recently inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame at the Museum of Broadcast Communications, which called him "contemporary radio's most inventive humorist."
Keillor's work certainly stands in stark contrast to much of what passes for entertainment on either broadcast medium these days. Radio is populated by right-wing blowhards and foul-mouthed bad boys, while sex and violence and sitcom stupidity reign supreme on television. The gentle folk who inhabit Lake Wobegon are standard bearers of a civility that transformed Tucson briefly. Fortunately, it's a state that can be achieved on a weekly basis.
You can visit the web site of "A Prairie Home Companion" at: "http://www.mnonline.org/mpr/html/aphchome.htm".
Viewed Saturday, Nov. 18, Centennial Hall, University of Arizona, Tucson
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