I can't say enough about how much I will miss Garrison Keillor's show; his last show was July 2 (my birthday) and he went out in style, with a superb monologue from Lake Wobegone -- "where the women are strong, the men are good-looking and the children are above average," an episode of Lives of the Cowboys, words from the Ketchup Advisory Board and lots of singing, mostly duets with women who have regularly appeared on his show and mostly somewhat melancholy songs. The only important thing missing was an episode of Guy Noir, which transfers a fatalistic private eye from the film noir of the forties to the current Midwest, albeit with a fair amount of deadpan humor.
I get the strong impression that many people find Keillor's show too sentimental and folksy, the same reaction they have to Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life. To the contrary, A Prairie Home Companion is as full of darkness and irony as Capra's film. Perhaps it takes someone who grew up in a small town, as I did, to truly understand this. Keillor did a wonderful rendition of Greg Brown's (with Sarah Jarosz) "It Gets Lonely in a Small Town" and in his monologue he talked about being a child forced to go outside when he would rather stay at home and read (he constantly refers to writers --mostly American, including Fitzgerald and Hemingway) and then being dragooned into playing right field in a softball game, where every fly ball filled him with fear. The patrons of the Chatterbox Café can be nice, as can the parishioners of Our Lady of Perpetual Responsibilty, but they can also be bigoted, nasty and vindictive.
Keillor was very much influenced by some of the radio personalities who flourished in the forties, when radio was at its artistic peak. I'm thinking particularly of Fred Allen, who hosted a radio show that featured live musical performances, brilliant comic sketches and effectively low-key political satire. Keillor has brought on terrific musical guests, everyone from classical pianists to opera singers to every variety of folk, folk-rock and country music. And for his comedy sketches he has had, since 1992, the talents of Tim Russell (who can imitate almost any voice; on July 2 he did an uncanny imitation of Jimmy Stewart) and Sue Scott. And Keillor has had excellent sound effects men in Tom Keith (who died in 2011) and Fred Newman and a ready-for-anything music director in Rich Dworsky.
Jean Shepherd, who was also a big influence on Keillor, especially his monologues, is gone and Car Talk is no longer. Chris Thile has been picked as Keillor's successor but it is hard to imagine A Prairie Home Companion without Garrison Keillor. I admit that once I had stopped commuting I was not as regular a listener to Keillor's show, but before his shows became available on the internet I tried to find a radio equivalent of a VCR so I could record the show. Maybe some of the guests were on too often and maybe some of the jokes were not as funny as they once were, but at least he had many good jokes and wonderful guests.
