…coming down the avenue…”
The Tishomingo Blues opens nearly every live broadcast of The Prairie Home Companion, the best and perhaps the last (?) radio variety show on the air.
Fronted by Garrison Keillor, long time radio personality and author, PHC is a rare treat in entertainment today. With live music by the Guy’s All Star Shoe Band (with keyboardist Rich Dworsky and guitarist Pat Donahue), skits by the Radio Acting Company of America (Tim Russell and Sue Scott ) and of course Keillor’s monologue about life back in Lake Wobegon, PHC is both hilarious and poignant, thoroughly entertaining and often suprisingly honest in its reflection humanity. Weekly, the show features guest performances from everything from gospel to blues, folk to bluegrass, its a veritable feast for the ears.
The skits, full of witty dialogue and amazing sound effects (done by Tom Keith and Fred Newman, two of the last true live sound effects men in radio) are clever and delightful.
The show is broadcast live on NPR stations around the country and can listened to online as well.
