“A Prairie Home Companion”

I listened to it regularly back in the 90s and often recorded it to hear again. It was about the most "laid-back" sort of entertainment, to coin an old phrase, that one could possibly imagine. I'm not as laid-back as I used to be but I listen to the tapes now and again. I saw it on television back in the late 80s. If I am not mistaken, it was on the Disney Channel before it was on NPR. I was a little disappointed to hear that GK retired but, of course, he earned it. He must have had a hell of a workload all those years.

I liked the show in its early days (years?). It was funny, natural and unpretentious. Garrison Keillor had a beautiful voice, warm and familiar, and there was an infectiousness to the show: Middle American, yet somehow sophisticated in approach. It was like a breath of fresh air from the Heartland. As the show got more popular and Keillor moved around more it came to feel more mannered, like he was trying to build a bigger tent than the modest Prairie Home Companion could hold.

As it was it had a broad appeal, and it had a strong fan base among smart people all over the country, as host Keillor's appeal was a winning formula; he projected a mellow, non-insistent, almost non-ideological,--if that makes any sense--liberal sensibility. It was a perfect storm for a good number of years, and in time Keillor ran out of new things to say. He did it all on the show, all that he could reasonably be expected to do, and after a while the bloom was off the rose.

I like the new guy way better than Keillor.

That's what I like about it.

He is doing the show his way.

The music has changed, I don;t think I've heard a skit, & he has miore stand-up comedy.

He's also not tied to his location. 

Even if he did the same schtick Keillor did, he comes across as having way more fun with it.

I miss it terribly. The new version, whatever they're now calling it, just falls flat. I won't say there are no redeeming features to it, but if you're expecting Keillor's PHC you'll be sorely disappointed.

I recall with a lot of fondness the poetry episodes done each April for National Poetry month, and most particularly the one with Allen Ginsberg and Robert Bly, reading (along with Keillor) excerpts from Whitman's Song of Myself. I just don't see this version doing anything like that, nor having the broad range of musical guests Garrison welcomed to the show. The tilt seems to incline towards a more 'millenial' audience and anything not likely to pique their interest excluded; not the idea of possibly introducing listeners to some things it might not have occurred to them to seek out on their own, as Keillor's version did.

The one thing I won't elaborate on are the standup comics the new version features. Most of them are really awful, even the audience barely laughs in most cases.