By Tim Van Schmidt

I had to chuckle to myself this morning as I took my daily walk. A little light puff of “cotton” from a cottonwood tree went drifting by on the ground and it made me think of Garrison Keillor’s little story last night at the Budweiser Events Center about the felling of a cottonwood tree in an excerpt from his ongoing monologue “The News from Lake Wobegon.” What made me smile is just how right on Keillor’s humor is- based on common experience, like the cottonwood phenomenon- the stuff gets everywhere and while no one likes to hurt a tree, there was a sense of relief in Lake Wobegon when a certain cottonwood disappeared, and it might not be a bad idea in my neighborhood either.

What’s funny is how Keillor ropes you in with his soft melodious voice and common day experience, but then he starts tinkering with the facts, adding a little extra flight of imagination along the way. Like the mosquitoes in Minnesota aren’t just big, they’re as big as hummingbirds- or at least dragon flies- and they are even responsible for strange behavior in people, depending on who they bit just before them. A late night talk under the stars on the trail becomes a conversation with a motherly ghost. Keillor even takes on the dread of a recent widower- about how hard it is for an old man to adjust to late changes in life. Keillor works that dread until it becomes funny- a warm, even kind of sad I-know-what-you-mean funny. The widower died a year after his spouse, not from a broken heart, but from bad housekeeping.

This personality was at work throughout the entirety of the May 6 live show and broadcast from the BEC- the venue’s fastest selling show to date- a 13 minute sell-out. (The show was hosted in the region by Greeley public radio station KUNC-FM.) Keillor is a frail kind of crooner as a singer, but that frailty served him well on material that could even be called old fashioned- like “Home on the Range” during a warm-up walk around the venue, or “You Are My Sunshine.” Whether participating in stream-of-consciousness skits with actors Sue Scott and Tim Russell, with Fred Newman producing sound effects, or kind of wheeling around the stage, wryly commenting on facts and observations about the Loveland/Fort Collins/Greeley…and Boulder area, Keillor was omnipresent as host.

But more impressive in a way than the well-oiled production- and personality- that is A Prairie Home Companion, was the way this production easily included a variety of local artists. Rather than bring in a national name of some sort to sweeten the deal, Keillor and company sent out a call to area artists and evidently, the response was huge. In an e-mail to respondents after the selections were made, Keillor wrote “We had no idea of the extent and depth of musical talent in that little quadrangle north of Denver and we visited a lot of websites and listened to hundreds of songs and pondered and debated.”

The choices the show ended up making were excellent in terms of fitting right in with the flow. Acoustic duo Jimmy Sferes and Jennifer White offered an energetic blending of voices, the Greenes played an acoustic Celtic music, Halden Wofford and the Hi-Beams added some electric country swing, and Kelly Aspen, who Keillor mentioned had graduated from UNC earlier that day, was a featured solo vocalist. With only a few days notice, these musicians not only stepped up to do their thing, but they also did it within the tight timing framework of a live radio broadcast. A Prairie Home Companion made it look smooth and the variety of music- all somehow folk or country related- fit in seamlessly.

This emphasis on local talent is actually in keeping with the nature of the show itself. Whereas Keillor’s humor lets us look at common experience and laugh a little, the local talent aspect of this show lets the audience look at and celebrate the fine talent right in their own backyard. Homespun talent is right.

It must be said that the indisputable core of the show, above and beyond Keillor’s dominant presence, is The Guys All-Star Shoe Band: director Rich Dworsky along with Pat Donohue, Gary Raynor, Arnie Kinsella and John Niemann. The band was right on the money, filling in cracks in between Keillor and company’s antics and the musical acts- even backing up Aspen with authority.

Sometimes, when a show is getting to the end, anxious audience members start filtering out of the arena. But this did not seem to be the case at the end of this edition of A Prairie Home Companion. Nobody seemed to want to leave even a second early after basking in the warmth of this production. Keillor is a unique and even valuable figure in our contemporary culture- offering some heart-warming and some belly-laughing all in the same package. That we recognize that he is actually looking into US to find his material actually makes him more appealing. A lot of entertainment is about the performer, but Keillor allows the spotlight to stray all over the place and people just like to be close to that kind of light- because sometimes it happens to shine on you, on what you’re feeling, or what you’re going through- or at least it might shine on a neighbor who happens to be a talented musician. It’s great to know there are others out there who know what you mean- and who can make you chuckle about it.