Prairie Home Companion

Host Garrison Keillor pushed the boundaries of radio in the 1970s to develop A Prairie Home Companion, National Public Radio’s Saturday-night staple. The variety show’s features included Keillor’s Lake Wobegon monologue, fictional sponsors, music, and dramas.

A Prairie Home Companion (APHC) evolved from a live morning radio show hosted by Gary “Garrison” Keillor. When Keillor began hosting for Minnesota Educational Radio (MER) in 1969, he was a freelancer for the New Yorker supporting his family with income from his radio job. The show played classical music, but Keillor introduced rock ’n’ roll and folk. Later, he hosted live musical guests; he introduced a fictional sponsor, Jack’s Auto Repair in Lake Wobegon, in 1971.

Keillor’s hosting gigs were sporadic. He took breaks to focus on writing and temporarily left after a manager suggested that his music alienated supporters. The show’s name wavered, too, changing from The Morning Program to A Prairie Home Companion and The Prairie Home Morning Show. Keillor based the names on Prairie Home Cemetery, a graveyard he noticed after giving a reading at Moorhead State University in 1971.

Keillor recorded three holiday specials in 1973 and The Minnesota Grain Show in 1974 as experimental previews of APHC. Both programs featured songs, poetry, Jack’s fictional sponsorship, and Keillor “just talking.”

As Keillor developed the components of APHC, Bill Kling, president of MER, proposed a “Saturday version of A Prairie Home Companion specializing in live music” in 1973. According to Keillor, however, he did not consider a variety show until he attended the final 1974 Grand Ole Opry performance at the Ryman Auditorium on assignment for the New Yorker. He returned to St. Paul inspired, and APHC debuted on July 6, 1974, from the Janet Wallace Auditorium at Macalester College. Twelve people attended.

Nevertheless, the show made the World Theater in St. Paul its home on March 4, 1978. Minnesota Public Radio (MPR, MER’s successor) purchased the World in 1980, renovated it in 1985, and renamed it after F. Scott Fitzgerald in 1994.

In 1980, MPR began to broadcast APHC nationally. Satellites allowed stations to broadcast their own shows, shifting National Public Radio (NPR) away from its educational roots with programs like APHC. NPR, however, did not broadcast APHC, fearing its audience was “too regional.” APHC’s increasing popularity prompted MPR to join four other stations in 1982 to found American Public Radio, an alternative national distributor.

The show began to travel and in 1981 held its first live broadcast outside of the Midwest. As Keillor's audience and celebrity grew (he appeared on a November 1985 Time magazine cover), his schedule became overwhelming. In 1987, he ended APHC to “resume the life of a shy person.” The Walt Disney Company televised APHC’s final shows.

Keillor moved to Denmark in June 1987 but returned to New York in September. Two years later, he formed the American Radio Company of the Air (later American Radio Company, or ARC), a program mirroring the APHC format. ARC broadcast from Brooklyn using actors from the Broadway Local Radio Theater. After three seasons, ARC moved to St. Paul, and the next year, APHC was reborn.

Keillor and voice actors Sue Scott and Tim Russell performed dramas and advertisements for fictional sponsorships, including “Guy Noir, Private Eye,” “The Lives of the Cowboys,” “Beebop-a-reebop Rhubarb Pie,” and “Powdermilk Biscuits." Sound effects artists Tom Keith and Fred Newman added sonic color to Keillor’s stories.

Keillor’s regular Lake Wobegon monologues evolved from Jack’s fictional sponsorship. Lake Wobegon became central to APHC in 1979, and Keillor began referring to it as his hometown in 1983. As Lake Wobegon evolved, the monologue lengthened from three to twenty minutes.

Keillor assembled the Guy’s All-Star Shoe Band, an eclectic group led by music director Richard Dworsky who joined APHC in 1986. Keillor left the music up to the band, often writing “MUSIC” into a script with little elaboration. APHC hosted music legends, including Doc Watson, Willie Nelson, Renee Fleming, and Randy Newman, but the focus was never on popularity. Instead, APHC showcased “musical roots.”

In July 2015, Keillor announced his retirement, naming mandolin player Chris Thile his successor. Thile became the permanent host in 2016. Though the show continued, MPR changed its name from A Prairie Home Companion to Live From Here in late 2017 after reviewing allegations of sexual misconduct against Keillor.