gadabout Garrison right at home in the Berkshires

Reviews of previous shows here: 
2004 show | 2003 show | 2001 show | 2000 show

July 2, 2005 performance, reviewed by Dave Conlin Read

Garrison Keillor
Brian Velenchenko photo

The sixth annual visit of A Prairie Home Companion, with Garrison Keillor to the Koussevitsky Music Shed at Tanglewood on July 2, 2005 may be remembered by the 11,000+ in attendance as the "Palms of Victory" show because of the little "non-sectarian" hymn they were taught by Mr. Keillor, who told them they could use it as a call-sign if they should ever encounter him in the airport, but it also will be remembered particularly for Gillian Welch & David Rawlings and Inga Swearingen, who gave strikingly evocative performances that left the audience eager for more.

The humor was as good as it gets, too; the Royal Academy of Radio Acting nailed the Guy Noir episode about the Sprocket tycoon's $200 million gift to Tanglewood being hijacked for the establishment of the Tanglewood Center for Songwriters, Inc; a wickedly funny Cafe Boeuf with Peter Schickele, and then Schickele's P.D.Q. Bach duet with David Dusing on the loopy "If Love is Real."

With the virtual town of Lake Wobegon and it's fabulous citizenry at its heart, Mr. Keillor's show is all about community and when the show is on the road, an effort is made to embrace the actual locale, and not only with the funny business. To make that point most emphatically, this show, recognizing that "this is Mohican land," included a song composed by a Wisconsin-Stockbridge Mohican, Brent Michael Davids.

It was sung sweetly by Ms. Swearingen and Prudence Johnson, accompanied by the crackerjack Guys All Star Shoe Band, and the Edith Wharton String Quartet, culled from the Tanglewood Music Center just for this show. The latter group acquitted themselves splendidly and no doubt will have fond tales to tell of this day decades down the road when they are wiley veterans of orchestras in Cleveland, Chicago, San Francisco, and Boston.

This was no Tanglewood debut for Mr. Davids; his "Mohican Soup" was sung by Chanticleer to open Tanglewood's 1999 Festival of Contemporary Music in Seiji Ozawa Hall. In his remarks to the audience that day, he attributed the creative energy in the Berkshires to a foundation established by the Mohicans during their 6,000 year stewardship of the region.

We contacted Mr. Davids at his studio in St. Paul to learn more about him and his song. Several weeks ago he met Mr. Keillor at a local literary gathering and once their conversation got around to their mutual Tanglewood connections, Keillor said "We're doing a show there next month, will you write something for it?"

So he wrote "Stockbridge Mohican Song" and sent Keillor the music, lyrics, and demo mp3 file and, as of yesterday (July 5), hasn't heard from him again. He did listen to the broadcast and liked what he heard, though. In response to our surprise that the whole operation was accomplished so quickly, Mr. Davids said simply, "That's what I do, I'm a composer."

Brent Michael Davids

Yes indeed, and one we'd like to hear more from right here on Mohican land. You can learn more about Mr. Davids by visiting his website: brentmichaeldavids.com - about which he told us in an e-mail: "I do hope people feel free to check out my site and explore; it's an interesting site, as visitors have to explore without the benefit of everything being spelled out in a menu (one must discover by searching around).

The 4 cones are the secret to navigating my site: CONE 1 (snack bar: bio, resume, photos, merchandise, articles, reviews, PDFs), CONE 2 (drive-in: watch movie samples), CONE 3 (dash: listen to audio samples), CONE 4 (L+R tail lights): left TL is film projects list; right TL is concert projects list)."

Stockbridge Mohican Song

And, of course, you can revisit the entire July 2 show, listen to all or parts of it and read the scripts, by visiting: prairiehome.org.

A Prairie Home Companion, with Garrison Keillor: prairiehome.org
Tanglewood tickets and information: www.bso.org.
Reviews of previous shows here: 
2004 show | 2003 show | 2001 show | 2000 show