Minnesota folksy appeal: A Prairie Home Companion, 2.0

New APHC host Chris Thile (left) and Nashville-man-about-town
Jack White share a music jam. 

The brilliant musician Chris Thile, tapped as the new host of public radio's "A Prairie Home Companion," made his debut last weekend. As the successor to creator Garrison Keillor, it will be Thile's task to maintain the radio show's Minnesota-folksy appeal while also drawing a younger audience.

Over the course of his first two-hour APHC, Thile gave props to all things Minnesotan in praising many of its sports teams – the Vikings, the Lynx, even the losing Twins – and also praised Prince and Bob Dylan, apple cider and autumn leaves.

During a recent interview with Rolling Stone, Thile (pronounced Thee-lee) admitted that with the upcoming presidential election that's less than three weeks away, everyone needs a means for escaping the rancor and madness that's been brought on by Donald Trump. "People out there need a break, man," he said. "Our fall has been hijacked by a presidential election. It's a very important election, and I will certainly be addressing that on the show, but hopefully I can provide people with a little bit of relief, too. Music and laughter: those are top-shelf forms of relief, I say."

During his debut show, Thile wasted little time taking jabs and poking fun at both major-party candidates, Trump and Hillary Clinton, while admitting that he, too, had once used an unsecured e-mail account and had not paid income taxes for 18 consecutive years – "after that I graduated high school."

The 36-year-old Thile, a Grammy Award-winning mandolin virtuoso, singer and songwriter who cut his chops in bluegrass music with the progressive acoustic trio Nickel Creek and the acoustic folk/progressive bluegrass quintet Punch Brothers, has the unenviable task of replacing the legendary and literate Keillor.

Mandolin virtuoso Chris Thile, shown at the 2015
Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival in San Francisco.
He wants to preserve the appeal of APHC, but
also "really blow the doors off on the musical front."

Thile made his first appearance on "A Prairie Home Companion" in 1996, at age 15, and he's been back numerous times – as a solo artist, with Nickel Creek, and with Punch Brothers. Twice in 2015 and on two occasions earlier this year, Thile was the show's guest host.

While the 2012 MacArthur Fellow not only wants to preserve the appeal of "A Prairie Home Companion," which made its public radio debut in 1974, Thile also has been charged with revising its structure and broadening its reach to a younger demographic (the average listener of APHC is 59 years-old). If his first show is any indicator, there will be less talk and more music.

Admitting that he wants to "really blow the doors off on the musical front," the music guests for the first weekend included "Nashville-man-about-town" Jack White, whom the New York Times Magazine once called "the coolest, weirdest, savviest rock star of our time," and Brooklyn-based hip jazz-soul vocal combo Lake Street Dive.

As for Thile's own music tastes, they range from Bach to Bill Monroe to hip-hop. So, anything seems possible and it's likely that Thile will welcome folksingers, jazz musicians, soul revivalists, roots-rockers and bluegrass bands. This week's guests include folk-based singer/songwriter Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats, evocative American singer/songwriter Anaïs Mitchell, and comedian John Hodgman, formerly of Comedy Central's The Daily Show.

"I want the show to be a home for the breadth of the good music being made in the world," Thile told Rolling Stone. "My musical output has been consistently acoustic, but my taste has not. I love everything. As long as it's good, I'm in."

While A Prairie Home Companion is a very well-known and established public radio brand whose name is easily recognized – both in Minnesota and beyond – indeed, Thile has big shoes to fill. Yet, I like his youthful energy and enthusiasm – it's different than Keillor's – not to mention he's a better singer. I think given a chance, he'll do just fine – especially in expanding the depth of the musical offerings. If Thile brings in a younger audience as it is hoped he will, that's a plus that I'm sure will please everyone.

Note: A Prairie Home Companion is broadcast live from the Fitzgerald Theater in Saint Paul, Minnesota, produced by American Public Media, and airs via National Public Radio (NPR) on Saturdays from 5-7 p.m. Central Time (10 p.m. GMT) – and at various other times – and selected shows are streamed live at www.prairiehome.org. APHC is available to listen via podcast, too.

Cover photo: Courtesy of twincities.com, Google Images.
Photo of Chris Thile at Hardly Strictly Bluegrass by Michael Dickens, © 2015.

Laughing out loud: Remembering Tom Magliozzi

Click and Clack, the Tappet Brothers / For 25 years, brothers
Ray and Tom Magliozzi hosted NPR's Car Talk together.

During a 1999 commencement speech to the graduates of M.I.T., Ray Magliozzi, the longtime co-host of NPR's Car Talk with his older brother Tom, shared this bit of wisdom and advice: "I just want to encourage you to never get so involved in your work, whatever it is, that you forget to have fun."

What great advice that each of us should heed, no matter our age. Simply, have fun.

At the same M.I.T. commencement, Tom Magliozzi shared his research that he claimed provided evidence that “being unencumbered by the thought process” leads to greater happiness.

Each week for 25 years, through some 1,200 hour-long episodes each beginning with mandolinist David Grisman's bluegrassy theme song, "Dawggy Mountain Breakdown," Tom and Ray Magliozzi (pronounced mal-YOT-zee) shared not only their happiness, but also a lovable crankiness, plenty of good self-deprecating humor and a whole lot of uncontrollable laughter with their nationwide NPR (National Public Radio) audience that numbered in the millions here in the United States.

Come Saturday morning, we turned on our radios religiously and were treated to a good soul cleansing. 

While the premise of their radio show, Car Talk, was about cars and mechanical repairs, the warmth and humor exuded by Tom and Ray -- not to mention their expert advice about the importance of cars and an appreciation of life -- was timeless and enduring. 

"Click and Clack, the Tappet Brothers" as the personable Magliozzi brothers were nicknamed, became like family to us and we trusted them and they welcomed us into their "home" via the radio each week for an enjoyable hour of banter and good jokes. From it all came a lot of memorable one-liners like their signature "Don't drive like my brother," spoken by each at the end of each Car Talk show in a distinguishable Boston accent. The affectionate Magliozzi brothers grew up in a large Italian family in East Cambridge, Mass., and both graduated from M.I.T.

Tom Magliozzi / Enjoying a
good laugh.

On November 3, Tom Magliozzi, 77, passed away from complications from Alzheimer's disease. He died at his home outside Boston.

In a letter to public radio listeners of Car Talk, Ray Magliozzi wrote of his brother: "We can be happy that he lived the life he wanted to live; goofing off a lot, talking to you guys every week, and primarily, laughing his ass off."

Although Tom and Ray (who is 12 years younger) stopped making original episodes of Car Talk in 2012, we are fortunate to have "classic" episodes of Car Talk we can listen to each weekend via NPR and through podcasts, too. The show and its infectious laughter lives on. 

In a remembrance of Tom Magliozzi that aired on NPR's All Things Considered last week, Car Talk's executive producer, Doug Berman, said that when it came to cars, the brothers really did know what they were talking about. Yet, it's not why people listened to the show. "I think it has very little to do with cars," said Berman. "It's the guys' personalities. And Tom especially -- really a genius. With a great, facile mind. And he's mischievous. He likes to prod people into honesty."

Magliozzi's NPR colleague, Peter Sagal, host of NPR's weekly news quiz Wait Wait ... Don't Tell Me!, writing for Time, said that laughter "was Tom's great gift. All that raucous, distinctive laughter -- who knew you could laugh with a Boston accent? -- was genuine. Whether he was laughing at his brother or a caller with a car problem or his own silly jokes, his pleasure was too immense to be kept private. Everybody knows that Car Talk wasn't about cars. It was about Tommy Magliozzi and his little brother Ray, as they continued their life-long refusal to take each other, themselves, or anything else seriously. And by sheer force of will the self-regarding gray edifice known as public radio eventually did the same."

Sagal added: "Tom was opinionated, passionate, and occasionally profane, but very much the man he seemed to be on the air. He leaves behind his brother and a large family, but also millions of listeners he convinced -- if only for an hour a week -- to just relax and enjoy themselves as much as he did."

While we all share in the sadness of Tom Magliozzi's passing, just like we do when there's a death in our own family, one thing's certain: While he was alive, standing tall, bearded and friendly, Ray's big brother never forgot to have fun.

We should all be so fortunate. 

God rest ye merry gentleman, Tom Magliozzi.

Photos: Ray and Tom Magliozzi, together, courtesy of Google images; Tom Magliozzi, courtesy of Car Talk Facebook page.