How’s this for a great combination of musicians?! Chris Thile, the rest of the Punch Brothers, and Sarah Jarosz combining talents on a beautiful rendition of ‘The Mississippi is Frozen’ for the American radio show, A Prairie Home Companion, back in 2016.
‘A Prairie Home Companion’ was a radio variety show, originally developed by Garrison Keillor, an American author and humorist, who hosted the show from its inception in 1974 until he stepped down in 2016, when Chris Thile actually took over as host and the show was re-named ‘Live From Here’ running for a further four years. The show was distributed by Minnesota public radio and, at its height, was listened to by an audience of over 4 million people a week. The show was known for its ‘down home’ style and easy humour, along with its tongue-in-cheek reporting style and, especially, for its musical guests, usually drawn from folk and country circles.
The show even inspired a film, based on the radio production and, again written by Keillor, who also played himself in the film. It was the last film of the great American movie director, Robert Altman, and in addition to Keillor featured actors such as Meryl Streep, Kevin Kline, Lindsay Lohan and Tommy Lee Jones.
A main feature of the show was its musical guests and, over the years, these included Chet Atkins and Mark Knopfler (together and separately), The Wailin’ Jennys, Nickel Creek, Sam Bush, Buddy Emmons, Joe Ely, Paul Simon and many, many more. This clip sees a truly outstanding rendition of ‘The Mississippi is Frozen’ and comes from the transition period when Chris Thile took over hosting the show and just before the name change, back in 2016.
