Last time on the Chain Gang Paul Villers tried to throw a curve ball with his very useful advice on ordering beer in Spanish. The fab St. Paul and the Broken Bones are a new favourite now, thanks Paul.
All this talk of Pauls got me thinking about St Paul Minnesota, home for many years of ‘A Prairie Home Companion’. That show featured such an abundance of AUK friendly musical guests that plucking out one was looking hard. Then at the top of the show archive page the name Paul Simon popped up. So as a fan of the show, particularly “The News from Lake Wobegon” which is just the most Americana thing in the world, and with the whole Paul-ness of this post in mind, I knew my search was over. Now, this was in an episode from the year that the show limped on after long time host Garrison Keillor had retired but ‘Wristband’, a typical humorous Simon tale of failing to get through the stage door despite “my band is on the bandstand and my axe is on the floor” was so much fun it still had to be the one to share. Show host Chris Thile, also of the fab Nickel Creek is clearly loving sharing a stage with a musical hero. Thile’s lockdown video of Gillian Welch’s ‘Hard Times’ is worth hunting out on YouTube as well.
Anyway here is Simon’s song ‘Wristband‘ on A Prairie Home Companion from 2016. Hopefully that’s given Guy Lincoln who’s up next some food for thought. Guy? Catch!
