Garrison Keillor the bad singer who ..

Subject: RE: Garrison Keillor the bad singer who ..
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 20 Jun 15 - 03:34 PM

Nothing - apart from words and music.

Subject: RE: Garrison Keillor the bad singer who ..
From: PHJim
Date: 20 Jun 15 - 06:10 PM

Off topic - After Rick Fielding turned me onto this site some years ago, I posted as GUEST,Jim for a few years, till it was pointed out that I was not the only GUEST,Jim posting, so, in order to avoid taking credit/blame for someone else's posts, I became a mudcat member.
Sorry GUEST,Shakes, I had assumed that you and GUEST,sorefingers were one and the same, since you seemed to have very similar views about Mr. Keillor's vocal abilities.

Subject: RE: Garrison Keillor the bad singer who ..
From: Donuel
Date: 20 Jun 15 - 07:09 PM

ot

a hate inspired troll should not be allowed the privilege of privacy.
A professional or celebrity of any status should be afforded the privilege

Subject: RE: Garrison Keillor the bad singer who ..
From: Don Firth
Date: 20 Jun 15 - 08:18 PM

Guest, Shakes must be new to internet forums because if he responds so vociferously to the fact that I disagree with his evaluation of Garrison Keillor's singing and general skill as an entertainer as an egregious "personal insult" to him, then he's going to find internet forums in general a rough row to hoe. At no point have I tried to limit his freedom of speech as he claims, and other than the fact that I have disagreed with his expressed opinions, I have no power to do so.

On the basis of how vigorously he attacks me for disagreeing with him, I can quite justifiably claim that HE is trying to limit MY freedom of speech.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Garrison Keillor the bad singer who ..
From: PHJim
Date: 20 Jun 15 - 11:57 PM

Donuel, What about hate inspired troll who are professionals or celebrities of some status. They are not necessarily mutually exclusive.

Subject: RE: Garrison Keillor the bad singer who ..
From: Don Firth
Date: 21 Jun 15 - 02:51 PM

My local NPR station plays Prairie Home Companion on Saturday afternoons, then repeats the same show Sunday morning. I'm listening to it right now, and it's a good, entertaining variety show with a lot of good music and singing, some of which is done by Garrison Keiller.

Since it's Father's Day today, one of the songs that Keillor sings is a sentimental song about remembering his father. I'm sorry for the hyper-critics out there, but anyone who could listen to him sing that song without getting a bit choked up is ready for the coroner to put a tag on his toe and close the drawer.

Nothing wrong with Keillor's singing. As I've said before, he'll never replace Leonard Warren or Robert Merrill, but he does a pretty good job of putting a song across.

I feel sorry for those who are so prejudiced against Keillor that they can't hear it….

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Garrison Keillor the bad singer who ..
From: PHJim
Date: 21 Jun 15 - 04:34 PM

The quality of radio programming has dropped off a lot since the rise of TV. I don't really enjoy listening to the average DJ playing songs that are on a prescribed play-list. It's not easy to find interesting radio programming any more.
Living in Canada, I depended on CBC for interesting programming. The quality of CBC has gone down over the last decade, but it's still miles ahead of whatever's in second place.
Garrison Keillor's PHC is the type of programming that we used to be able to access every day. I'd hate to lose it.

Subject: RE: Garrison Keillor the bad singer who ..
From: GUEST,Shakes
Date: 22 Jun 15 - 12:42 AM

The two videos that people have posted links to are very interesting, especially when compared to each other.

The first video shows a young Keillor, who we've been told repeatedly doesn't present himself as a singer, nevertheless singing a solo on a nationally broadcast live auditorium show, with Chet Atkins as his accompanist.

The second video shows an older Keillor not presenting himself as a singer in a duet with a young woman, with back-up singing by the large choir that the woman is a member of.

In the first video, Keillor sounds pretty good. Not great, as everyone here has agreed, but pleasant, and certainly nothing that would make you turn off your radio.

The second video is where we disagree. Some of us think Keillor sounds terrible there. His singing is much worse than in the first video, with breathing problems, clumsy phrasing and articulation, a heavy droning character, and problems staying on key. But the main problem is that it's juxtaposed against some very good singers, whom we'd like to hear without a clown aping their effort. Even if his singing hadn't deteriorated since the time of the first video, using a group like that as a backdrop for Keillor's singing makes him sound worse than if he were to sing alone or with a chorus of winos.

Also, in the first video the hymns themselves are very good, whereas the song in the second video is insipid -- a typical PHC parody, using goofy, hastily-written lyrics roughly set to a time-honored melody. I wouldn't mind if Keillor alone performed something like that, or he along with the radio drama cast members or the house band musicians or random members of the audience; but to use a large choir of talented and trained singers for that nonsense seems inappropriate and insulting. It's taking people who've worked hard on their singing and who excel at it and saying, "See, they're just screw-ups like the rest of us." That could be funny once or twice, but it's a joke that gets very old when repeated every week.

Subject: RE: Garrison Keillor the bad singer who ..
From: Don Firth
Date: 22 Jun 15 - 01:15 AM

He was quite good in today's program, Guest, Shakes.

As I keep pointing out, there are two knobs on your radio....

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Garrison Keillor the bad singer who ..
From: GUEST,Joseph Scott
Date: 22 Jun 15 - 12:16 PM

"having read up on him I don't see what he has to offer a non-American audience." He has a dry wit. I hope the country that watched Two Pints Of Lager And A Packet Of Crisps could find something to like in him.

Subject: RE: Garrison Keillor the bad singer who ..
From: Jack Campin
Date: 22 Jun 15 - 02:23 PM

having read up on him I don't see what he has to offer a non-American audience.

His books sell pretty well in the UK, so he's obviously reaching somebody.

There are a lot of radio personalities in the US that it's worth getting angry about. Save the bile for Glenn Beck or somebody.

---

👍---mudelf

Subject: RE: Garrison Keillor the bad singer who ..
From: GUEST,Dave
Date: 22 Jun 15 - 04:49 PM

Joseph, never watched Two pints of Lager, but looking it up I see it had Sheridan Smith in it, who was quite superb in Black Work, the first episode of which was on last night.

A better parallel might be the Pub Landlord (Al Murray). He is very funny in a British context but I cannot see that anyone from (say) the USA would see the jokes, as he is poking fun at a distinctly British (maybe even south-east English) stereotype.

Subject: RE: Garrison Keillor the bad singer who ..
From: GUEST,CJ
Date: 23 Jun 15 - 01:16 PM

Guest Shakes - In Joseph Scott's video I think Garrison is singing like that on purpose. He can sing better, but in that instance it's more like a comedy skit and he's playing the part of someone who can't sing very well, and all the other people keep telling him to please stop. They sing it like an opera, but it's funny so it's like a comedy skit opera.

Oftentimes in the skits Garrison plays the sad sack who everyone makes fun of. Sometimes he'll play a young man who's trying to make it in the art world, but his art is just junk, and he just ignores it when people tell him it is. Only then they'll just say the words instead of singing them because it's not about a singer.

Subject: RE: Garrison Keillor the bad singer who ..
From: Don Firth
Date: 23 Jun 15 - 02:26 PM

In a lot of what Keillor does on "Prairie Home Companion" is a joke or a parody--part of a skit. It would appear that Guest Shakes simply isn't getting the jokes....

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Garrison Keillor the bad singer who ..
From: GUEST,Joseph Scott
Date: 23 Jun 15 - 03:39 PM

Keillor's stories about Scandinavian-Americans routinely poke fun at their politeness and reservedness. No wonder Keillor and Michael Palin like each other.

Subject: RE: Garrison Keillor the bad singer who ..
From: GUEST,Shakes
Date: 23 Jun 15 - 05:31 PM

I like that kind of humor, as long as it doesn't involved singing basset hounds.

What's the connection between Michael Palin and Scandinavian-Americans? Isn't he English? One of his movies, A Private Function, is on my all-time ten best list, and another one, The Missionary, is not far behind.

A Danish-Swedish friend once told me that's a misconception about the reserve, that it's really only Swedes who are like that, and Danes and Norwegians are anything but. He had a story about some Scandinavians who were shipwrecked on a deserted island, and when the rescue ship came one of the groups (Danes or Norwegians, I can't remember which) had just finished building a boat, and another group had just finished drinking all the beer from the wrecked ship, but the Swedes still weren't talking to each other because they hadn't been introduced.

Subject: RE: Garrison Keillor the bad singer who ..
From: Don Firth
Date: 23 Jun 15 - 08:44 PM

A stereotype which I have not found to be all that accurate.

In one of the Seattle coffeehouses where I sang during the early Sixties, one of the other singers was Britt Mongstadt, a young Swedish exchange student attending the University of Washington. Quite outgoing as I recall. She had a substantial repertoire of Scandinavian and other folk songs and for the short period of time she was here, she was one of the favorite singers at the coffeehouse.

Also, currently, in the cooperative apartment where my wife and I live, a Swedish woman named Mariam (don't recall her last name) maintains a pied á terre for when she is in Seattle. She and I got to talking about Sven Scholander, the Swedish lute-singer who was mentor to the young Richard Dyer-Bennet way back. Mariam loaned me a mess of CDs she had, a boxed set consisting of old recordings of Scholander, plus a whole batch of similar singers—modern day "minstrels," a tradition that she tells me is still alive in Sweden. Interesting stuff!

Mariam is quite friendly and outgoing.

Of course, there's a whole encyclopedia of jokes about how slow and thick-headed Swedish men are—told mostly by Swedish men….

Sven and Ole take jobs on a house construction site. Sven steps into the on-site trailer where the boss's office is. "Boss, when we build this house, do we start with the roof or the foundation?"

The boss looks at Sven, aghast, and says, "You start with the foundation!"

Sven sticks his head out the trailer door and shouts, "Hey, Ole! Come on down!"

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Garrison Keillor the bad singer who ..
From: GUEST,Dave
Date: 24 Jun 15 - 03:18 AM

Another reason why I don't think Keillor would be well understood in Britain. The only stereotypes we have about Swedes concern nudity and mixed saunas. The ones about slowness we reserve for Americans. Used to be Irish, but not so much now.

Subject: RE: Garrison Keillor the bad singer who ..
From: GUEST,Gerry
Date: 24 Jun 15 - 03:42 AM

Shakes wrote,

"When I read an internet forum, I'm only interested in the ideas presented. I read each post to see if it has any ideas I'm interested in, but usually without being aware of who made the post. If I post, I think of it as just adding another idea to the discussion. I don't see why it matters whose idea it is. Can anyone explain that?

"I also believe that internet forums would be more productive if everyone took the same approach. I think the need to protect the virtual ego of a user ID leads to a lot of ridiculous bickering. The same would be true with real-world identities and egos, except that in the real world I think people are more careful about what they say and don't as often get into a position of needing to defend an ego. Just as some very polite and considerate people turn into homicidal maniacs when they get behind the wheel of a car, it seems to me that many people who would not reply to an opinion expressed in a normal conversation with an ad hominem attack or insult directed against the speaker will nevertheless respond in exactly that way on an internet forum. And I suspect that many forum users react viscerally to each new user ID that appears on the forum in the same way that the males in a wolf pack or chimpanzee community react to a new lone male that appears near their circle, i.e. as another potential challenge to their authority."

Shakes, I think you're missing something about this particular internet forum. Among the people who have been here a few years, and that's a lot of people, there is a real sense of community, of knowing each other as individuals. You can see it in the obit threads for Catspaw (Pat Patterson), for Art Thieme, for Jean Ritchie (kytrad), for a few others. Sure, one evaluates the ideas on their own merits, but one also associates them with the people who posted them, and one builds up a picture of the poster, and it adds something intangible but very powerful to the discussion, to the interaction. It's not just ideas, either. It's jokes and stories, it's tales of woe and tales of triumph, it's feelings and emotions.

This is actually true of most of the internet fora I've participated in. Maybe you're just not going to the right sectors of the internet. Or maybe community is not what you're looking for. But community is what Mudcat has, and it's why Mudcatters would like to be able to associate a unique identifier to each poster.

Does that answer your questions?

Subject: RE: Garrison Keillor the bad singer who ..
From: GUEST,Shakes
Date: 24 Jun 15 - 12:22 PM

Gerry: Yes, thanks, that does explain it very clearly. I was thinking of Mudcat from the Vulcan point of view, as just a storehouse for information about folk music. Human emotions often surprise and confuse me. They seem to pervade everything, even when the only physical connection is the movement of electrons through wires and microprocessors.

Perhaps that perception of a virtual community explains the many reactions against the theme of this thread as compared with, for example, the "I am sick of the Beatles" thread. Is Keillor thought of as a member of this community?

Would you say that the problems I touched on earlier, such as responding to an idea with an ad hominem attack or insult against the person who presented the idea rather than responding to the idea itself, don't happen among people who think of themselves as part of the Mudcat virtual community? I think that would be the case in a real-world community. Are the people who do that either outsiders themselves or else replying to someone they think of as an outsider?

Subject: RE: Garrison Keillor the bad singer who ..
From: GUEST,Joseph Scott
Date: 24 Jun 15 - 12:31 PM

"What's the connection between Michael Palin and Scandinavian-Americans?" Palin finds humor in Brits' politeness and reservedness, and Keillor finds humor in Minnesotans' politeness and reservedness, and Palin appreciates Keillor's work and vice-versa.

Subject: RE: Garrison Keillor the bad singer who ..
From: GUEST,Joseph Scott
Date: 24 Jun 15 - 12:44 PM

Arthur Pewty would be at home in Minneapolis.

Subject: RE: Garrison Keillor the bad singer who ..
From: GUEST,Gerry
Date: 24 Jun 15 - 10:18 PM

Shakes asked,

"Would you say that the problems I touched on earlier, such as responding to an idea with an ad hominem attack or insult against the person who presented the idea rather than responding to the idea itself, don't happen among people who think of themselves as part of the Mudcat virtual community? I think that would be the case in a real-world community. Are the people who do that either outsiders themselves or else replying to someone they think of as an outsider?"

I think ad hominem occurs wherever there are hominids. I think there is less ad hominem on Mudcat than on many other internet sites (but don't mention MacColl). I have never done a study to determine whether what ad hominem there is comes from outsiders, or is directed at outsiders, or what, and I decline to offer an opinion.

We are way off-topic here. You may want to post a question, in the BS section, about Mudcat sociology. I should perhaps note that all my experience with Mudcat has come from above the line, as I almost never look at the BS portion.

Subject: RE: Garrison Keillor the bad singer who ..
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 24 Jun 15 - 11:48 PM

A story (many years ago) on PHC described the process one goes through when visiting a Norwegian home.

You visit for a few minutes, and then the host offers pie and coffee.

"No, no thank you. I'm fine."

A few minutes later, the host again offers pie and coffee. Again it is declined.

Only on the third offer is the reticence set aside, and the pie and coffee accepted.

Keillor nailed it, something I'd never realized we did in our family. If you grew up in a Norwegian home, you know this silliness to be true, and learn pretty quickly that in other cultures, the pie and coffee are only offered once. If you really wanted some, you need to accept on the first offer, because it is the last!

Subject: RE: Garrison Keillor the bad singer who ..
From: GUEST
Date: 25 Jun 15 - 02:50 PM

I've seen something like that in Greece. It seems to vary depending on the exact relationship between the guest & host. I remember once when the guest was a young man, a friend of the son of the hosts. After they talked for a while the mom suddenly appeared with a massive feast like an invading army. They argued furiously and ridiculously for a long time, the young man insisting that he wouldn't touch a crumb. Then they settled down and ate heartily.

Subject: RE: Garrison Keillor the bad singer who ..
From: GUEST,Joseph Scott
Date: 25 Jun 15 - 04:20 PM

"No, no thank you. I'm fine."

When I visited Sweden in the '80s our hosts required us to eat and eat -- the only thing that could stop the offers was consenting to eat. Day and night (not that you can tell the difference very well when the sun sets at 10 p.m.). On our last day one of the children of the family remarked, "Now we can go back to gruel."

Subject: RE: Garrison Keillor the bad singer who ..
From: PHJim
Date: 30 Jun 15 - 12:28 PM

Folks who are critical of Garrison's singing just don't get the concept of the show. Most of the music presented on the show is roots based music. I'm sure these same people would have to criticise Roscoe Holcomb, Doc Watson, Ralph Stanley or Karen Dalton if they had ever appeared on the show.
It brings to mind the Youtube comments on Pete Seeger's Rainbow Quest clips that say, "Why doesn't the dude with the banjo just shut up."
I'd be willing to bet that most of Garrison's guests enjoy singing with him.