Dave Barry, Bob Douglas, Mary DuShane, Adam Granger, Garrison Keillor, Vidar Lande, Butch Thompson, Pop Wagner, Jeff Wittig,
When the flowers bloom in Dixieland ( Mary DuShane ) Norwegian Fiddle Tune ( Vidar Lande ) Riding the Northern Line ( Pop Wagner ) We Were Alone ( Pop Wagner ) Dear John Honkey Tonk Blues ( ) Good Night Lovin Trail ( Pop Wagner ) Higher Ground ( Bob Douglas ) St. Croix River Logging ( Bob Douglas ) Asparagus Picking ( Bob Douglas ) Supper Time ( Garrison Keillor ) Naked Dance ( Butch Thompson )
Powdermilk Biscuits (theme played by the "Powdermilk Biscuits Band") Powdermilk Biscuits (You know it's cold, but you may just feel a little bit warm with that. But I would say, Mary, that there's no days for cold, for what a little hug and squeeze, an arm around your neck. If somebody you love can make it a lot warmer. And it's truth. Oh, we all know it. We all know it's the truth. But we don't always do it. You know, it's kind of hard going on some of these coldest days up here in North Country. Sometimes we just work ourselves up into a state of exasperation and exhaustion, trying single-handedly to fight the laws of nature that say that things just don't work quite so well when it's 15, 25, 35, below zero. As when the flowers bloom and the birds sing. It's just the truth. Now you know it too. Yes, as a lot of us get downright test in moody these days. Moody and weak, kind of watery in the muscles. Don't have enough strength to take a hand. Grab a hold of the other arm and lift it up and put it around somebody's neck. Who's made the flowers bloom in our hearts. Oh, friends, don't be that way. Don't be that way. Life is too short to be grim for six months out of the twelve. Don't waste your spirit and substance in trying to start cars and trying to fix frozen pipes and thaw septic tanks and all that other business. I tell you, there's a lot of music and love out there. We just have the strength to reach out and reach out and take for it. You know? And you know what? A biscuit. A biscuit can. A biscuit can A biscuit can give you some of that. Yes, you're right It can It can. You bite down into a Powdermilk biscuit and whenever your battery is running a little bit low these days and the starter of love is groaning and grinding and you can't get a moving wire. Just wrap your lips around one of those tasty brown marks. And you turn on a switch and hold on fast. Amazing things happen. Yes, they put a little click in your heels, a little color in your cheeks. They do, those Powdermilks, do. Help the blind here and lame to see and death to walk. I tell you, there are sometimes you're downright miraculous. Oh, we depend on them. Give us a little bit of that biscuit fiddle there. ) The Future of the Limmerick
This transcription may have been auto-created from the audio. Can you help improve the text? Email us!
Well, I tell you it's been quite a week in Lake Wobegon, what with the cold, all this last week. Schools closed, so were the tracks to jacks, most of the week. And I tell you those old men who bake the powder melt biscuits hanging in there close to the oven. Some of Monday's laundry that got hung out on Tuesday still hasn't thought out. Even though some people are wearing it anyway. So cold yesterday in Lake Wobegon that the electricity froze up in the wire. People who plugged in their cars at night had to go out there every hour so and shake the extension cords, get it moving again. Community events were called off in Lake Wobegon, including quite a few that most people hadn't wanted to go to anyway. Such as Pastor Inqvist's annual talk with slides on his 1957 trip to the Holy Land. It's all off. The winter recital of students of Miss Judy's School of the Tap was postponed. I was supposed to be out there on Thursday night and give a talk on the "Future of the Limerick". Can we break through the five-line barrier? And the radio hall of fame closed down this last week due to the power shortage. The eternal cassette in the Vern Sutton silo. Of Vern's singing sweet mystery of life was still running, but Vern was down to a low baritone. I decided to call that off for artistic reasons. I'll tell you one thing that was not called off, could not be called off in Lake Wobegon this week was the semi-annual radio hall of fame banquet at the Sons of Knut Lodge, where after a tremendous baked chicken dinner topped off with fruit compote, up there on the dais with all the grapes of broadcasting sitting cheek to cheek. There, where the grand Oya himself, got up to the podium and issued the traditional call to induction in the Hall of Fame issued only twice a year. AM FM Kilowatt's Megahertz Total Effective Radiated Power mmmmmm. Come-In Butch Thompson! And so did Butch Thompson, become the newest member of the radio hall of fame. Well, I guess there were more than a few of us there at the banquet who were a little bit surprised by it. Some of us felt that since we'd been in broadcasting a lot longer and a lot more often, maybe we could have been co-inducted or something. I mean, I added it up and Butch has said a total of 118 words over the radio on his career and 43 of them were, yeah. Yeah, I thought it over and I decided he deserved to go in because I tell you, he's said a lot from this piano over here in the corner. Nobody plays it like Butch does. The story of Butch Thompson or Kid's shirt, as he's known to his fans, began in the red light district of Marine on St. Croix. Butch: Yeah, yeah. Little town out there in the valley where Butch grew up, that fabled block around the junction of Highway 95 and County Road 4, where fast-talking Swedish farmers on their days off paraded down to Avenue and their flashy collars in their best bibs in search of a game of Pinochle and the company of one of Marine's women of the afternoon. They hang out down there in that district drinking coffee and cracking their knuckles. One of the many body houses, or as they call them in Marine, body shops. Places that belong in history with colorful names like Mel's Standard Service, the Marine Shell Garage. And it was there that little Richard wandered in one day and never left. Because in the back room of these establishments, there was always a radio. And over the radio came the magical sound, the wild beat and the plaintiff whale of jazz. And the great names of jazz and the blues like Arthur Godfreid, Gene Autry. And now Butch joins them in the radio hall of fame of Lake Wobegon. And now in this vast complex, formerly the Lake Wobegon farmers grain terminal, rising from the prairie like great concrete silos towards the sky. There will be one silo dedicated to Mr. Butch Thompson, our newest member of the radio hall of fame. (applause) Well now that's quite the deal, now gettin to the hall of fame. Yeah, I'm moderately flabbergasted. How are you? Well you deserve it I tell you. I like to think Butch that, just like you did long ago, there's some kid out there listening to the radio. Who uh, holds his breath whenever Butch sits down to the piano. Just because it's you playing. And because he knows it, there is only one. I must have Butch Thompson. Do us another. Okay. It's a tune called the Naked Dance, which I used to play up there in Marine when I was getting started in my career. Do it like it, do it like it is. It was for square dancing.
Butch Thompson was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame! Final round of Powdermilk Biscuit Mouth Music Contest. Pop Wagner played at Brines Meat Market in Stillwater MN Garrison to audience: We do want to say some kind of a tribute to the people who've come down to see the show from out of town. My heavens, I can only guess at what they went through and how many biscuits they had to consume to get here. Think I've been coming down from Fargo, North Dakota. Does somebody here from Fargo and Gilby, North Dakota? Yes, they're all around here, all over. And Glenwood, Minnesota, and Ideal Corners, somebody here. Isn't that a wonderful name for a town? Is that a real town? Yes, it is. Starbuck and Brainerd. Erskine, Minnesota. Here they are right down there. All they're all here from Northfield to and from Herman Town, Minnesota. From Tucson, Arizona, somebody here from Tucson? I guess so. I've got it written down. Ryan, Iowa, and Sioux City, Iowa are here. And Mason, Wisconsin. Mason, Wisconsin. And Wheeler, Wisconsin also are here also. And that's just a few of them. Others come from Lake Wobegon who are here today. Let's hear a hand from the Lake Wobegon contingent. Where are you? Oh, my. Loyalty. Loyalty. Bless you.
1976.01.17 Star Tribune: https://www.newspapers.com/image/189769263/
Archival contributors: Ken Kuhl