A Prairie Home Companion's Hawaiian New Year's Eve

St. Paul, Minn. — Garrison Keillor hosts a three hour broadcast from Hawaii, with our actors — Sue Scott, Tim Russell, Fred Newman — and Erica Rhodes; Rich Dworsky and the Guy's All-Star Shoe Band; Heather Masse, plus special guest performers, including slack key guitar and ukulele master, Led Kaapana. The broadcast will include: Guy Noir, Lives of the Cowboys and The News from Lake Wobegon.

"New Year's Eve is supposed to be lighthearted, optimistic, even joyful, and for our listeners across America and overseas, Hawaii represents those things. Yes, I suppose it is a cliché, but it's a happy cliché, and it means that when we Statesiders get off a plane in Honolulu in that marvelous open-air airport and smell the sea breeze and the flowers, we feel an instant buoyancy. New Year's Eve tends to be a disappointing night, too much alcohol in crowded rooms with loud people. I can imagine someone sitting on a farm in Minnesota on December 31st and hearing soft-voiced Hawaiian singers and slack-key guitars and smelling the flowers and imagining beautiful people and deciding that 2012 may be a happy year after all."
— Garrison Keillor