Archive Fun: The Hopeful Gospel Quartet
Archive Fun features are put together by David Edin for A Prairie Home Companion
The Hopeful Gospel Quartet was formed when four friends discovered their shared interest in gospel music. They were standing around backstage before a performance of A Prairie Home Companion, and one of them began to sing. The others joined in. Original members were Garrison Keillor, Kate MacKenzie, and Robin & Linda Williams. They performed concerts across the country, recorded two albums, and appeared at Austin City Limits.
The earliest show in A Prairie Home Companion's online archive featuring the Hopeful Gospel Quartet is from 1997. In 1992, Chet Atkins gathered them together and produced the companion CD (Get the CD) featuring the Quartet singing gospel standards such as "Jordan," "My Rock," and "Softly and Tenderly." Here is a performance of the song "My Precious Children" from one of the APHC cruises, where Kate came out of retirement to sing a few tunes with her old friends. It's a slow ballad featuring Kate on lead vocals along with some fine group harmony.
Robin and Linda Williams have been with A Prairie Home Companion since the early days of the show--back when there were 18 radio listeners and 12 people in the live audience. Since then Robin & Linda Williams and Their Fine Group have performed in a remarkable variety of venues, from coffee houses, churches, and outdoor stages to the Grand Ole Opry, concert halls, and Austin City Limits; during the course of a year they'll put on as many miles as many truckers. And no matter where they travel, their voices and harmonies still amaze, no more so than on this album featuring the PHC house band and produced by Garrison himself. 'Visions of Love' (Get the CD) is a beautiful, simple album allowing the lyrics & harmonies to shine. Here, Linda takes lead on an Alfred, Lord Tennyson poem set to music.
Kate MacKenzie served as the producer of Climbing Up on the Rough Side (Get the CD), which gathered together some of the best performances of the original Hopeful Gospel Quartet. After Kate's retirement, the group took a small hiatus, and returned a few years later with Mollie O'Brien.
Kate is back with new music after a recording hiatus of 20 years. Read our guest interview >>>
Mollie O'Brien joined the group after making three solo appearances in 2001. Mollie O'Brien sings Jazz, R&B, blues, gospel, southern mountain, and traditional music. She has recorded four solo albums, three albums featuring her with her brother Tim, and one album with the Hopeful Gospel Quartet. She has a strong voice and can really belt out a tune.
The culmination of Mollie's time with the group was captured on the recording 'Over the River and Through the Woods," (Get the CD) which was a Thanksgiving-themed concert with VocalEssence in 2004 at Orchestra Hall. Here are a few songs from the show:
Newer member Carol Elizabeth Jones hails from the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. She has made her mark as a singer of traditional mountain music and as a writer of new songs in the old tradition. She has recorded several acclaimed albums of original material.
Prudence Johnson filled in as the fourth voice in the below song for the Robert Altman-directed movie, A Prairie Home Companion (Get the Movie). Prudence's 25-year career in music has taken her from nightclubs and honky-tonks to Carnegie Hall; from the theater stage to the silver screen (see: Robert Redford's A River Runs Through It); and from the Middle West to the Middle East. Here is "Let the Light from the Lighthouse Shine on Me."
Heather Masse has filled in as the fourth voice recently. She grew up in rural Maine and currently makes her home in New York state. She frequently appears on A Prairie Home Companion, often with her band the Wailin' Jennys or as a duet partner with Garrison. Garrison and Heather recently recorded an album of duets called "Beautiful Dreamer" (Get the CD). During our cinecast performance, she performed "Done found my Lost Sheep." (Get the DVD)
Even with some changes in the lineup, the Hopefuls keep making great music. Here's hoping they take the stage together soon in any combination!
I am very happy to share this great testimony with you. The best thing that has ever happened in my life is the day I met Dr Jatto online. I am a man who believes that one day I will win a lottery. Finally my dreams came true after I came across a series of testimonies about how Dr Jatto had helped a lot of people win the mega lottery, so I contacted him and told him that I needed lottery winning numbers. Dr Jatto assured me that he’s going to make me win but at first I doubted him because I have tried severally on my own but no avail, after I’ve done all he asked of me, he gave me the lottery winning numbers and when the draws were out to my biggest surprise I was among the winners I won One Hundred And Sixty Million Dollars. A big thanks to you Dr Jatto for making me the wealthy man that I am today. I owe everything to you and to your gods (The great Jatto) the god of wealth. If you need his help below is his contact information:whatsApp:+2349016162155 Email: drjattolovespelltemple01@gmail.com or Website: https://drjattolovespellte0.wixsite.com/my-jattosite
HOW I GOT MY $185,000 BACK FROM A CRYPTO SCAMMER ON FACEBOOK 2024
I lost about $185,000.00 USD to a fake cryptocurrency trading platform a few weeks back after I got lured into the trading platform with the intent of earning a 15% profit daily trading on the platform. It was a hell of a time for me as I could hardly pay my bills and got me ruined financially. I had to confide in a close friend of mine who then introduced me to this crypto recovery team with the best recovery jetwebhackers i contacted them and they were able to completely recover my stolen digital assets with ease. Their service was superb, and my problems were solved in swift action, It only took them 48 hours to investigate and track down those scammers and my funds were returned to me. I strongly recommend this team to anyone going through a similar situation with their investment or fund theft to look up this team for the best appropriate solution to avoid losing huge funds to these scammers…
Quickly reach out to JETWEBHACKERS, on their
EMAIL:jetwebhackers@gmail.com
TELEGRAM: @jetwebhackers
WHATSAPP:+1(704)252-2290
My husband and I were married for six years, but our relationship was filled with emotional strain and abuse. I was ready to give up, especially with a young son to care for. Then, I reached out to a love spell caster. After weeks of work, my husband changed completely, he became kind, loving, and committed.
I decided to give our marriage another chance, and I don’t regret it. We renewed our vows, and now it feels like we’re starting fresh. There’s no more abuse, just love and understanding. Our son is happier too, and you can see the peace in our home. Omega Love Temple [omegalovetemple(at)gmail(dot)com] helped bring us back together, and I’m so grateful.
Good day everyone. I’ve always played lottery games with the hope that someday I will win but that never happened. I did some research online and I came across an advert about Dr lucky who helps people that believe in his work. I explained my situation to him and he prepared a lottery spell for me and gave me some special digits to play the lottery. I did as he said without any skepticism and could you believe that after 3 days, I checked my ticket at a store where I bought it from and for the very first time in my life, I won the sum of £70,820,000 MILLION POUNDS. Now my life has changed for good, I am a boss of my own and I am so happy that I meant this great man called Dr lucky . You can be a boss of your own too by getting in touch with him. For urgent response from Dr lucky you could reach him through his email address castereffectivespell@gmail.com
After being in relationship with him for seven years, he broke up with me, I did everything possible to bring him back but all was in vain. I wanted him back so much because of the love I have for him and I begged him with everything, I made promises but he refused. I contacted a spell caster called DR ISIKOLO that could help me cast a spell to bring him back but I am the type that never believed in spell, I had no choice than to try it, I mailed the spell caster, and he told me there was no problem that everything will be okay before two days, that my ex will return to me before three days, he cast the spell and surprisingly in the second day, it was around 4pm. My ex called me and we resolved the differences and we are happy together now. Anybody could need the help of the spell caster and you can review his website (https://isikolo-temple.com) or call/text him via WhatsApp on: +2348133261196.