Robin & Linda Williams – Radio Songs
Robin & Linda Williams have been together for more than 35 years and have been featured on A Prairie Home Companion for almost as long. This disc featuring nineteen of their country-flavored folk performances on the show demonstrates that besides helping them to garner a following, Prairie Home has fostered their artistic growth. As they say in the liner notes, host Garrison Keillor has consistently encouraged them “to step out of our normal repertoire to expand the music that we present.” Thus, while Radio Songs includes numbers they often perform, it also features some they’ve rarely sung and never recorded. Highlights include the World War II classic “We’ll Meet Again”; “50,000 Names”, about the Vietnam War memorial; Lefty Frizzell’s “Mom And Dad’s Waltz”; and such originals as “So Long, See You Tomorrow”. Like Keillor’s show, these spirited readings often seem delightfully anachronistic.