Various Artists – A Prairie Home Companion Soundtrack

The soundtrack to Robert Altman’s fictionalized document of Garrison Keillor’s radio show is an oddball collection of comic bits, Hollywood cameos and jazzy folk music. With accompaniment from Keillor’s crackerjack crew (Guy’s All-Star Shoe Band, featuring Pat Donohue on guitar), cast members including Meryl Streep, Lily Tomlin, Woody Harrelson, John C. Reilly and Lindsay Lohan take turns on the usual Prairie Home Companion mix of standards and spoofery.

They all sound OK — Streep and Tomlin, playing a sister act, are actually affecting on “Goodbye To My Mama”, and Lohan is likable enough in a scatterbrained run through “Frankie & Johnny”. And Harrelson and Reilly are pretty funny as the hokey cowboy duo Lefty and Dusty. But when Keillor regulars such as Robin & Linda Williams and Jearlyn Steele make welcome appearances, they can’t help but show up the Tinseltown amateurs.

The soundtrack doesn’t reveal a lot about the movie, which is largely concerned with backstage wheeling and dealing. But on its own, it comes across as a mediocre serving of Keillor’s affable Americana. There are some highlights — the Williamses doing Blind Willie Johnson’s “Let Your Light Shine On Me”, the instrumental “Waitin’ For You” — but nothing you can’t hear on public radio every weekend.

Of course, on the radio show the stars don’t generally get much bigger than Keillor himself, but that’s its ostensible charm. Keillor’s whole shtick is the celebration of small towns, small lives and small musical combos. It sits uncomfortably with actual marquee names.