I have been listening to him for quite a few years now, going back to the '90s, so it was shocking to put on his Lake Wobegon podcast and without warning hear what sounded to me like someone filling in for him (as unthinkable as that is for that segment especially). I eventually figured out it was an old show from 1985, but I was still amazed by how much his voice has changed.
I am a huge movie buff, and often see performers in roles from recent years one day, and roles from decades ago a few days later. And I never have noticed anyone’s voice changing that much. (For instance, not that long ago I saw Klute and the Hunger Games sequel in the same week, and Donald Sutherland sounded just the same in both, despite a 40 year span between them.) Sometimes when people get really old, their voice may become extremely raspy; but never have I known someone to still possess a smooth voice, but have it become so much deeper.
(it occurs to me that the really surprising thing is that most people’s voices stay so consistent, when age changes the rest of their flesh so much, but apparently not their vocal chords and other aspects of their vocal mechanism.)
Check it out for yourself by comparing the July 5 and July 12 podcast episodes. Just the first few seconds should be sufficient:
Didn’t he have a minor stroke a few years ago? I think that may have had something to do with it.
One thing I’ve noticed in the last couple of years is that he seems to have developed a noticeable “whistle” when he says his S’s. It’s gotten to the point now where I can hardly stand to listen to him because it’s so distracting.
I heard that 1985 re-broadcast and was amazed at the change - I never would have guessed it was the same person. I think in his case it’s at least in part affected - he has some peculiar intonations. I saw him live (not recorded for a radio show, just telling stories on stage) some years back and he sounded a bit different IRL.
On the other hand, I heard a snippet of a 1983 Terry Gross interview earlier this week and she sounds exactly the same now.
Right, Terry Gross is like most people (Bob Edwards is another longtime NPR voice that comes to mind) who sound just the same, decade after decade.
The stroke sounded like an interesting possibility, but Wikipedia says that was in 2009, and I would be surprised if I heard a 2008 show and it sounded like that one in '85.
As for being “affected”, do you think that’s more so now, or then? I kinda thought he sounded more like he was playing a “character” in the 1985 one: he used more stereotypical Minnesota verbiage. So maybe that character sounded different in general, and later he just gave up on that? (But unlike really early Homer Simpson, say, 1985 was after he’d been doing the show for more than a decade.) He stopped doing the show in '87 and resumed it in '92, so I will be curious to hear the rebroadcast today at noon (CST) of a '94 show to see if he shifted over the hiatus.
Something else I came across on Wikipedia that I had never really consciously thought of: there is normally no mention of his name on the show unless a musical guest happens to say it. Surprising when you think about it, how well known his name is in spite of that. Or at least I think it’s well known–but I dunno, maybe there *are *people who listen to the show fairly regularly but wouldn’t be able to tell you who the weird guy is that hosts it?
I recently got some lower bridgework to replace some missing teeth. I started out with quite a whistle with my S’s and after a few months it is not quite so bad. I don’t make my living by speaking in public though. I would think he would work on this pretty hard
Have you ever heard the first show? (of PHC) It’s hysterical. He is so nervous that is voice is about 4 octaves higher than you think. He sounds like the Monty Python guys when they are doing an ‘old lady’ voice.
I just assumed that the difference between these 40-year old shows that they have been broadcasting this summer, and recent shows, is just age and experience. Some of the early intonations sounded very typical announcer style, which I think he lost over time as he became more sure of himself.
That happened to Margot Kidder. If you listen to her in Superman, she has no apparent speech impediment. At some point, she started wearing an upper front bridge, and in a few of her movies in the mid-90s, she has a bad lisp, but it’s gone now.
Some actors who are probably smokers have voices that change really noticeably over time. I can’t remember what it was I watched recently, but it was something with some actors who’d been on TV in the early 80s, but I hadn’t really seen them since. Their voices had changed a lot, and it made me think they must be smokers. One of them sounded not just lower and a little raspy, but really aged-- like, 15 years older than he should be, so he may have had some kind of physical problem, and I may be entirely wrong about him being a smoker. Gosh, I wish I could remember what it was. I was half asleep, and it came on after whatever I had actually been watching, and sort of jolted me awake, while I did a “Who is that? I know I know who that is.” I Googled it, and then fell back asleep, which is I’m sure why I don’t remember.
This show though was from 1985, when he had been doing PHC for more than a decade.
ETA: And I would say that if anything, he was then being less of an announcer and more of a character, kind of an exaggerated small town Minnesotan. But still: none of his characters sound anything like that now, whether it is Guy Noir, the cowboy, or the writer guy.
I don’t know about that. It has always seemed a little odd to me that about the only person who ever seems to refer to the show as “A Prairie Home Companion” is Garrison himself, in show. It seems to me (from when I used to listen to it over KPPC in California) that NPR announcers almost always would refer to it by his name rather than the “official” show name. Certainly when the BBC rebroadcasts it (in edited-down, hour length chunks) they call it “Garrison Keillor’s Radio Show”, and list it as such on their web site, and I think (in practice, if not officially) the KPPC announcers did too.
I will have to pay attention, but if I had to put money on it I do think my NPR station says “Prairie Home Companion”. On their website, they list it that way, but then in smaller print below it it says “Garrison Keillor”. However, they also list the host or hosts of almost all their other shows as well.
Many singers have seen their voices drop an octave over the years, so I’m not sure where the notion that their voices will typically stay consistent comes from: Elton John & Geddy Lee are two that come to mind.
I was watching The Cincinnati Kid (1965) and was surprised by how much actor Rip Torn’s very distinctive voice has changed through the years. It’s almost a parody of itself. I wonder if it’s normal or an affectation. It seemed like a fairly sudden change around 1970. Of course, he might have been affecting a more conventional voice in his early career, and then switched to his normal voice as he became more well known.
I’ve never heard it called anything other than “A Prairie Home Companion,” except for those strange “American Radio Company of the Air” years. It’s certainly interesting that Keillor never gives his name, even in the “writing credits.”
I’ve noticed that in recent years his singing—never his most notable talent—has declined quite a lot. There are a lot of notes he really shouldn’t try for any more. When Peter Ostroushko mentioned on the 40th anniversary show that Keillor didn’t sing much in the early years, I was quietly hoping he might take the hint.
Is that link in the OP supposed to be 1985? I would easily recognize that as Garrison Keillor. His voice is a little higher, and he’s talking a little faster, but it’s easy to attribute the difference to age and his getting comfortable with performing the show after so many years. He sounds maybe a little nervous in the clip, but that’s all.
You don’t think he was comfortable doing the show after more than a decade? Two years after that, he quit, seeming to think it was old hat at that point.
I played it for my wife (who is from Alexandria, MN, right in the neighborhood of Lake Wobegon) today and she had trouble believing it was Keillor. YMMV clearly.