# Whoa, how did Garrison Keillor's voice change so much? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 20, 2014, 1:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whoa-how-did-garrison-keillors-voice-change-so-much/693597 "2014-07-20T13:30:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Push\_You\_Down](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/push_you_down/32/9095_2.png) [@Push\_You\_Down](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Push_You_Down)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2014, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whoa-how-did-garrison-keillors-voice-change-so-much/693597/21 "2014-07-22T18:50:46Z")
> [@RivkahChaya](#): > > 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. I agree, but I feel the same way about a lot people mentioned in this thread. To me Terry Gross is recognizable completely when they play old interviews…but does sound different because she’s you know… younger. But it is still clearly Terry Gross. Chana Joffee Walt from Planet Money was doing a story that was a several years later follow-up to something she had done early in her career. She played part of her original story in the follow-up. Her voice was very different because she had an affectation. (For example now she really accents the “CHA” in her name where her younger self pronounced it “Hannah” rhymes with Montana.) ---
**Author:** ![Sherrerd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sherrerd/32/8_2.png) [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2014, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whoa-how-did-garrison-keillors-voice-change-so-much/693597/22 "2014-07-22T19:07:25Z")
> [@Push\_You\_Down](#): > > I agree, but I feel the same way about a lot people mentioned in this thread. I heard that 1985 show re-broadcast a couple of weeks ago, and I thought that Keillor’s voice had changed very noticeably. Terry Gross is closer to her ‘old voice,’ I think, but a difference is easy to detect. ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2014, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whoa-how-did-garrison-keillors-voice-change-so-much/693597/23 "2014-07-22T19:24:00Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > 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. My listening to the show has been on and off, but I don’t think I heard it before about 1985 (I was a senior in high school). That’s about the time his book came out, so my bad. However, I still think it sounds pretty much like him now. His voice is lower, albeit, sometimes when he is telling a story, and he starts going at a fast clip, his voice will go into a higher range, and that’s now, assuming that the last broadcast I caught a few weeks ago was recent. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2014, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whoa-how-did-garrison-keillors-voice-change-so-much/693597/24 "2014-07-22T20:56:30Z")
They have done “classic” shows a couple weeks in a row, but if you go to the link in my OP and listen to the July 5 episode, that is 2014. ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2014, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whoa-how-did-garrison-keillors-voice-change-so-much/693597/25 "2014-07-22T21:41:37Z")
I must be sensitive to things in people’s voices that most people don’t pay attention too, and vice-verse-- that is, I disregard things other people think are really important. For one thing, I am still not used to the “new” Ernie voice, even though whoever is doing it has probably been doing it longer than Jim Henson did, but most people I know think that “new” Ernie sounds pretty much like Jim Henson. I also get into disagreements with people over what constitutes a “high” voice. Voices other people call “high,” I wouldn’t characterize that way. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2014, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whoa-how-did-garrison-keillors-voice-change-so-much/693597/26 "2014-07-22T21:42:56Z")
No, I agree: “new” Ernie sounds wrong, as do several of the other characters Henson used to voice. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2014, 5:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whoa-how-did-garrison-keillors-voice-change-so-much/693597/27 "2014-07-23T05:34:30Z")
I’ve never heard the guy before today. I agree he sounds different, and that I would initially think it was a different person. However, that’s because he sounds so much younger in 1985. I have no problem hearing him as the same person, just a long time later. His current voice just sounds like a worn out version of his older one. Well, that and with different acoustics. (The older one sounds live, while the newer one sounds more like a studio.) I agree that Leonard Nimoy is a great choice in demonstrating the difference. You can even hear the in-between version when you listen to him in the Star Trek original series movies. Over time, his voice gets lower, he puts in less effort, and it wobbles more. Also, the link in the OP did not get me anywhere. [Here’s the link I used](http://prairiehome.publicradio.org/programs/2014/07/). Remember, listen to the July 5 one for modern day, and July 12 for 1985. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2014, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whoa-how-did-garrison-keillors-voice-change-so-much/693597/28 "2014-07-23T13:12:42Z")
Huh, sorry the link didn’t work! Thanks for posting a better one. Wild that you’ve never heard him before, but I suppose that’s pretty common. In my media environment, he seems as famous and longstanding a fixture as, I don’t know…Jay Leno or David Letterman or someone like that, I guess. ETA: They now have that July 19 show up, I see–so you can also hear 1994 to compare with 1985 and 2014. It does, as I say, sound sort of in between the two. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whoa-how-did-garrison-keillors-voice-change-so-much/693597.md?page=1)