A Prairie Home Companion: November 22, 2003

Special Guests
Saturday, November 22, 2003

Fiddler Natalie MacMaster has been referred to as "the busiest woman in the Canadian music business." She hails from Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, where she grew up steeped in the traditions of Celtic, Scottish, and Acadian music and picked up the fiddle at the age of nine. She is the winner of two Canadian Juno Awards and several Canadian Country Music Awards for Fiddler of the Year. She has shared stages with such artists as Alison Krauss, Carlos Santana, Paul Simon, and Luciano Pavarotti. Her most recent release is entitled Blueprint, available in the U.S. on Rounder Records.

Pedal steel player and guitarist Greg Leisz is a highly sought-after session musician who has worked with Joni Mitchell, Smashing Pumpkins, John Mayer, Beck, Melissa Etheridge, Shawn Colvin, Brian Wilson, Joe Cocker, Bill Frisell, Sheryl Crow, Paul Westerberg, k.d. lang, Wilco, Lucinda Williams, and the Ventures, to name a few. He has also worked as a producer on albums by such artists as Dave Alvin, Tom Russell, and Rosie Flores.

Rosie Flores moved to San Diego from San Antonio when she was 12 years old. She took up lead guitar as a teen and led several bands before releasing her self-titled debut album and relocating to Austin in the late 1980s. Since then she has released numerous albums, including Rockabilly Filly and A Honky Tonk Reprise and contributed a performance to the album Dressed in Black: A Tribute to Johnny Cash. She has also appeared on Austin City Limits, Live at the Ryman Auditorium, and Late Night with Conan O'Brien. Her most recent album is called Single Rose.