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Mary Flower And Pat Donohue On Mountain Stage

Mary Flower and Pat Donohue perform on <em>Mountain Stage</em> in Grand Marais, Minn., at the North House Folk School.
Stephan Hoglund
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Mountain Stage
Mary Flower and Pat Donohue perform on Mountain Stage in Grand Marais, Minn., at the North House Folk School.

The guitar-slinging duo of Pat Donohue and Mary Flower kicked off this Mountain Stage road show, recorded on the shore of Lake Superior in Grand Marais, Minn. As the house guitarist for A Prairie Home Companion, Pat Donohue is one of America's most gifted players, and one of a select few to have a Martin signature model that bears his name. His song "Would You Like to Play the Guitar" is one of the most insightful and funny songs ever written about the life of a working musician.

Based in Portland, Ore., Mary Flower is one of the world's foremost masters of the difficult Piedmont style of blues guitar playing, and the only woman to ever win the prestigious National Finger Picking Championship in Winfield, Kan. Donohue and Flower close their set with "Grand Marais Blues," a tune they wrote just hours earlier about their experience on the North Shore.

The duo is followed by Julie Adams, who sings "Bird Island" — which was written by Graham Hill, son of Mountain Stage Band bass player Steve Hill.

This show originally aired November 4, 2011.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.