Prairie Home Companion tribute to Tom Keith:

[The Straight Story]

Our colleague the actor and sound-effects man Tom Keith died Sunday night of a heart attack at his home in St. Paul. He performed on the show October 22 at the Fitzgerald with the cast and guest John Lithgow — played a zombie and a beery Elizabethan bartender, did the sound effects for "Lives of the Cowboys" and "Mom" and did a wonderful and shocking sound effect of a grade-school teacher being shrunk from six feet to three inches, using a balloon, some small sticks, and vocal thwops and splorts, and then did the voice of a three-inch-tall female. He complained of shortness of breath the next week, but put off going to see a doctor, and collapsed Sunday night around 6 p.m. He was conscious afterward but died in the ambulance on his way to the hospital.

Tom was one of radio's great clowns. He was serious about silliness and worked hard to get a moo exactlyright and the cluck too and the woof. His whinny was amazing — noble, vulnerable, articulate. He did bagpipes, helicopters, mortars, common drunks, caribou (and elands and elk and wapiti), garbage trucks backing up, handsaws and hammers, and a beautiful vocalization of a man falling from a great height into piranha-infested waters.

He was an engineer at Minnesota Public Radio in 1971, when I did the morning show in the studios in Park Square Court in Lowertown St. Paul, and he took the name Jim Ed Poole, did the sports segment, and talked about his pet chicken, Curtis, who lived with him at the Hotel Transom. When "Prairie Home Companion" started in 1974, he engineered most of the first two seasons, using a five-channel mixer, and then graduated to the stage where he played three roles in the ongoing "Buster the Show Dog" — the dog, Father Finian, and Timmy the Sad Rich Teenage Boy. He was Maurice the maître d' at the Café Boeuf and he was Larry who lived in the basement under the Fitzgerald stage.

He was an ex-Marine (who could do a fine drill instructor), a good golfer, a sturdy, reliable, can-do colleague, a gifted performer with the unassuming demeanor of a stagehand. Whenever Tom came onstage for a sketch, I could see the audience's heads turn in his direction. They could hear me but they wanted to see Tom, same as you'd watch any magician. Boys watched him closely to see how he did the shotgun volleys, the singing walrus, the siren, the helicopter, the water drips. His effects were graceful, precise, understated, like the man himself. All of us at the show are shocked by his passing and send our sincere condolences to his family and also to the listeners who enjoyed his work so much.

http://prairiehome.publicradio.org/


Prairie Home Companion sound effects man Tom Keith remembered
by Elizabeth Dunbar, Minnesota Public Radio,
Euan Kerr, Minnesota Public Radio
October 31, 2011



St. Paul, Minn. — When Tom Keith stepped up to the sound effects microphone, radio magic invariably followed.

"He could do anything. You would ask him to make a sound, and he could make that sound," said Dale Connelly, who was Keith's co-host on The Morning Show for Minnesota Public Radio from 1983 until Keith retired in 2008. "He brought things to life. It was amazing to watch."

Keith, most famous for his sound effects wizardry on A Prairie Home Companion, died Sunday after collapsing suddenly at his home. He was 64.

"All of us at the show are shocked by his passing and send our sincere condolences to his family and also to the listeners who enjoyed his work so much," Garrison Keillor said in a statement released Monday.

Keillor said Keith's sound effects "were graceful, precise, understated, like the man himself."

http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2011/10/31/tom-keith-obit/

[bigtree]

1. damn

a huge hole in the ensemble

[eleny]

2. oh, no

this is so sad, such a loss.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

3. This was the sad subject of discussion at my volunteer session this evening

Tom Keith was not only a superb sound effects man, but his alter ego, Jim-Ed Poole was half of Minnesota Public Radio's morning drive time team with Dale Connolly for over 20 years, and the two of them played eclectic music (whatever they felt like, basically, from children's songs to classical, with an emphasis on folk) and did comedy routines with a local flavor.

The MPR Morning Show ended a couple of years ago, and it was a sad time for their many fans.

Now we're even sadder.

[gauguin57]

4. So very sad about this!

Tom Keith has been vital in making PHC the very special radio show it is.

[Sal Minella]

5. We won't be able to bear going to the Cafe Boeuf again.

Tom Keith's insane French waiter was one of my favorite radio bits of all time.

Garrison's scripts would sometimes run him through incredible challenges, and Keith would delight the audience every time.

I'm afraid this will be so hard on everybody at Prairie Home. A talented performer with "the demeanor of a stagehand" is the kind of guy who keeps the place running.

Rest in peace, sir. You gave us such delight.

[Fire Walk With Me]

6. Radio is of course all about the ears...RIP :(

[madrchsod]

7. he was truly one of a kind...

64 years old is way to young to die....rest in peace

[hootinholler]

8. I heard Garrison's voice reading that to me.

I think I heard it break once or twice.

Even though Garrison is not here.

[TwilightGardener]

9. That is a fine tribute--what I would expect from Keillor.

[Enthusiast]

10. A great loss. Sad. nt