Serving Whitman County since 1877
Serving Whitman County since 1877
The mandolin remained under the bed until one day he was granted permission to use it.
Thirty-five years later, Richard Kriehn of Colton plays the instrument in Garrison Keillor’s five-man “A Prairie Home Companion” band.
Kriehn, a father of three, now teaches at WSU and flies to Lake Wobegon on weekends.
The fictional town is the setting of Keillor’s long-running National Public Radio show which is performed live at the Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul, Minn.
Mandolin under the bed
It all began for Kriehn, now 46, in Bryan, Texas, next to Texas A&M University.
His parents had a bluegrass band, and Kriehn started taking violin in school.
One day, his mom bought a mandolin when Richard was in fourth grade. She wanted to learn to play one but it hurt her fingers, so she put it back in the case and slid it under her bed.
Richard wanted to try it.
It was too nice, too expensive, he was told.
He kept asking. She insisted that the answer was no.
“She had me to where I was frothing,” Kriehn said.
Finally, his mom said he could, with conditions. If he sat on the edge of the bed, he could take it out.
He did, and he stayed at the edge of that bed for hours.
“For some reason the instrument spoke to me,” said Kriehn.
From there, Kriehn kept playing and learning. Later, he appeared with his parents’ band as they performed at volunteer fire departments in places such as North Zulch, New Baden and Madisonville, Texas. They played music for free and ate for free at community fund-raisers.
After high school, Kriehn went to Sam Houston State University in Houston and worked toward a degree in violin performance. One weekend he and a friend drove to Weiser, Idaho, for a fiddle contest and ended up staying.
He transferred to nearby Boise State, where he took classes, played, taught music and got married to Danette, who walked in for a guitar lesson.
The wedding was in 1992, during the years Kriehn played at Pengilly’s and Sandpiper restaurants in Idaho. With friend Tim Williams on acoustic guitar and harmonica, they drove around the southern part of the state, fished in the mornings and played at night. They played old blues tunes and current Lyle Lovett and Robert Earl Keen numbers, among other songs.
With a three-year-old daughter, Caitlyn, the Kriehns decided to go to Nashville. Within five months Richard had a spot with the Nashville Mandolin Ensemble, through which he heard about an audition for an Aaron Tippin tour.
Kriehn was eventually chosen and joined the touring band.
“We only play music with you for about 90 minutes,” he was told by the bandleader. “But we have to live with you for the other 22 and a half hours.”
He later played on a Travis Tritt tour.
The Kriehns left after five years in Nashville, a time of phone calls home from the road with small children in the background.
“It was time to find something else to do,” said Kriehn.
They returned to Idaho where he got a job as orchestra director at Meridian and Eagle High schools. He also taught private lessons.
In 2003, Kriehn went back to Boise State where he finished his degree in violin performance, 20 years after high school graduation.
He started on his masters degree in the fall of 2004 at WSU and finished it two years later.
The St. Paul break
That fall, “A Prairie Home Companion” came to Beasley Coliseum.
Kriehn sent a letter and CD to Sam Hudson, a producer of the show listed as a contact person. In the letter, Kriehn told of how he used to drive around in a ’65 Mustang in Bryan, Texas, listening to “A Prairie Home Companion.”
The week before the show, Kriehn got a call, inviting him to sit in with the band for the two shows at Beasley.
The next year, Kriehn was hired by WSU as an instructor and academic advisor for the School of Music.
Four years went by, and in June 2010, he heard “A Prairie Home” was coming to Spokane.
Kriehn called the bandleader again.
He invited him to come up and play. Afterwards, Garrison Keillor asked Kriehn to come to their next show, which was the following weekend in Ohio.
By August, Kriehn was on the 30-day, 25-show “Summer Love” tour. Eventually, he got to pitch a few of his songs and played one, “Red Barn Waltz.”
He has been in the band ever since, a member of “Guy’s All-Star Shoe Band,” formerly the Powdermilk Biscuit Band, as it was known in the ‘70s and ‘80s.
In June of this year, Kriehn sang a new song of his on the show, called “Hop, Skip, Jump.”
He completed an album, which he recorded with Paul Smith in Palouse last year. Its title is “From Here...to There.”
Schedule
Kriehn keeps his class schedule open on Fridays so he is available to take the 5:25 a.m. flight from Lewiston to Minneapolis-St. Paul.
He arrives at 12:30 and is at the theater for rehearsals from 1:30 to 8 or 8:30. More rehearsals go on Saturday until taping in the evening.
He’s back in Colton Sunday night.
“We get to be there and get paid to be there but we’re fans, we’re just as entertained as everybody,” Kriehn said.
Last December, the show was taped in Manhattan at Town Hall. Virtually every show is sold out.
Beyond playing mandolin and fiddle for the live stage recordings, Kriehn and the band also perform on cruises.
On Wednesday, Kriehn left for Amsterdam, embarking on an “A Prairie Home Companion at Sea” route to Barcelona on a Holland America ship.
The engagement means he will miss the first two weeks of the new school year at WSU.
“I don’t want to ever assume that I’ll always be there,” said Kriehn of his spot in Lake Wobegon. “If it all ends tomorrow, I just appreciate every weekend that I get to go play.”
Garth Meyer is a former Whitman County Gazette reporter.
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