Wish You Were Here with host Eliza Blue returns for a second season. This time the traveling music series works as a visual ethnographic almanac, following the ecology and seasonality of raising food on the high plains, interspersed with original stories, an appreciation of nature and art, and songs about life on the prairie. Blue offers a preview of the season.
“I really consciously tried to craft them to follow the arc of the seasons, and part of the mission of the show originally was to focus on rural places,” says Blue. “We’re even taking that a step farther with this season, and pulling in some things with agriculture, which I’m pretty excited about, and some of the overlap between the arts and agriculture, which seems particularly relevant for our region.”
The series expands to our Minnesota and North Dakota neighbors. In September, we pick pumpkins and apples and share music and poetry with musician Sean McFarland (of Snakebeard Jackson fame), and his wife, poet Marcella Prokop, at their orchard called Blackshire Farms near Luverne, Minnesota.
Come October, we visit Billy Talbot, bass player from the band Crazy Horse, in western South Dakota. Talbot and Blue duet on a Talbot original. “The episode starts with a little arc about ghost towns that are being revitalized,” says Blue. “Billy and his wife live on a homestead that had been essentially abandoned. They’ve turned it into an amazing house with a music barn, where he recorded a bunch of his solo albums.”
In November, we traverse to Tuttle, North Dakota, for a tour of the Tuttle Resource Innovation Center, a former high school building renovated into a community food and gathering hub with a commercial kitchen and performance stage. Flautist and hoop dancer Kevin Locke joins from Standing Rock to perform. We stay in North Dakota for December, with a visit to Nome Schoolhouse, where shepherds Chris and Tessa have repurposed a rural schoolhouse into a fiber arts school and center, including on-site classes and retreats, fiber herd and fiber processing mill and retail store.
Bohemian Hall in Mandan, North Dakota, is showcased in January and we are joined by farmer and folk musician Chuck Suchy, North Dakota’s official state troubadour. “He’s a really amazing guy and beautiful songwriter,” says Blue. Suchy and Blue share songs recorded in Bohemian Hall.
In February, we return to the Black Hills to meet visual artists Mark Zimmerman and Mary Wipf at their home and creative space, Green Ink Gallery. “They both work in multiple mediums and are very knowledgeable about the flora and fauna of the Black Hills.”
As the snow begins to melt and we see signs of spring around the state, episodes will include musician Tiana Spotted Thunder singing from her new album Meadowlark, a visit to Blue’s home near Bison, and Blue reunites with musician Jami Lynn’s urban homestead Fretless Farms.
“I’m excited to share the stories of these great artists and food producers, to see what generative energy and cross-pollination can occur when we get to see each other’s creations,” says Blue.
An all-new episode of Wish You Were Here premieres Thursday, Sept. 2, at 8:30pm (7:30 MT) on SDPB1.