Taking `Potluck' -- The Music And Fun Are Live On The Airwaves From The Museum Of History And Industry

What: Sandy Bradley's "Potluck" radio broadcast before a live audience each Saturday morning at the Museum of History and Industry.

When: Showtime is 11 a.m, with a pre-show warm-up at 10:40. Doors open at 10:30

Price: $5 for adults, $3 for children and seniors. Snacks and drinks available.

Parking: Husky football games take place on Saturdays, so plan on arriving early. More than 100 spaces are reserved for "Potluck" guests.

Pull up a chair. The best seats are at the card tables front and center. Spread out some eats - cheese sandwiches on thick slices of whole-wheat bread, steaming cups of coffee, cold cider, fudge brownies.

Set a spell. Laugh. Listen to the music. Bring the kids.

"Coming to you live from McEachern Auditorium at Seattle's Museum of History and Industry on the shores of lovely Lake Washington, right across the water from the University of Washington Husky Stadium where even now thousands of rabid Dawg fans are tuning in their radios and eagerly waiting for me to say . . . It's once again time for Sandy Bradley's `Potluck!' "

Applause, laughter and a rousing fiddle opener by Sandy Bradley and the Small Wonder Big Band - Denney Goodhew on sax; those lovable "hair impaired" Canote twins, Greg and Gere on fiddle and guitar; Barney McClure on piano and Sandy behind the electronic keyboard, her wiry gray hair set off by a gray calf-length cowgirl dress and red, yellow and blue suede toe-tapping pumps.

Hum along now. The song is "Home in the Rain" by Seattle composer Alan Bine. It's sung to the tune of "Home on the Range."

Oh give us a home that is warmer than Nome

Where the sky is so cloudy and gray,

Where seldom are heard,

any negative words,

and the slugs and the geoducks play.

Home, home in the rain

Where the slugs and the geoducks play,

Where it's always so green,

And cool to be seen,

In an REI parka and jeans.

Staging a musical-variety radio show before a live audience is "a little like watching a tightrope walker," says "Potluck" producer Gregg Porter. "We've had many stumbles but we've never fallen off the wire yet."

Fifteen minutes to air time and Bradley, 44, is warming up the audience. A veteran on the Seattle old-time music and dance scene, she seems as comfortable with the stopwatch slung around her neck as she does in her bolo tie.

"We have four minutes. We want to do something with it?" Bradley smiles over to Greg Canote, the band's official ham. That's his cue to launch into a rendition of "Don't Mess with Sandy Woman," a song he wrote for Bradley - "a woman who could turn a good man bald."

The hour-long broadcast, aired on 35 public radio stations in 18 states, features an electic mix of guests such as the Seattle cowgirl band Ranch Romance a couple of weeks ago, and tomorrow, Spaelimenninir, a band playing Icelandic music. But make no mistake: This is not "Prairie Home Companion" and Bradley is not Garrison Keillor.

"They rehearse all week and have things down to a pretty tightly timed schedule. As for us, we keep it a lot more loose," says Porter. "Sandy and the band rehearse during the week and we hope the guests rehearse too but they don't really cross paths until the morning of the show.

"The audience has that same sense of tension. You never quite know what is going to happen until it does."