Music of Minnesota

The music of Minnesota has played a role in the historical and cultural development of Minnesota. As with the culture of Minnesota in general, the state's music scene centers on the Minneapolis-Saint Paul area, and most of the Minnesotan artists who have become nationally popular either came from that area or debuted there. Rural Minnesota has also produced a flourishing folk music scene, with a long tradition of traditional Swedish, Finnish and Norwegian music.

Minneapolis has produced a number of famous popular music and folk music performers, such as Bob Dylan, who was born in Duluth, grew up in Hibbing, and began his musical career in the Minneapolis area, and Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, who eventually formed The Time and produced for Gladys Knight and Janet Jackson.

Minneapolis' most influential contributions to American popular music began in the 1970s and 1980s, when the city's music scene "expanded the state's cultural identity" and launched the careers of acclaimed performers like the multi-platinum soul singer Prince, and cult favorites The Replacements and Hüsker Dü. In the 1990s and 2000s, the Twin Cities played a role in the national hip-hop scene with artists such as Atmosphere and P.O.S. of Doomtree.

Minnesota's modern local popular music scene is home to thousands of local bands, many of which perform with some regularity. Some performers from nearby regions of neighboring states, such as western Wisconsin and Fargo, North Dakota, are often considered a part of the Minnesota music scene.

Institutions and venues

Orchestra Hall, Nicollet Mall, Minneapolis

Music institutions in modern Minnesota include the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, the only full-time professional chamber orchestra in the country, and the Minnesota Orchestra, a pioneering institution that was among the first orchestras to perform on the radio and to record. The Minnesota Orchestra was founded in 1903 as the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra. The Minnesota Orchestra is widely respected in the classical music world, and has toured widely; As of 2005, the orchestra is led by music director Osmo Vänskä, a Finnish conductor, who has recently launched a program to record the complete works of Ludwig van Beethoven. The Minnesota Opera is an important local music institution, and claims to be the sixteenth largest opera company in the United States. The Opera was founded in 1963, as part of the Walker Art Center, and became an independent company in 1969. The Minnesota Opera described its early reputation as "progressive (and) 'alternative'" in comparison to the more staid St. Paul Opera, which merged with the Minnesota Opera in 1975. In the field of folk music, Minnesota has produced the Scandinavian Music Ensemble, a long-running group that performs in the traditional styles of Scandinavian-Americans, particularly Norwegian music.

Industry and media

Minnesota Public Radio in St. Paul

Independent Public Radio (IPR) is a state-wide network of twelve independently-owned noncommercial stations that play music by local artists. These stations include KFAI, KUMD, KAXE, KUOM (Radio K) and KVSC, most of whom also operate Internet radio streams. Local music is also a part of the playlists of Minnesota's college radio stations like the University of Minnesota's Radio K, St. Cloud State University's KVSC and Macalester College's WMCN. Most other radio stations in the state are owned by conglomerates like Clear Channel, and play few, if any local artists; they instead use a national radio format, mostly playing classic rock, pop, and contemporary hip hop and R&B. Minnesota Public Radio is also a major part of the Minnesota radio industry; it is one of the most successful public radio organizations in the country, and has grown from a small station associated with St. John's University in Collegeville in 1967, to a part of the American Public Media Group and is now the dominant network of radio stations in the state. Recently MPR launched a new station, KCMP 89.3, The Current, which has gained a cult following throughout the country and indeed throughout the world thanks to its Internet presence.

The Minneapolis-St Paul area is home to a free alternative weekly that promotes local music performers and venues, called the Pulse of the Twin Cities. Minnesota is home to music festivals devoted to several styles of music, including Ironworld U.S.A.'s International Polkafest, Minnesota Bluegrass and Old-Time Music Festival and the Minnesota Folk Festival. The Detroit Lakes annual 10,000 Lakes Festival is an important part of modern Minnesota's music; it features major jam bands and indie rock bands at concerts like WE Fest and the Moondance Jam. The Bayfront Blues Festival is held on Lake Superior in Duluth; the Bayfront Festival promoters also put on the Blues on the Range Festival in Chisholm and the Apple River Blues Festival in Somerset, Wisconsin. The original Bayfront Blues Festival dates to 1989, and it has since grown to become one of the premier blues festivals in the country. Other regionally important festivals include the Boundary Waters Blues Festival, founded by Michael Jankovec a radio host on local station WELY, and the St. Paul Bluesfest.

Many local performers record for one of several regional labels in Minneapolis and elsewhere in the state. Some of these labels are well-known in their field, such as Red House, a prominent folk label, and the Twin/Tone indie rock label. In addition to record labels, Minneapolis has been home to several important recording studios. The first studio in the state was Kay Bank, established by studio engineer Bruce Swedien in the 1950s; the studio's first hits were from The Trashmen ("Surfin' Bird") and Dave Dudley ("Six Days on the Road"), which helped popularize a distinctive Kay Bank style based on using three-track recording and echo effects. Herb Pilhofer and Tom Jung worked at Kay Bank before founding Sound 80 in 1969. Sound 80 recorded numerous local artists over the years, ranging from part of Bob Dylan's Blood on the Tracks to works from Dave Brubeck. Though the Sound 80 building was sold in 1990, the studio is now an anechoic chamber labeled the "quietest place on Earth" by the Guinness Book of World Records. Flyte Tyme Productions, a soul and R&B studio led by Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, defined the Minneapolis sound in the 1980s with albums like Janet Jackson's Control, Alexander O'Neal's eponymous debut album and Hearsay, The Human League's Crash and three albums for The S.O.S. Band. Other important studios in Minneapolis include the Dove studio, which released several cult classic psychedelic and garage rock recordings in the 1960s, and Blackberry Way, founded by Paul Stark, who would later found the Twin/Tone record label. Blackberry Way recorded many local alternative rock performers like The Replacements and Soul Asylum, while Twin/Tone was home to The Suburbs and The Fingerprints, among others.

Minneapolis is home to a few legendary record stores, Oar Folkjokeopus (now known as Treehouse Records) and the Electric Fetus, as well as other stores such as Cheapo. The now defunct Northern Lights Music (and before it, Harpo's/Hot Licks) also carried many local and alternative artists during the 80s and 90s on Hennepin above 6th Street on Block E. Northern Lights then moved to 700 Hennepin (at the SW corner of 7th Street), adjacent to Block E. Before Northern Lights occupied 700 Hennepin the space was home for many years to another record store, Music City.

In keeping with the state's philanthropic roots, the Minnesota Student Association at the University of Minnesota's began a concert series known as Lend a Hand, Hear the Band. Established in 2007, University students who complete 10 hours of community service in the Twin Cities area are given a ticket to a concert at Northrop Auditorium.

Venues

First Avenue nightclub

Large venues frequently hosting widely popular national music acts in Minnesota include the Target Center, Xcel Energy Center, and, more rarely due to poor acoustics, the Metrodome.

The most influential small musical venue in the state is First Avenue, a nightclub that initially opened (as The Depot) in 1970; it was soon renamed Uncle Sam's, and became a franchise of the American Events Company, before finally becoming First Avenue in 1978. Its central location in the heart of downtown on 1st Avenue and historic value of launching renowned acts such as Prince solidifies its importance in the current local scene and in Minnesota music history.

Ordway Center for the Performing Arts in Saint Paul, Minnesota

The Twin Cities is also home to older traditional theaters of less than 2,000 capacity including The Historic Orpheum Theatre, Pantages Theatre, and State Theatre, all in the Hennepin Theatre District. There is also a mix of modern clubs and simple bar and stage venues which generally host local acts. In Minneapolis these include the Fine Line Music Cafe, 400 Bar, the Triple Rock Social Club, Varsity Theater, Foundation, Acadia Cafe, and the Uptown Bar. In St. Paul these include Station 4 and the Turf Club Just outside of St. Paul in Maplewood there are The Rock, and Myth Nightclub.

In 1990, Prince opened The Quest (then known as Glam Slam) in downtown's Warehouse District and the club built a reputation of booking the best local and national acts, competing directly with First Avenue. With a string of misfortunes in the early 2000s, it closed indefinitely by 2007. The location reopened about a year or two later as a music venue called Epic.

Venues generally exclusive to classical, choral, vocal and acoustic music or productions include Orchestra Hall, the Basilica of St. Mary, Ted Mann Concert Hall, Ordway Center and the Fitzgerald Theater, a major music and theater venue owned by Minnesota Public Radio. The Dakota Jazz Club on Nicollet Mall offers the region's best jazz. Along with collegiate music, choral and opera productions, Northrop Auditorium on the University of Minnesota campus sometimes hosts up and coming national acts to appeal to a college-aged crowd but has a limited capacity of less than 5,000.

The region also contains youth music venues, many of which operate as youth centers by day. These include the THE GARAGE in Burnsville, Depot Coffee House in Hopkins, Enigma Teen Center in Shakopee, and on some occasions the Apple Valley Teen Center. Also, a few venues catering to all ages crowds, now gone, are remembered as significant to the Twin Cities music scene. These include the Foxfire Coffee Lounge in downtown Minneapolis and the Fireball Espresso Cafe in Falcon Heights, St. Paul.

Outside of the Minneapolis-St. Paul region, important local venues include Chisholm's Ironworld U.S.A., which hosts major country stars, Ralph's Corner, which closed in 2005 but was for many years one of the premier indie rock clubs in the Fargo-Moorhead area.

Defunct but historically important venues include the former cinema, the Pence Opera House, Perpich Center for Arts Education, NorShor Theater (Duluth) and the Prom Ballroom, which showed many prominent jazz, rock and other bands in the mid-20th century.

Education

MacPhail Center for Music on the Minneapolis riverfront

Music education is part of the curriculum at Minnesota public schools. All students take music at the elementary and middle school ages and many choose to take it as an elective in high school, where schools often organize marching bands, choruses or other performance opportunities. The Perpich Center for Arts Education is a school of choice which draws students from all over the state and has an extensive modern and classical music education program. Higher education in music is an important part of the programs at several of Minnesota's universities, including the University of Minnesota, which offers the Bachelors of Music degree in music education, therapy or performance, and graduate degrees in education, conducting and musicology. McNally Smith College of Music, a preeminent college of contemporary music based in Saint Paul, offers Bachelors of Music in music performance and music business, as well as Associates Degrees and diploma programs in recording technology.

Elementary school music education introduces elements of music like melody, rhythm and harmony, and examines the music of a "variety of cultures and historical times." Students are expected to perform simply melodies and rhythms and perform songs and on instruments, and to use musical notation. Older students are exposed to more complex forms of music and more scholarly approaches to music education. Middle school students further learn about "the connection between a work of music, its purpose, and its cultural and historical contexts" and comparisons between music and other art forms. Students also perform and listen to music, and are expected to evaluate performances using personal feelings and objective criteria. At the high school level, performance, critical and scholarly expectations are higher and more complex, and may require participation in extracurricular programs like a school band or chorus.

History

The Apollo Club's 1889 cast of Romeo and Juliet

Music in Minnesota extends prior to historical documentation, with the music of the Native Americans of the area. The Dakota musical traditions of what is now Minnesota are generally based around vocal, percussive and dance music; folk songs among the Dakota can be celebratory, martial or ceremonial. European settlers to Minnesota brought their own tradition of folk and classical music, especially choral and Christian-themed music, opera, and various kinds of ethnic folk music, most prominently including Scandinavian styles. Traditional dance music is based mostly around schottisches, polkas and waltzes with instrumentation including fiddle, mandola, accordion and banjo.

The first singing school in Minnesota was in St. Anthony (now part of Minneapolis), opened in 1851. Later in the century, the Plymouth Congregational Church of Minneapolis began a singing group in 1857, followed by the first such club for women only, the Lorelei Club (later the Ladies' Thursday Musical Chorus), in 1892.

1920 image from the MacPhail Center for Music yearbook

Thousands of Norwegians settled in Minnesota between 1825 and 1925. Subcultures formed based around village of origin (bygde), and then formed organizations to maintain their home dialect and musical traditions. These organizations held annual meetings (stevne) which featured folk dancing, singing, fiddling and poetry. In the late 1860s, male choirs with primarily Norwegian and Swedish singers formed in cities and Lutheran colleges in Minnesota. These choirs sang a variety of popular and patriotic songs, hymns and folk tunes. In the 1880s, these choirs inspired the organization of singing societies that sponsored music festivals; the largest of these singing societies is the Norwegian Singers Association of America and the Union of Scandinavian Singers.

The end of the 19th century also saw the foundation of two long-running music groups, the Thursday Musical Chorus and the Apollo Men's Musical Group. Two of the most important Minnesota institutions were founded in the early 20th century, namely the MacPhail School of Violin (1907, later becoming the MacPhail Center for Music) and the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra (1903, later the Minnesota Orchestra).

Minneapolis became a home for vaudeville, including Swedish-language vaudeville. This field was known as bondkomik (rustic humor) and featured multi-act plays, dances, songs and monologues. Vaudeville shows usually ended with social dancing. Minneapolis' most famous performers were Eleonora and Ethel Olson, Hjalmar Peterson and Ernest and Clarence Iverson (Slim Jim & the Vagabond Kid). After World War 1, Scandinavian musical pride diminished, a process accelerated by economic decline in the 1930s; rural and regional dance music slowly died out and became largely unknown. During this era, however, the Leikarring movement began, which celebrated national Norwegian folk dance and song through musical societies like Minnesota's Norrona Leikarring.

Around the time of World War II, the Andrews Sisters from Minneapolis were very popular. Today they are perhaps best known for the song "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy", which was covered by Bette Midler decades later. There was also a thriving jazz scene at the time of the war. Local radio host Leigh Kamman is linked to jazz in Minnesota, as he has now been covering it for more than sixty years. The oldest recording studio in the state, Kay Bank Studios, was established in 1955 by Bruce Swedien, a recording engineer, using the building of the former Garrick Theatre.

Folk music

Ruth Adams and The World's Most Dangerous Polka Band, Nye's Polonaise

Minnesota is home to many ethnic groups, but the state's folk music is best known in the areas of Swedish, Finnish and Norwegian musics. These ethnic communities frequently settled near each other, in Minnesota and in Iowa, Wisconsin, Illinois, North Dakota and South Dakota, and their musical and cultural identities grew blurred. Norwegians and Swedes very frequently lived near each other in Minnesota, for example, and their music merged into a perceived Scandinavian identity, rather than uniquely Swedish or Norwegian. Their music is perceived as old-time music, and is also influenced by the area's German, Irish, English, Polish and other Northern and Central European musics.

Norwegian folk dance (bygdedanser) includes participatory social dances and performance dances like springar, springdans, pols, rull and halling. The Norwegian gammeldans tradition continues in ethnic communities in Minnesota, where two-steps, waltzes, polkas, schottisches and mazurkas are known as old-time music. Vocal music includes short poetic songs called stev, emigrant ballads which expressed nostalgia for Norway and express hope, despair and loss about life in the United States. Musical accompaniment includes the accordion, violin, guitar, bass guitar, piano, harmonica, organ, banjo and mandolin. The Norwegian Hardanger fiddle, or hardingfele, tradition has been played at weddings and taverns in Minnesota.

Popular music

Bob Dylan and his band, 2007

Minnesotan musicians from all genres have gained notoriety over the years, with the singing Andrews Sisters gaining worldwide prominence during World War II. The modern music scene includes rock, hip hop and electronic music, and is especially known for punk rock and hardcore. Prior to the evolution of punk in the 1970s, there was little rock and roll tradition from Minneapolis, which author Steven Blush attributed to a lack of anything to "rebel against", noting that it was Minneapolis' friendly atmosphere that made future hardcore punk musicians "crazy and rebellious" The first rock band from Minneapolis to achieve national prominence was the surf rock group The Trashmen who formed in 1962 and had a hit two years later with "Surfin' Bird". That song, along with Dave Dudley's "Six Days on the Road", helped to establish the Kay Bank Studios, which would go on to record bands like The Guess Who and would become known for a distinctive sound characterized by three-track recording and the use of echo effects. Dove Studios was another prominent studio in the 60s, known for releasing a series of psychedelic and garage rock singles that have become collector's items, including Calico Wall's "Flight Reaction" and The Litter's Distortions.

Bob Mould, formerly of Hüsker Dü and Sugar, in 2007

Bob Dylan, a Duluth native, became the first major mainstream solo star from Minnesota in the 1960s, known for his unique lyricism and folk-rock style. He spent a brief period in Minneapolis, attending the University of Minnesota, where he played free shows on the West Bank of the University of Minnesota Minneapolis campus. He was associated with Dinkytown, the local center for young fans of folk music, where he listened to a wide variety of folk and blues. The city's local folk scene produced a few well-known performers in the 1960s, besides Dylan, who spent much of his early career based out New York; these include the guitarist Leo Kottke and the trio Koerner, Ray & Glover. Folk music continues to be a major part of the Minnesota music scene, and is broadcast by the Prairie Home Companion, a radio show hosted by author Garrison Keillor; the Red House record label is the most influential local label, and releases records by Peter Ostroushko and Greg Brown, among others.

These influences contributed to the rise of punk rockers Hüsker Dü, Soul Asylum, The Replacements, and the rhythm and blues stylings of Morris Day and the Time and Prince in the 1980s. R&B mega-producing team Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis have origins in the Twin Cities, and jazz musician Lester Young lived there for a time in his youth.

These later sources brought the Minneapolis music scene to national attention; the period from about 1977 to 1987 was a period of incredible dynamism in the Minneapolis music scene, with offshoots in the punk scene including Soul Asylum, Babes in Toyland, the Clams and many other seminal favorites, while Prince's immense power in the industry (which peaked during this period) created a rhythm and blues mini-empire at his Paisley Park Studios, based in suburban Chanhassen.

Contemporary local artists continue to enjoy critical acclaim such as hip-hop duo Atmosphere and frontman Slug's label Rhymesayers Entertainment.

R&B

Main article: Minneapolis sound

Minneapolis became noted as a center for R&B in the 1980s, when the singing star Prince rose to fame. The city had little history in African American popular music, like R&B, until Prince debuted in 1978. He became the first architect of the Minneapolis sound, a funk and disco-influenced style of R&B, and inspired a legion of subsequent performers, including The Time,Wendy & Lisa and Vanity Six.

In 1980, writer/producer Steven Greenberg and vocalist Cynthia Johnson along with a group of session musicians recording as Lipps Inc. recorded the song "Funkytown" at Sound 80 Studios. In 1983, Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis's Flyte Time Productions began to gain national attention for the Minneapolis sound. The pair's first big break was Janet Jackson's Control in 1986, which launched her career and spawned numerous projects between Jam and Lewis with artists as varied as Mint Condition, Michael Jackson, Sounds of Blackness, New Edition, Boyz II Men, Patti LaBelle, and many others.

Rock

Paul Westerberg, at one time of The Replacements, in 2006

In the mid-1970s, the local music scene in the Minneapolis area began producing popular and innovative acts. Many signed to major record labels, and by the mid 1980s, had achieved national prominence. The first may have been Lipps Inc, who gained some popularity in the late 1970s during the disco era with the global hit "Funkytown" (though the song itself was not in the rock genre). The Suburbs also formed around the same time. They were the first group to be released under the local Twin/Tone Records label in 1978. Largely only known locally, the group developed a New Wave sound in the 1980s and opened for national acts such as Iggy Pop and The B-52's. Template:Sample box start Template:Multi-listen start Template:Multi-listen item Template:Multi-listen item Template:Multi-listen end Template:Sample box end Originally based out of Jay's Longhorn Bar, the Minneapolis hardcore punk scene grew slowly. The Suicide Commandos were perhaps first, and they were quickly followed by Hüsker Dü and The Replacements, who started as hardcore punk bands and became pivotal in the development of alternative rock. The Replacements eventually achieved some limited mainstream success, while Hüsker Dü became the first hardcore outfit to sign to a major label. Soul Asylum was originally a Minneapolis hardcore band called Loud Fast Rules, which played with bands like Man Sized Action, Rifle Sport and Breaking Circus who mixed funk, thrash metal and other influences. The Twin Cities rock scene had fully come to national prominence by 1984, when the Village Voice's critics poll, Pazz and Jop, named three Minneapolis recordings among the top ten of the year: Prince's Purple Rain, The Replacements' Let It Be, and Hüsker Dü's Zen Arcade.

The late 1980s saw new sounds coming out of the state, when Information Society came to the attention of nightclubs and record labels in New York City. The group had formed in 1982 at Macalester College in St. Paul and made an initial release on the local Wide Angle Records label two years later. "What's on Your Mind (Pure Energy)" became a hit in 1988, and they continued to make music through most of the 1990s. Beginning in 1986, The Jayhawks began recording, achieving critical acclaim with a modern folk-rock sound.

Another group to form around the same time was Babes in Toyland, an early riot grrl band that saw moderate popularity through the 1990s as well. They toured with Lollapalooza in 1993. Many groups of the 1980s and 1990s eventually split up, and a number of other bands formed from the remnants. Bob Mould left Hüsker Dü to head Sugar and do solo projects. Trip Shakespeare eventually transformed into Semisonic, who gained popularity in the late 1990s. A former member of Semisonic met up with another from Trip Shakespeare to form The Flops. Other prominent, recent rock acts from Minnesota include slowcore band Low, indie rockers Tapes 'n Tapes and progressive rock gurus The Plastic Constellations. Popular indie rock act The Hold Steady, while from New York, has numerous songs about the Twin Cities thanks to Edina native Craig Finn, their lead singer.

Hip hop

Main article: Twin Cities Hip Hop

Slug of underground hip hop group Atmosphere, in 2003

The Twin Cities region is home to a thriving underground hip hop scene due largely to the presence of Rhymesayers Entertainment. Rhymesayers artists including, among others, Eyedea & Abilities, Brother Ali, Los Nativos, Musab, and, most notably, Atmosphere, began to receive national attention in recent years. Heiruspecs is another notable group. Also recently, the Twin Cities hip hop scene owes some of its success to the annual Twin Cities Celebration of Hip Hop sponsored by Yo! The Movement and former Hip-Hop website Dunation.com.

Electronic/Dance/Techno

Minnesota is home to a burgeoning electronic music scene in the area, though the genre tends to get little radio airplay in the state. Dance music in Minnesota is often played on local pirate radio outlets. The most famous of these was Beat Radio 97.7, started in July 1996 by area programmer and DJ Alan Freed. After his transmitter was shut down by the Federal Communications Commission in November 1996, Freed brought the music to several local stations, including during most of 1998 with nightly all-night broadcasts on the former Radio Aahs network, which reached 10 cities around the country. He now programs dance stations of XM Satellite Radio.

During the mid nineties there was a lot of international attention placed on underground electronic music coming from Minnesota. As raves and Techno were making big waves in mainstream Europe, they were making similar waves as illegal underground warehouse parties all throughout the US. Woody McBride's record label "Communique" and its smaller subsidiaries released some of the biggest classics of the Acid/Techno movement of the mid-nineties and sold 1,000-10,000 copies each world-wide of its approximately 120 releases.)

References

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External links

• Music of Minnesota at Curlie
• Radio stations - a list of stations and formats in Minnesota