Music of Minnesota
Encyclopedia
The music of Minnesota began with the native rhythms and songs of native Americans
, the first inhabitants of the lands which later became the U.S. state
of Minnesota
. Their relatives, the half-breed
Métis
fur-trading voyageurs
, introduced the chanson
s of their French ancestors in the late eighteenth century. As the territory was opened up to white settlement in the 19th century, each group of immigrants brought with them the folk music of their European homelands. Celtic
, German, Scandinavian, and Central and Eastern European song and dance remain part of the vernacular music of the state today.
Ethnic music has influenced and developed into modern folk music, and American musical genres such as gospel music
, blues
and jazz
also are part of the state's musical fabric. Musicians, such as the Andrews Sisters and Bob Dylan
, often started in Minnesota but left the state for the cultural capitals of the east and west coasts, but in recent years the development of an active music industry in Minneapolis has encouraged local talent to produce and record at home. The city's most influential contributions to American popular music
happened in the 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
. The Replacements and Hüsker Dü
set off the national alternative rock
boom of the 1990s. In the 1990s and 2000s, the Twin Cities played a role in the national hip hop
scene with artists such as Atmosphere
& Brother Ali
.
The Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra was founded in the early 1900s, and by the 1930s it had attained international stature in performance and recording. Since renamed the Minnesota Orchestra
, it regained much of its former renown in the first decade of the 21st century. Classical music
aficianados also enjoy and support the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra
, the only full-time chamber orchestra in the nation. Choral groups and community ensembles are located in many communities. The state's educational system provides comprehensive programs in music education
. The nation's largest public radio network
provides classical and other music programming regionally and to the nation, and independent public stations program a variety of college, folk, and new music.
of the area. Traditional arrangements are generally based around vocal, percussive and dance music; Dakota folk songs can be celebratory, martial or ceremonial. Early European settlers (French and Métis
voyageurs) brought French chanson
s, which they sang while traveling along their fur trade routes. These songs were described by one visitor as "light, airy & graceful", and were often adapted to the rhythm of their paddles while canoeing. Later European settlers also brought with them traditional folk and classical music, especially choral and Christian-themed music, opera, and varieties of ethnic folk music including Slavic and Scandinavian styles. Modern-day traditional dance music is based mostly around schottisches, polka
s and waltz
es with instrumentation including fiddle
, mandola
, accordion
and banjo
.
The first singing school in Minnesota opened in St. Anthony (now part of Minneapolis) in 1851. 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.
Thousands of Norwegians settled in Minnesota in the last half of the 19th and first quarter of the 20th century. 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 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; in 1886, five singing clubs joined to become the Union of Scandinavian Singers, and the Norwegian Singers Association of America has met biannually since 1910.
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 musical 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
comedy known as bondkomik (rustic humor), which featured multi-act plays, dances, songs and monologues. Vaudeville shows usually ended with social dancing. Minneapolis' most famous performers were the Norwegian-descended Eleonora and Ethel Olson
and Ernest and Clarence Iverson
(Slim Jim & the Vagabond Kid), and Swedish immigrant Hjalmar Peterson
, whose company dominated the stage for two decades before the Great Depression. General enthusiasm for Scandinavian musicals diminished in the face of intense propaganda and agitation toward foreign influence following the end of World War I, a process which was accelerated by the economic decline of the 1930s, and by the outbreak of World War II. Rural and regional dance music slowly died out, and became largely unknown. During this era, however, the Leikarring movement (song-dances without instrumental accompaniment) began. Leikarring celebrated national Norwegian folk dance and song through musical societies like Minnesota's Norrona Leikarring.
Minnesotan law provides that public elementary and middle schools offer at least three and require at least two courses in the following four arts areas: dance, music, theater and visual arts. Public high schools must offer at least three and require at least one of the following five arts areas: dance, media arts, music, theater or visual arts. Students may take music at the elementary
and middle school
ages, and many choose to take the subject as an elective in high school, where schools often organize marching band
s, chorus
es and other performance opportunities. The Perpich Center for Arts Education
is a school of choice which draws students from across the state, and has an extensive modern and classical music education program.
The MacPhail Center for Music
employs instructors from all over the world, who teach classes on 35 different instruments, the Suzuki method
, and art therapy
, to more than 7,200 students each year at 45 locations.
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
. The School of Music also offers masters and doctorate degrees. The Duluth campus
offers a Bachelor of Fine Arts in musical theatre
. McNally Smith College of Music
, a college of contemporary music based in Saint Paul
, offers Bachelors of Music in music performance
, recording technology, and music business, and Associates Degrees and diploma programs in recording technology as well as the nation's first diploma in hip hop
.
, Xcel Energy Center
, and, more rarely due to poor acoustics
, the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome
. Northrop Auditorium
on the University of Minnesota's main campus has a capacity of about 5,000, and hosts a variety of music and arts events. Among these is concert series known as "Lend a Hand, Hear the Band", to which University students who complete 10 hours of community service are given tickets.
Classical music is heard at Orchestra Hall in Minneapolis, a 2,500-seat auditorium "justly renowned for its rich, lively acoustics", and St. Paul's 1,900-seat Ordway Center for the Performing Arts
. Older traditional theaters seating about 2,000 include The Historic Orpheum Theatre
, Pantages Theatre
, and State Theatre, all in Minneapolis, and the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts
in Saint Paul. The Guthrie Theater
holds over 1,000, and The Cedar Cultural Center
can seat 465.
First Avenue, an influential music club in downtown Minneapolis, was opened as "The Depot" in 1970, and went through several name changes until it became "First Avenue & 7th Street Entry" in 1980. Its history of launching renowned acts such as Prince
solidifies its importance in the current local scene and in Minnesota music history.
Youth music venues, many of which operate as youth centers by day, include 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 crowds of all ages, 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 Café in Falcon Heights, St. Paul. Other defunct but historically important venues include the Pence Opera House
, the Coffeehouse Extempore or Extemporé, and the Uptown Bar. The Prom Ballroom
and Treasure Inn in Saint Paul and the Marigold Ballroom and the Flame Cafe in Minneapolis featured prominent jazz, rock, country and other bands in the mid-20th century. Outside of Minneapolis and Saint Paul, important venues included Big Reggie's Danceland in Excelsior
, the NorShor Theater in Duluth
, Chisholm
's Ironworld U.S.A. (renamed the Minnesota Discovery Center), and Ralph's Corner, for many years one of the premier indie rock clubs in the Fargo-Moorhead
area.
Independent Public Radio
(IPR) is a state-wide association of independently-owned noncommercial stations that play music by local artists. These stations include KAXE
, KBEM-FM, KFAI
, KMOJ
, KMSU
, KMSK, KQAL
, KSRQ
, KUMD-FM, KUMM
, KUOM
(Radio K), KVSC
and WTIP.
Minnesota Public Radio
(MPR)'s KCMP
89.3, "The Current," incorporates into its programming a wide variety of music genres and the music of Minnesota artists.
, established by Amos Heilicher (who with his brother Daniel did "rack jobbing", jukebox
distribution, and owned the Musicland
chain), Vern Bank, and studio engineer Bruce Swedien
in 1955. The studio recorded hits from The Trashmen
("Surfin' Bird
"), Dave Dudley
("Six Days on the Road"), The Underbeats, The Chancellors, The High Spirits
, and The Castaways
("Liar, Liar" in 1965). Kay Bank helped popularize Soma Records
and a distinctive style based on using three-track recording and echo effects.
Herb Pilhofer and Tom Jung worked at Kay Bank before founding the world's first digital recording
studio, Sound 80
in 1969. Sound 80 recorded numerous artists over the years, ranging from Bob Dylan's Blood on the Tracks
to works from Dave Brubeck
. The studio now is the headquarters of Orfield Laboratories, whose anechoic chamber
, is labeled the "quietest place on Earth" by the Guinness Book of World Records in 2005. Orfield lab also achieved the designation for their friends at sound 80 as "the world's first digital recording studio" in the 2006 Guinness World Records. The two main studios are still fully intact, and they are filed for historic designation by the State and the Federal Government.
Other important studios in Minneapolis include the Dove studio, which released several cult classic psychedelic and garage rock recordings in the 1960s, Blackberry Way, founded by Paul Stark, who would later co-found the Twin/Tone
record label. ESP Woody McBride's record label "Communique" and its subsidiaries "Sounds" and "Head in the Clouds" had released 100 records by 1998.
Prince
's Paisley Park Studios
was used both by Prince and for outside music production by artists such as Madonna
, Boy George
, the Fine Young Cannibals
and Paula Abdul
. The facility was also used for commercial production purposes like TV spots and movies, including 1993's Grumpy Old Men
. Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis
founded Flyte Tyme on Nicollet Avenue
in Minneapolis in 1985 and then moved to a 17000 square foot complex in Edina, Minnesota
before relocating to Santa Monica, California
in 2004.
The Twin Cities are home to a few independent record stores, including Oar Folkjokeopus (now Treehouse Records
), the Electric Fetus
(also in Duluth and Saint Cloud), Fifth Element
, and Cheapo
. Let It Be Records, although its storefront has closed, still sells vinyl in occasional public sales and by mail order. 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 the former location of Music City, another retail music store.
The Minnesota Orchestra was founded in 1903 as the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra. Although it was among the first to perform on the radio and to record, it initially was not known as one of the country's great orchestras. In the 1930s, Eugene Ormandy
transformed it into an excellent ensemble and expanded its repertory, making it the most-recorded orchestra in the United States, and giving it an international reputation. Other illustrious conductors included Dimitri Mitropoulos and Antal Dorati
. Osmo Vänskä
, a Finnish conductor
, music director since 2003, took the orchestra into its second century. Its live performances and recordings in a program of the complete works of Ludwig van Beethoven
have been received with enthusiasm, the group has been called "brilliant", and a critic has stated the musicians are enjoying "their first golden age" since the days of Ormandy and Mitropoulos. Another critic wrote for The New Yorker of a concert in 2010 and its "uncanny, wrenching power, the kind you hear once or twice a decade" and thought that that day the Minnesota Orchestra was "the greatest orchestra in the world". The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra
is the only full-time professional chamber orchestra in the country, and also tours and records. Professional orchestral ensembles outside the Twin Cities include the Duluth Superior Symphony Orchestra and the Rochester Symphony Orchestra and Chorale.
The Twin Cities' oldest major choral society is The Bach Society of Minnesota. The New York Times International Datebook calls the Christmas performance of the St. Olaf College
choir "one of the five significant global holiday events". Extending choral work with VocalEssence
, Philip Brunelle
commissioned more than 100 works for chorus.
For 42 years until 1986, the Metropolitan Opera
was in residence at Northrop Auditorium
during its spring tour. Opera is now staged by the Minnesota Opera
, co-founded as Center Opera by Dominick Argento
in 1963, as part of the Walker Art Center
. With an early reputation as "progressive (and) 'alternative'", the Minnesota Opera began to include traditional works in its repertory when it merged with Saint Paul Opera in 1975.
Minnesota is home to many ethnic groups, who brought with them the folk music of their homelands. When these immigrants settled in rural farming areas, their communities retained Old World social and religious patterns that gave a context for music performance. 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 blurred. Norwegians and Swedes frequently lived near each other in Minnesota, and Swedish
, Finnish
and Norwegian
music merged into Scandinavian music. This music is perceived as a type of old-time music
, which also developed from the area's German, Irish, English, Polish, Czech, and other Northern and Central European musics.
Norwegian folk dance (bygdedans
er) includes participatory social dances and dances performed for an audience like springar, gangar and halling. The Norwegian gammeldans tradition, and those of other ancestries, continues in ethnic communities in Minnesota, where waltz
es, schottische
s or reinlander, and polka
s are newer forms of 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. By the 1930s the Finnish epic Kalevala
was still read and sometimes sung.
For those whose social life centered on churches where music was prohibited by the Pietist and other movements, music was sometimes done at home or disguised as a game. For others, secular, socialist and temperance halls became the community center where bands could include women. Musical accompaniment includes the accordion
, violin
, guitar
, bass guitar
, piano
, harmonica
, organ, banjo
and mandolin
. The Norwegian Hardanger fiddle or hardingfele tradition almost died out during the 1970s and then experienced a resurgence.
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 during 1959–1961, attending the University of Minnesota, where he played shows at the Ten O'Clock Scholar on the West Bank of the University of Minnesota
Minneapolis campus. He was associated with Dinkytown, a bohemian area near the campus, where he listened to a wide variety of folk and blues. As of 2007, Dylan maintained a home in Minnesota.
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 in New York, including 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 for folk, and releases records by Ostroushko and Greg Brown, among others. Boiled in Lead
who formed during the 1980s are still performing.
tradition. Robert Robinson, a musical treasure who has been called "the Pavarotti of Gospel" and whose voice has been called "too big for radio", is the executive and artistic director of the Twin Cities Community Gospel Choir, which Minnesota Monthly said is the state’s most-decorated gospel group.
Produced by Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis
, the Sounds of Blackness
won three Grammy Award
s for their music and have performed three times for audiences of 1 billion: at the 1994 World Cup
, the 1996 Summer Olympics
and the 1998 World Figure Skating Championships
. Former Sounds of Blackness
lead Ann Nesby
has top-five hits on Billboard
Hot Dance Club Songs charts and is the grandmother of American Idol
finalist Paris Bennett
.
tradition has been practiced in Minnesota for decades, notably by Lazy Bill Lucas
and Percy Strother who lived and performed in Minneapolis. Willie Murphy
, who replaced Willie Walker in Willie & The Bees "was named one of the three charter members of the Minnesota Music Hall of Fame
, along with Bob Dylan and Prince," according to Blues on Stage, who added, "the Minnesota Music Association has given more nominations and awards to Willie and his groups than anyone else".
Other players gained loyal fans. Called "The Voice" by Tony Glover, Doug Maynard and his band backed Bonnie Raitt
in 1982. Until he died at age 40, Maynard could "break a note into two and three parts simultaneously so that it sounded like he was harmonizing with himself". Larry Hayes, formerly of the Lamont Cranston Band, wrote "Excusez Moi Mon Cheri" which The Blues Brothers
recorded. James Samuel "Cornbread" Harris
, who collaborated with Augie Garcia and is the father of Jimmy Jam, is one of the area's senior players.
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Jazz
has been alive in the state since World War II
when the Andrews Sisters from Minneapolis recorded the song "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy
" which Bette Midler
covered
decades later. Local radio host Leigh Kamman
covered jazz for more than sixty years, with vintage recordings and interviews with jazz artists.
Pamela Espeland of MinnPost.com
has chronicled many of the 3,500 live jazz performances in the Twin Cities during 2009. Pianist Ethan Iverson and bassist Reid Anderson join Happy Apple
drummer David King
in The Bad Plus
, who have performed during Christmas for ten years at the Dakota Jazz Club
, a well-known local jazz venue. Composer and pianist Carei Thomas recently celebrated his 70th birthday at the Walker Art Center
.
No list of Minnesota music would be complete without mention of jazz great Jeanne Arland Peterson and her five children, Linda, Billy, Ricky, Patty, and Paul, as well as grandson Jason, who recently celebrated 22 years of performing their holiday shows. Dave Koz
said, "There is no family in the world quite like the Petersons. First of all, there's like 700 of 'em, and each one is more talented than the rest."
Born, raised and residing in Minnesota, guitarist Reynold Philipsek
performs gypsy jazz music as a solo artist, and with Minnesota gypsy jazz acts East Side, The Twin Cities Hot Club, and Sidewalk Café.
Other musicians that live and play in Minnesota:
Minneapolis became noted as a center for rhythm and blues
(R&B) in the 1980s, when the singing star Prince
rose to fame. The city had little history in African American popular music, such as R&B, until Prince debuted in 1978. He became the first architect of the Minneapolis sound
, a funk
, rock
and disco
-influenced style of R&B, and inspired a legion of subsequent performers, including the Prince-related acts The Time
, Wendy & Lisa
and Vanity 6
. Curtiss A
, who opened for Prince the first time he played First Avenue in 1980, at first thought that it was nice of Prince to let him open and then later realized: "You know: 'You guys think this is the top thing in town? Well, here: Minneapolis got a brand new bag.'"
Prince fired Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis
from The Time
in 1983 because their production career began overtaking their roles in the band. Their Flyte Tyme Productions began to gain national attention for the Minneapolis sound, and excelled at mainstream urban contemporary music, which had often been shunned by critics. The pair's first big break was Janet Jackson
's Control
in 1986, which propelled her career and spawned numerous projects between Jam and Lewis with artists as varied as Twin Cities acts Mint Condition
, Alexander O'Neal
, and Sounds of Blackness
, to internationally-established acts Michael Jackson
, New Edition
, Boyz II Men
, Patti LaBelle
, and Human League.
In 1980, Steven Greenberg and Cynthia Johnson, recording as Lipps Inc. at Sound 80, recorded "Funkytown
," which reached number 1 on both the U.S. and disco
charts. Homer Simpson
said the song moved him like few others, and the song turned into the biggest seller in the history of the PolyGram
label. During the mid 1980s, eight children of the Wolfgramm family became The Jets
, who produced eight top 10 hits.
has a long history in the state. Garcia is remembered from the 1950s as the godfather of Minnesota rock 'n' roll. Called by Billboard
"one of the top 10 most consistent chartmakers ever", Bobby Vee
, who had 38 songs in the Hot 100 charts
, still tours with his sons, The Vees. From the 1960s, a series of psychedelic and garage rock singles have become collector's items, including work of Mankato, Minnesota
's The Gestures
, The Litter
's "Action Woman", "Faces" by T. C. Atlantic and Trip Thru Hell by the C. A. Quintet. The song Evil Woman (Don’t Play Your Games With Me) by the Minneapolis hard rock band Crow
made the Billboard Hot 100
Top 20 in 1969.
While attending the University of Minnesota
in the late 1970s, Yanni
played keyboards and synthesizers in several Twin Cities rock bands. He joined the band Chameleon
in the early 1980s and enjoyed moderate regional commercial success before embarking on his solo New Age music
career.
Largely only known locally for new wave
, The Suburbs
were released under the local Twin/Tone Records
label in 1978, and opened shows for Iggy Pop
and The B-52's
. The Suicide Commandos
helped to galvanize a punk, new-wave community based at first out of Jay's Longhorn Bar
.
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". "Every A&R person in New York was present at CB
s while The Replacements joyously flushed the set down the toilet, doing nothing but fractions of other people's songs," said Peter Jesperson who recorded them for Twin/Tone.
In the mid-1970s, local musicians in the Minneapolis area began producing popular and innovative acts. Many signed to major record labels, and by the mid 1980s, some had achieved national prominence. The Minneapolis hardcore punk
scene grew with The Replacements and Hüsker Dü
, who started too early to profit from, but were pivotal in, the development of alternative rock
. The Replacements, who "might be the most legendary" Minnesota rock musicians, eventually achieved some limited mainstream success, which led to member Paul Westerberg
's solo career, while Hüsker Dü started on local Reflex Records
and became the first hardcore
outfit to sign to a major label. Soul Asylum
was originally a Minneapolis hardcore band called Loud Fast Rules, who played with bands like Willful Neglect, Man Sized Action
, Rifle Sport
and Breaking Circus
; they mixed funk
and thrash metal
with other influences. The Twin Cities rock scene came to national prominence by 1984, when the Village Voices 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 two singles from electronic band Information Society
, "What's On Your Mind? (Pure Energy)" and "Walking Away", were MTV
favorites. The Jayhawks are a long-lived country-roots rock band who started in the mid-1980s. Another group to form about the same time was Babes in Toyland
, an early quasi-riot grrl band. 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 after it imploded in 1988, to head Sugar and do solo projects. Trip Shakespeare
eventually transformed into Semisonic
, who gained popularity in the late 1990s. Other prominent, recent rock acts from Minnesota include slowcore band Low
from Duluth and indie rockers Tapes 'n Tapes
.
The Twin Cities region is home to a thriving underground hip hop
scene, due largely to the presence of Rhymesayers Entertainment
. Rhymesayers' artists, including Eyedea & Abilities
, Brother Ali
, Los Nativos, Musab, and, most notably, Atmosphere
, began to receive national attention in the late 1990s.
Heiruspecs
won City Pages
"Best Live Artist" in 2004, and in the same year Doomtree
won "Best Hip Hop Artist". For the past several years, through 2008, the scene owed some of its success to the annual Twin Cities Celebration of Hip Hop sponsored by Yo! The Movement and the website D. U. Nation.
depicted Minnesota in his Mississippi Suite
. John Philip Sousa
wrote "Foshay Tower-Washington Memorial March" for the dedication of the Foshay Tower in 1929. Sonja Thompson recorded "Dan Patch Two-Step", and Vern Sutton, Charlie Maguire, Peter Ostroushko
and Ann Reed
have recorded songs celebrating the Minnesota State Fair
. Tom Waits
released two songs about Minneapolis, "Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis
" (Blue Valentine 1978) and "9th & Hennepin" (Rain Dogs
1985). In 1987 The Silencers
released A Letter from St. Paul. Lucinda Williams
recorded "Minneapolis" (World Without Tears
2003). In 1975, Northern Light reached the Billboard charts when they released a song titled "Minnesota" that sang the praises of the state's natural beauty.
Native Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
, the first inhabitants of the lands which later became the U.S. state
U.S. state
A U.S. state is any one of the 50 federated states of the United States of America that share sovereignty with the federal government. Because of this shared sovereignty, an American is a citizen both of the federal entity and of his or her state of domicile. Four states use the official title of...
of Minnesota
Minnesota
Minnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...
. Their relatives, the half-breed
Half-breed
Half-breed is an historic term used to describe anyone who is mixed Native American and white European parentage...
Métis
Métis
A Métis is a person born to parents who belong to different groups defined by visible physical differences, regarded as racial, or the descendant of such persons. The term is of French origin, and also is a cognate of mestizo in Spanish, mestiço in Portuguese, and mestee in English...
fur-trading voyageurs
Coureur des bois
A coureur des bois or coureur de bois was an independent entrepreneurial French-Canadian woodsman who traveled in New France and the interior of North America. They travelled in the woods to trade various things for fur....
, introduced the chanson
Chanson
A chanson is in general any lyric-driven French song, usually polyphonic and secular. A singer specialising in chansons is known as a "chanteur" or "chanteuse" ; a collection of chansons, especially from the late Middle Ages and Renaissance, is also known as a chansonnier.-Chanson de geste:The...
s of their French ancestors in the late eighteenth century. As the territory was opened up to white settlement in the 19th century, each group of immigrants brought with them the folk music of their European homelands. Celtic
Celtic music in the United States
Irish, Scottish music and Welsh Music have long been a major part of American music, at least as far back as the 18th century. Beginning in the 1960s, performers like the Clancy Brothers became stars in the Irish music scene, which dates back to at least the colonial era, when many Irish...
, German, Scandinavian, and Central and Eastern European song and dance remain part of the vernacular music of the state today.
Ethnic music has influenced and developed into modern folk music, and American musical genres such as gospel music
Gospel music
Gospel music is music that is written to express either personal, spiritual or a communal belief regarding Christian life, as well as to give a Christian alternative to mainstream secular music....
, blues
Blues
Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...
and jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
also are part of the state's musical fabric. Musicians, such as the Andrews Sisters and Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...
, often started in Minnesota but left the state for the cultural capitals of the east and west coasts, but in recent years the development of an active music industry in Minneapolis has encouraged local talent to produce and record at home. The city's most influential contributions to American popular music
American popular music
American popular music had a profound effect on music across the world. The country has seen the rise of popular styles that have had a significant influence on global culture, including ragtime, blues, jazz, swing, rock, R&B, doo wop, gospel, soul, funk, heavy metal, punk, disco, house, techno,...
happened in the 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
Soul music
Soul music is a music genre originating in the United States combining elements of gospel music and rhythm and blues. According to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, soul is "music that arose out of the black experience in America through the transmutation of gospel and rhythm & blues into a form of...
singer Prince
Prince (musician)
Prince Rogers Nelson , often known simply as Prince, is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and actor. Prince has produced ten platinum albums and thirty Top 40 singles during his career. Prince founded his own recording studio and label; writing, self-producing and playing most, or all, of...
. The Replacements and Hüsker Dü
Hüsker Dü
Hüsker Dü was an American rock band formed in Saint Paul, Minnesota in 1979. The band's continual members were guitarist Bob Mould, bassist Greg Norton, and drummer Grant Hart....
set off the national alternative rock
Alternative rock
Alternative rock is a genre of rock music and a term used to describe a diverse musical movement that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1980s and became widely popular by the 1990s...
boom of the 1990s. In the 1990s and 2000s, the Twin Cities played a role in the national hip hop
Hip hop
Hip hop is a form of musical expression and artistic culture that originated in African-American and Latino communities during the 1970s in New York City, specifically the Bronx. DJ Afrika Bambaataa outlined the four pillars of hip hop culture: MCing, DJing, breaking and graffiti writing...
scene with artists such as Atmosphere
Atmosphere (music group)
Atmosphere is an American hip hop group from Minneapolis, Minnesota. The group is composed of rapper Slug and DJ/Producer Ant...
& Brother Ali
Brother Ali
Ali Newman , better known by the stage name Brother Ali, is an American hip hop artist signed to Rhymesayers Entertainment.-Personal life:...
.
The Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra was founded in the early 1900s, and by the 1930s it had attained international stature in performance and recording. Since renamed the Minnesota Orchestra
Minnesota Orchestra
The Minnesota Orchestra is an American orchestra based in Minneapolis, Minnesota.Emil Oberhoffer founded the orchestra as the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra in 1903, and it gave its first performance on November 5 of that year. In 1968 the orchestra changed to its name to the Minnesota Orchestra...
, it regained much of its former renown in the first decade of the 21st century. Classical music
Classical music
Classical music is the art music produced in, or rooted in, the traditions of Western liturgical and secular music, encompassing a broad period from roughly the 11th century to present times...
aficianados also enjoy and support the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra
Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra
The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra , based in Saint Paul, Minnesota, is the United States' only full-time professional chamber orchestra...
, the only full-time chamber orchestra in the nation. Choral groups and community ensembles are located in many communities. The state's educational system provides comprehensive programs in music education
Music education
Music education is a field of study associated with the teaching and learning of music. It touches on all domains of learning, including the psychomotor domain , the cognitive domain , and, in particular and significant ways,the affective domain, including music appreciation and sensitivity...
. The nation's largest public radio network
Radio network
There are two types of radio networks currently in use around the world: the one-to-many broadcast type commonly used for public information and mass media entertainment; and the two-way type used more commonly for public safety and public services such as police, fire, taxicabs, and delivery...
provides classical and other music programming regionally and to the nation, and independent public stations program a variety of college, folk, and new music.
History
The music of Minnesota has its roots with the music of the Native AmericansNative American music
American Indian music is the music that is used, created or performed by Native North Americans, specifically traditional tribal music. In addition to the traditional music of the Native American groups, there now exist pan-tribal and inter-tribal genres as well as distinct Indian subgenres of...
of the area. Traditional arrangements are generally based around vocal, percussive and dance music; Dakota folk songs can be celebratory, martial or ceremonial. Early European settlers (French and Métis
Métis
A Métis is a person born to parents who belong to different groups defined by visible physical differences, regarded as racial, or the descendant of such persons. The term is of French origin, and also is a cognate of mestizo in Spanish, mestiço in Portuguese, and mestee in English...
voyageurs) brought French chanson
Chanson
A chanson is in general any lyric-driven French song, usually polyphonic and secular. A singer specialising in chansons is known as a "chanteur" or "chanteuse" ; a collection of chansons, especially from the late Middle Ages and Renaissance, is also known as a chansonnier.-Chanson de geste:The...
s, which they sang while traveling along their fur trade routes. These songs were described by one visitor as "light, airy & graceful", and were often adapted to the rhythm of their paddles while canoeing. Later European settlers also brought with them traditional folk and classical music, especially choral and Christian-themed music, opera, and varieties of ethnic folk music including Slavic and Scandinavian styles. Modern-day traditional dance music is based mostly around schottisches, polka
Polka
The polka is a Central European dance and also a genre of dance music familiar throughout Europe and the Americas. It originated in the middle of the 19th century in Bohemia...
s and waltz
Waltz
The waltz is a ballroom and folk dance in time, performed primarily in closed position.- History :There are several references to a sliding or gliding dance,- a waltz, from the 16th century including the representations of the printer H.S. Beheim...
es with instrumentation including fiddle
Fiddle
The term fiddle may refer to any bowed string musical instrument, most often the violin. It is also a colloquial term for the instrument used by players in all genres, including classical music...
, mandola
Mandola
The mandola or tenor mandola is a fretted, stringed musical instrument. It is to the mandolin what the viola is to the violin: the four double courses of strings tuned in fifths to the same pitches as the viola , a fifth lower than a mandolin...
, accordion
Accordion
The accordion is a box-shaped musical instrument of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone family, sometimes referred to as a squeezebox. A person who plays the accordion is called an accordionist....
and banjo
Banjo
In the 1830s Sweeney became the first white man to play the banjo on stage. His version of the instrument replaced the gourd with a drum-like sound box and included four full-length strings alongside a short fifth-string. There is no proof, however, that Sweeney invented either innovation. This new...
.
The first singing school in Minnesota opened in St. Anthony (now part of Minneapolis) in 1851. 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.
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 musical institutions were founded in the early 20th century, namely the MacPhail School of Violin (1907, later becoming the MacPhail Center for Music
MacPhail Center for Music
The MacPhail Center for Music is a nonprofit music school in a recently opened building in the Mills District of Downtown East, Minneapolis, Minnesota. The school has over 7,750 students, providing instruction at 48 locations outside of its downtown Minneapolis facility on more than 35 instruments...
) and the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra (1903, later the Minnesota Orchestra
Minnesota Orchestra
The Minnesota Orchestra is an American orchestra based in Minneapolis, Minnesota.Emil Oberhoffer founded the orchestra as the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra in 1903, and it gave its first performance on November 5 of that year. In 1968 the orchestra changed to its name to the Minnesota Orchestra...
).
Minneapolis became a home for vaudeville
Vaudeville
Vaudeville was a theatrical genre of variety entertainment in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s. Each performance was made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill...
comedy known as bondkomik (rustic humor), which featured multi-act plays, dances, songs and monologues. Vaudeville shows usually ended with social dancing. Minneapolis' most famous performers were the Norwegian-descended Eleonora and Ethel Olson
Eleonora and Ethel Olson
Between 1905 and 1925 Eleonora and Ethel Olson were well-known figures in Scandinavian communities throughout the United States. They toured extensively in the Midwest, and their recordings on major record labels gained them a nationwide following....
and Ernest and Clarence Iverson
Ernest and Clarence Iverson
-Norwegian-American entertainers:Ernest and Clarence Iverson were popular radio personalities in the Midwest during the 1930s and 1940s. Ernest was known as Slim Jim. His brother Clarence was the Vagabond Kid...
(Slim Jim & the Vagabond Kid), and Swedish immigrant Hjalmar Peterson
Hjalmar Peterson
-Swedish-American entertainer:Olle i Skratthult was the stage name of Hjalmar Peterson, a Swedish-American vaudeville artist, who achieved great popularity during the 1910s and 1920s. Peterson was born February 7, 1886 in the Swedish province of Värmland. Arriving in the United States in 1906, he...
, whose company dominated the stage for two decades before the Great Depression. General enthusiasm for Scandinavian musicals diminished in the face of intense propaganda and agitation toward foreign influence following the end of World War I, a process which was accelerated by the economic decline of the 1930s, and by the outbreak of World War II. Rural and regional dance music slowly died out, and became largely unknown. During this era, however, the Leikarring movement (song-dances without instrumental accompaniment) began. Leikarring celebrated national Norwegian folk dance and song through musical societies like Minnesota's Norrona Leikarring.
Education
Elementary school
An elementary school or primary school is an institution where children receive the first stage of compulsory education known as elementary or primary education. Elementary school is the preferred term in some countries, particularly those in North America, where the terms grade school and grammar...
and middle school
Middle school
Middle School and Junior High School are levels of schooling between elementary and high schools. Most school systems use one term or the other, not both. The terms are not interchangeable...
ages, and many choose to take the subject as an elective in high school, where schools often organize marching band
Marching band
Marching band is a physical activity in which a group of instrumental musicians generally perform outdoors and incorporate some type of marching with their musical performance. Instrumentation typically includes brass, woodwinds, and percussion instruments...
s, chorus
Choir
A choir, chorale or chorus is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform.A body of singers who perform together as a group is called a choir or chorus...
es and other performance opportunities. The Perpich Center for Arts Education
Perpich Center for Arts Education
The Perpich Center for Arts Education is an agency of the State of Minnesota that works to improve arts education for Minnesota students and educators through programs and partnerships centered in the arts. A campus in Golden Valley houses the Center's three main components: the Professional...
is a school of choice which draws students from across the state, and has an extensive modern and classical music education program.
The MacPhail Center for Music
MacPhail Center for Music
The MacPhail Center for Music is a nonprofit music school in a recently opened building in the Mills District of Downtown East, Minneapolis, Minnesota. The school has over 7,750 students, providing instruction at 48 locations outside of its downtown Minneapolis facility on more than 35 instruments...
employs instructors from all over the world, who teach classes on 35 different instruments, the Suzuki method
Suzuki method
The Suzuki method is a method of teaching music that emerged in the mid-20th century.-Background:The Suzuki Method was conceived in the mid-20th century by Shin'ichi Suzuki, a Japanese violinist who desired to bring beauty to the lives of children in his country after the devastation of World War II...
, and art therapy
Art therapy
Because of its dual origins in art and psychotherapy, art therapy definitions vary. They commonly either lean more toward the ART art-making process as therapeutic in and of itself, "art as therapy," or focus on the psychotherapeutic transference process between the therapist and the client who...
, to more than 7,200 students each year at 45 locations.
Higher education
Higher education
Higher, post-secondary, tertiary, or third level education refers to the stage of learning that occurs at universities, academies, colleges, seminaries, and institutes of technology...
in music is an important part of the programs at several of Minnesota's universities
University
A university is an institution of higher education and research, which grants academic degrees in a variety of subjects. A university is an organisation that provides both undergraduate education and postgraduate education...
, including the University of Minnesota
University of Minnesota
The University of Minnesota, Twin Cities is a public research university located in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, United States. It is the oldest and largest part of the University of Minnesota system and has the fourth-largest main campus student body in the United States, with 52,557...
, which offers the Bachelors of Music degree in music education, therapy
Music therapy
Music therapy is an allied health profession and one of the expressive therapies, consisting of an interpersonal process in which a trained music therapist uses music and all of its facets—physical, emotional, mental, social, aesthetic, and spiritual—to help clients to improve or maintain their...
or performance, and graduate degrees in education, conducting
Conducting
Conducting is the art of directing a musical performance by way of visible gestures. The primary duties of the conductor are to unify performers, set the tempo, execute clear preparations and beats, and to listen critically and shape the sound of the ensemble...
and musicology
Musicology
Musicology is the scholarly study of music. The word is used in narrow, broad and intermediate senses. In the narrow sense, musicology is confined to the music history of Western culture...
. The School of Music also offers masters and doctorate degrees. The Duluth campus
University of Minnesota Duluth
The University of Minnesota Duluth is a regional branch of the University of Minnesota system located in Duluth, Minnesota, USA. As Duluth's public research university, UMD offers 13 bachelor's degrees in 74 majors, graduate programs in 24 different fields, a two-year program at the School of...
offers a Bachelor of Fine Arts in musical theatre
Musical theatre
Musical theatre is a form of theatre combining songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an...
. McNally Smith College of Music
McNally Smith College of Music
McNally Smith College of Music is a contemporary for-profit music college located in Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States. McNally Smith offers a range of diplomas, associate's degrees, and bachelor's degrees in the areas of music business; performance in guitar, bass, drums, voice, keyboard, brass...
, a college of contemporary music based in Saint Paul
Saint Paul, Minnesota
Saint Paul is the capital and second-most populous city of the U.S. state of Minnesota. The city lies mostly on the east bank of the Mississippi River in the area surrounding its point of confluence with the Minnesota River, and adjoins Minneapolis, the state's largest city...
, offers Bachelors of Music in music performance
Performance
A performance, in performing arts, generally comprises an event in which a performer or group of performers behave in a particular way for another group of people, the audience. Choral music and ballet are examples. Usually the performers participate in rehearsals beforehand. Afterwards audience...
, recording technology, and music business, and Associates Degrees and diploma programs in recording technology as well as the nation's first diploma in hip hop
Hip hop
Hip hop is a form of musical expression and artistic culture that originated in African-American and Latino communities during the 1970s in New York City, specifically the Bronx. DJ Afrika Bambaataa outlined the four pillars of hip hop culture: MCing, DJing, breaking and graffiti writing...
.
Venues
Large venues for popular national music acts in Minnesota include the Target CenterTarget Center
The Target Center is an arena in downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota. It is sponsored by Target Corporation. The arena has a capacity of 20,500 people. It contains 702 club seats and 68 suites....
, Xcel Energy Center
Xcel Energy Center
The Xcel Energy Center is a multi-purpose arena located in Saint Paul, Minnesota. It is named for its locally-based corporate sponsor Xcel Energy. With an official capacity of 18,064, the arena has four spectator levels: one suite level and three general seating levels. The arena is owned by the...
, and, more rarely due to poor acoustics
Acoustics
Acoustics is the interdisciplinary science that deals with the study of all mechanical waves in gases, liquids, and solids including vibration, sound, ultrasound and infrasound. A scientist who works in the field of acoustics is an acoustician while someone working in the field of acoustics...
, the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome
Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome
The Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome, commonly called the Metrodome, is a domed sports stadium in downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. Opened in 1982, it replaced Metropolitan Stadium, which was on the current site of the Mall of America in Bloomington and Memorial Stadium on the University...
. Northrop Auditorium
Northrop Auditorium
Cyrus Northrop Memorial Auditorium is a stage venue at the University of Minnesota's Minneapolis campus named for Cyrus Northrop, the university's second president. Various events are held there, including concerts, ballet performances, and lectures. The structure was built in 1929 and has...
on the University of Minnesota's main campus has a capacity of about 5,000, and hosts a variety of music and arts events. Among these is concert series known as "Lend a Hand, Hear the Band", to which University students who complete 10 hours of community service are given tickets.
Classical music is heard at Orchestra Hall in Minneapolis, a 2,500-seat auditorium "justly renowned for its rich, lively acoustics", and St. Paul's 1,900-seat Ordway Center for the Performing Arts
Ordway Center for the Performing Arts
Ordway Center for the Performing Arts is located in downtown Saint Paul, Minnesota and hosts a variety of performing arts, such as touring Broadway musicals, orchestra, opera, and cultural performers. It serves as a home to several local arts organizations, including the Minnesota Opera, The Saint...
. Older traditional theaters seating about 2,000 include The Historic Orpheum Theatre
The Historic Orpheum Theatre
The Historic Orpheum Theatre is a theater in downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota. It is one of four restored theaters on Hennepin Avenue, along with the Pantages Theatre, the State Theatre and the Shubert Theatre....
, Pantages Theatre
Pantages Theatre (Minneapolis)
The Pantages Theatre is a historic theatre in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The original building was a Beaux-Arts style twelve-story complex on Hennepin Avenue, designed by Kees & Colburn and operated by Alexander Pantages, a Greek immigrant who opened 500 theatres.The building was reduced...
, and State Theatre, all in Minneapolis, and the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts
Ordway Center for the Performing Arts
Ordway Center for the Performing Arts is located in downtown Saint Paul, Minnesota and hosts a variety of performing arts, such as touring Broadway musicals, orchestra, opera, and cultural performers. It serves as a home to several local arts organizations, including the Minnesota Opera, The Saint...
in Saint Paul. The Guthrie Theater
Guthrie Theater
The Guthrie Theater is a center for theater performance, production, education, and professional training in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It is the result of the desire of Sir Tyrone Guthrie, Oliver Rea, and Peter Zeisler to create a resident acting company that would produce and perform the classics in...
holds over 1,000, and The Cedar Cultural Center
The Cedar Cultural Center
The Cedar Cultural Center is a music venue in Cedar-Riverside neighborhood of Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. It is a non-profit organization and operated by volunteers.-External links:* **...
can seat 465.
Prince (musician)
Prince Rogers Nelson , often known simply as Prince, is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and actor. Prince has produced ten platinum albums and thirty Top 40 singles during his career. Prince founded his own recording studio and label; writing, self-producing and playing most, or all, of...
solidifies its importance in the current local scene and in Minnesota music history.
Youth music venues, many of which operate as youth centers by day, include THE GARAGE
THE GARAGE
The Garage is a non-profit youth center and all-ages music venue in Burnsville, Minnesota, a southern suburb of Minneapolis. It has been a launching point for local bands such as Down and Above, Dropping Daylight, Escape from Earth, Four Letter Lie, Quietdrive, Screaming Mechanical Brain, and The...
in Burnsville
Burnsville, Minnesota
Burnsville is a city south of downtown Minneapolis in Dakota County in the U.S. state of Minnesota. The city lies on the south bank of the Minnesota River, upstream from the confluence with the Mississippi River...
, Depot Coffee House in Hopkins
Hopkins, Minnesota
As of the census of 2000, there were 17,145 people, 8,224 households, and 3,741 families residing in the city. The population density was 4,205.9 people per square mile . There were 8,390 housing units at an average density of 2,058.2 pe square mile...
, Enigma Teen Center in Shakopee
Shakopee, Minnesota
Shakopee is a city southwest of downtown Minneapolis in the U.S. state of Minnesota and is the county seat of Scott County. Located on the south bank bend of the Minnesota River, Shakopee and nearby suburbs comprise the southwest portion of Minneapolis-Saint Paul, the thirteenth largest...
, and on some occasions the Apple Valley Teen Center
Apple Valley, Minnesota
As of the census of 2000, there were 45,527 people, 16,344 households, and 12,405 families residing in the city. The population density was 2,625.5 people per square mile . There were 16,536 housing units at an average density of 953.6 per square mile...
. Also, a few venues catering to crowds of all ages, 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 Café in Falcon Heights, St. Paul. Other defunct but historically important venues include the Pence Opera House
Pence Opera House
The Pence Opera House was an opera house and later, a mission, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. The Opera House was opened in 1867 and razed in 1952, and was designed by architect A. M. Radcliffe.-References:*...
, the Coffeehouse Extempore or Extemporé, and the Uptown Bar. The Prom Ballroom
Prom Ballroom
The Prom Ballroom was a dance hall in Saint Paul, Minnesota, which opened in 1941 with a performance by Glenn Miller. The club played a diverse array of acts, ranging from rock to polka and jazz, and included acts like Count Basie and Lawrence Welk. The house orchestra was called the Jules Herman...
and Treasure Inn in Saint Paul and the Marigold Ballroom and the Flame Cafe in Minneapolis featured prominent jazz, rock, country and other bands in the mid-20th century. Outside of Minneapolis and Saint Paul, important venues included Big Reggie's Danceland in Excelsior
Excelsior, Minnesota
Excelsior is a settlement on Lake Minnetonka in Hennepin County, Minnesota, United States. The population was 2,188 at the 2010 census.-Geography:...
, the NorShor Theater in Duluth
Duluth, Minnesota
Duluth is a port city in the U.S. state of Minnesota and is the county seat of Saint Louis County. The fourth largest city in Minnesota, Duluth had a total population of 86,265 in the 2010 census. Duluth is also the second largest city that is located on Lake Superior after Thunder Bay, Ontario,...
, Chisholm
Chisholm, Minnesota
As of the census of 2000, there were 4,960 people, 2,178 households, and 1,287 families residing in the city. The population density was 1,129 people per square mile . There were 2,375 housing units at an average density of 540/sq mi...
's Ironworld U.S.A. (renamed the Minnesota Discovery Center), and Ralph's Corner, for many years one of the premier indie rock clubs in the Fargo-Moorhead
Fargo-Moorhead
Fargo-Moorhead is a common name given to the metropolitan area comprising Fargo, North Dakota, Moorhead, Minnesota, and the surrounding communities. These two cities lie on the North Dakota-Minnesota border, on opposite banks of the Red River of the North...
area.
Radio
Independent Public Radio
Independent Public Radio is a public radio network in Minnesota. It is the second-largest public radio organization in the state, after Minnesota Public Radio...
(IPR) is a state-wide association of independently-owned noncommercial stations that play music by local artists. These stations include KAXE
KAXE
KAXE is a community licensed public radio station serving Northern Minnesota communities, including Grand Rapids, Brainerd, Bemidji, Virginia, Chisholm and Hibbing. The station airs locally produced news, talk, and music programming. It is a member of Independent Public Radio, a group of public...
, KBEM-FM, KFAI
KFAI
KFAI is a community radio station in Minnesota. The station broadcasts a wide variety of music, and also airs programming catering to many of the diverse ethnic groups of the region...
, KMOJ
KMOJ
KMOJ, 89.9 FM, is a community-oriented station located in Minneapolis, Minnesota airing a predominantly Urban AC format. It began in 1976 as WMOJ, a very low-power AM station at 1200 kHz that reached only a few blocks from its studios and transmitter in the Sumner-Olson and Glenwood-Lyndale...
, KMSU
KMSU
KMSU is a public radio station operated by Minnesota State University, Mankato in Mankato, Minnesota that carries a mixed news, talk, and music format. A repeater station, KMSK , serves the city of Austin...
, KMSK, KQAL
KQAL
KQAL is a radio station broadcasting a Variety format. Licensed to Winona, Minnesota, USA. Currently, the station is the only independent, non-commercial station broadcasting in the near area...
, KSRQ
KSRQ
KSRQ is a 24,000-watt public radio station operated by Northland Community & Technical College at one point programmed a Triple A format. The station serves the Thief River Falls, Minnesota area with rimshot coverage in Grand Forks, North Dakota...
, KUMD-FM, KUMM
KUMM
KUMM is a radio station broadcasting an Alternative format. Licensed to Morris, Minnesota, USA. The station is currently owned by University of Minnesota Morris.The station is a member of Minnesota's Independent Public Radio network...
, KUOM
KUOM
KUOM, known as "770 Radio K", "Real College Radio" is a college radio station operated by the University of Minnesota Twin Cities. Likely the oldest station in the state, Radio K broadcasts an eclectic mix of music from its transmitters—a variety that has been praised by radio critics...
(Radio K), KVSC
KVSC
KVSC 88.1 FM in Saint Cloud, Minnesota is part of Minnesota's Independent Public Radio network. It is operated by St. Cloud State University and broadcasts a freeform radio format...
and WTIP.
Minnesota Public Radio
Minnesota Public Radio
Minnesota Public Radio , is the flagship National Public Radio member network for the state of Minnesota. With its three services, News & Information, Classical Music and The Current, MPR operates a 42-station regional radio network in the upper Midwest serving over 8 million people...
(MPR)'s KCMP
KCMP
-WCAL:The station began with physics experiments in 1918 when five students and a professor built a small radio transmitter at St. Olaf College. Using a wire antenna strung between the campus chapel and the college's "Old Main" , signals from these experiments were picked up as far away as New...
89.3, "The Current," incorporates into its programming a wide variety of music genres and the music of Minnesota artists.
Recording studios and record stores
Minneapolis has been home to several important recording studios. The first studio in the state was Kay BankKay Bank Studios
Kay Bank Studios was a recording studio in Minneapolis, Minnesota at 2541 Nicollet Avenue. Daniel Heilicher and his brother Amos started in a business together in the '30s, distributing and stocking jukeboxes...
, established by Amos Heilicher (who with his brother Daniel did "rack jobbing", jukebox
Jukebox
A jukebox is a partially automated music-playing device, usually a coin-operated machine, that will play a patron's selection from self-contained media...
distribution, and owned the Musicland
Musicland
The Musicland Group, Inc. was an entertainment company which ran Sam Goody, Suncoast Motion Picture Company and the Media Play Superstore Chain. Musicland filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy in January 2006. Trans World Entertainment which runs FYE, and sells CDs, DVDs, and video games, purchased...
chain), Vern Bank, and studio engineer Bruce Swedien
Bruce Swedien
Bruce Swedien is a Grammy Award-winning audio engineer and music producer. He is known for his work with Quincy Jones.Swedien is a five-time Grammy winner and has been nominated 13 times. He recorded, mixed, and assisted in producing the best-sold album in the world, Thriller by Michael Jackson...
in 1955. The studio recorded hits from The Trashmen
The Trashmen
The Trashmen are a rock and roll band formed in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 1962. The group's original lineup was Tony Andreason on lead guitar and vocals, Dal Winslow on guitar and vocals, Steve Wahrer on drums and vocals, and Bob Reed on bass guitar...
("Surfin' Bird
Surfin' Bird
"Surfin' Bird" is a song performed by the American surf rock band The Trashmen; it is also the name of the album that featured this hit single. It was released in 1963 and reached No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100...
"), Dave Dudley
Dave Dudley
Dave Dudley , born David Darwin Pedruska, was an American country music singer best-known for his truck-driving country anthems of the 1960s and 1970s and his semi-slurred baritone. His signature song was "Six Days on the Road," and he is also remembered for "Vietnam Blues," "Truck Drivin'...
("Six Days on the Road"), The Underbeats, The Chancellors, The High Spirits
The High Spirits
The High Spirits was a garage rock band from Minneapolis, Minnesota active in the 1960s and signed with Soma Records. While there was a small rotation of members, the original line-up consisted of Owen Husney, Doug Ahrens, Cliff Siegel, Rick Beresford, Rick Levinson and Jay Luttio...
, and The Castaways
The Castaways
The Castaways are an American garage rock band from the Twin Cities in Minnesota.Their first and only hit single was "Liar, Liar". Written by band leader James Donna and Denny Craswell, produced by Timothy D. Kehr and released by Soma Records, it reached number 12 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in...
("Liar, Liar" in 1965). Kay Bank helped popularize Soma Records
Soma Records (U.S. label)
Soma Records was an American record company based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and owned by wholesale record distributor Amos Heilicher. The Soma name was "Amos" spelled backwards. Heilicher, along with his brother Danny, was also in the jukebox business and owned the Musicland chain of retail...
and a distinctive style based on using three-track recording and echo effects.
Herb Pilhofer and Tom Jung worked at Kay Bank before founding the world's first digital recording
Digital recording
In digital recording, digital audio and digital video is directly recorded to a storage device as a stream of discrete numbers, representing the changes in air pressure for audio and chroma and luminance values for video through time, thus making an abstract template for the original sound or...
studio, Sound 80
Sound 80
Sound80 was a recording studio in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States founded by Tom Jung and Herb Pilhofer in 1969. Largely involved with local artists, the studio is best known for recording portions of Bob Dylan's Blood on the Tracks in 1974, but also made what is believed to be the first...
in 1969. Sound 80 recorded numerous artists over the years, ranging from Bob Dylan's Blood on the Tracks
Blood on the Tracks
Blood on the Tracks is Bob Dylan's 15th studio album, released by Columbia Records in January 1975. The album marked Dylan's return to Columbia after a two-album stint with Asylum Records....
to works from Dave Brubeck
Dave Brubeck
David Warren "Dave" Brubeck is an American jazz pianist. He has written a number of jazz standards, including "In Your Own Sweet Way" and "The Duke". Brubeck's style ranges from refined to bombastic, reflecting his mother's attempts at classical training and his improvisational skills...
. The studio now is the headquarters of Orfield Laboratories, whose anechoic chamber
Anechoic chamber
An anechoic chamber is a room designed to stop reflections of either sound or electromagnetic waves.They are also insulated from exterior sources of noise...
, is labeled the "quietest place on Earth" by the Guinness Book of World Records in 2005. Orfield lab also achieved the designation for their friends at sound 80 as "the world's first digital recording studio" in the 2006 Guinness World Records. The two main studios are still fully intact, and they are filed for historic designation by the State and the Federal Government.
Twin/Tone Records
Twin/Tone Records was a record label based in Minneapolis, Minnesota that operated from 1977 until 1994 and helped several local groups receive national attention. The label was born from the Minneapolis punk rock music scene, which included venues like Jay's Longhorn Bar. The label was begun by...
record label. ESP Woody McBride's record label "Communique" and its subsidiaries "Sounds" and "Head in the Clouds" had released 100 records by 1998.
Prince
Prince (musician)
Prince Rogers Nelson , often known simply as Prince, is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and actor. Prince has produced ten platinum albums and thirty Top 40 singles during his career. Prince founded his own recording studio and label; writing, self-producing and playing most, or all, of...
's Paisley Park Studios
Paisley Park Records
Paisley Park Records was Prince's record label, associated with and funded in part by Warner Bros. Records. It was started in 1985, following the success of the film and album Purple Rain...
was used both by Prince and for outside music production by artists such as Madonna
Madonna (entertainer)
Madonna is an American singer-songwriter, actress and entrepreneur. Born in Bay City, Michigan, she moved to New York City in 1977 to pursue a career in modern dance. After performing in the music groups Breakfast Club and Emmy, she released her debut album in 1983...
, Boy George
Boy George
Boy George is a British singer-songwriter who was part of the English New Romantic movement which emerged in the early 1980s. He helped give androgyny an international stage with the success of Culture Club during the 1980s. His music is often classified as blue-eyed soul, which is influenced by...
, the Fine Young Cannibals
Fine Young Cannibals
Fine Young Cannibals were a British band formed in Birmingham, England, in 1984, by bassist David Steele and guitarist Andy Cox , and singer Roland Gift...
and Paula Abdul
Paula Abdul
Paula Julie Abdul is an American singer-songwriter, dancer, choreographer, actress and television personality.In the 1980s, Abdul rose from cheerleader for the Los Angeles Lakers to highly sought-after choreographer at the height of the music video era before scoring a string of pop music-R&B hits...
. The facility was also used for commercial production purposes like TV spots and movies, including 1993's Grumpy Old Men
Grumpy Old Men (film)
Grumpy Old Men is a 1993 American romantic comedy film starring Jack Lemmon, Walter Matthau, and Ann-Margret, with Burgess Meredith, Daryl Hannah, Kevin Pollak, Katie Sagona, Ossie Davis, and Buck Henry. Directed by Donald Petrie, the screenplay was written by Mark Steven Johnson, who also wrote...
. Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis
Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis
James Samuel "Jimmy Jam" Harris III and Terry Steven Lewis are an American R&B and pop-music songwriting and record production team...
founded Flyte Tyme on Nicollet Avenue
Nicollet Avenue
Nicollet Avenue is a major street in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and three of its suburbs. It passes through a number of locally well-known neighborhoods and districts, notably Eat Street in south Minneapolis and the traffic-restricted Nicollet Mall in the city's downtown.It began as a military road...
in Minneapolis in 1985 and then moved to a 17000 square foot complex in Edina, Minnesota
Edina, Minnesota
Edina is a city in Hennepin County, Minnesota, United States, and a first-ring suburb situated immediately southwest of Minneapolis. Edina began as a small farming and milling community in the 1860s. The population was 47,941 at the 2010 census.-Geography:...
before relocating to Santa Monica, California
Santa Monica, California
Santa Monica is a beachfront city in western Los Angeles County, California, US. Situated on Santa Monica Bay, it is surrounded on three sides by the city of Los Angeles — Pacific Palisades on the northwest, Brentwood on the north, West Los Angeles on the northeast, Mar Vista on the east, and...
in 2004.
The Twin Cities are home to a few independent record stores, including Oar Folkjokeopus (now Treehouse Records
Oar Folkjokeopus
Oar Folkjokeopus was a Minneapolis record store that operated on the corner of Lyndale and 26th from 1973 until 2001. The store was considered one of the staples of the Minneapolis rock scene in the 1980s, along with Jay's Longhorn Bar, and became a popular hub for musicians in the Twin Cities and...
), the Electric Fetus
Electric Fetus
The Electric Fetus is a record store with locations in Minneapolis, Duluth and St. Cloud in Minnesota. It was founded in June 1968 by partners Dan Foley and Ron Korsh. Minnesota Public Radio said of the Electric Fetus that it is "widely regarded as the pre-eminent indie record store in...
(also in Duluth and Saint Cloud), Fifth Element
The Fifth Element (store)
The Fifth Element, also known as Fifth Element Records or 5th Element, is a hip hop record store in Uptown, Minneapolis which opened in 1999 and is owned and operated by Rhymesayers Entertainment. The store specializes in vinyl records and hard-to-find underground rap. Graffiti and turntables are...
, and Cheapo
Cheapo
Cheapo is a music retail franchise with locations in Minnesota, Colorado, and Texas where customers can purchase new and used compact discs, DVDs, and, at some locations, cassettes and vinyl records. Everyday Music is a related music store with a similar format in Oregon and Washington. The...
. Let It Be Records, although its storefront has closed, still sells vinyl in occasional public sales and by mail order. 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
Block E (Minneapolis)
Block E is the name of a block in downtown Minneapolis bounded by Hennepin Avenue, 6th Street, 7th Street, and 1st Avenue North. It is part of the Downtown West neighborhood in Minneapolis. It is one block south of the Warehouse District/Hennepin Avenue light rail station on the Hiawatha Line.-...
. Northern Lights then moved to the former location of Music City, another retail music store.
Classical, choral and opera
Eugene Ormandy
Eugene Ormandy was a Hungarian-born conductor and violinist.-Early life:Born Jenő Blau in Budapest, Hungary, Ormandy began studying violin at the Royal National Hungarian Academy of Music at the age of five...
transformed it into an excellent ensemble and expanded its repertory, making it the most-recorded orchestra in the United States, and giving it an international reputation. Other illustrious conductors included Dimitri Mitropoulos and Antal Dorati
Antal Doráti
Antal Doráti, KBE was a Hungarian-born conductor and composer who became a naturalized American citizen in 1947.-Biography:...
. Osmo Vänskä
Osmo Vänskä
Osmo Antero Vänskä is a Finnish conductor, clarinetist and composer.He started his musical career as an orchestral clarinetist with the Turku Philharmonic . He then became the principal clarinet of the Helsinki Philharmonic from 1977 to 1982...
, a Finnish conductor
Conducting
Conducting is the art of directing a musical performance by way of visible gestures. The primary duties of the conductor are to unify performers, set the tempo, execute clear preparations and beats, and to listen critically and shape the sound of the ensemble...
, music director since 2003, took the orchestra into its second century. Its live performances and recordings in a program of the complete works of Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...
have been received with enthusiasm, the group has been called "brilliant", and a critic has stated the musicians are enjoying "their first golden age" since the days of Ormandy and Mitropoulos. Another critic wrote for The New Yorker of a concert in 2010 and its "uncanny, wrenching power, the kind you hear once or twice a decade" and thought that that day the Minnesota Orchestra was "the greatest orchestra in the world". The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra
Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra
The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra , based in Saint Paul, Minnesota, is the United States' only full-time professional chamber orchestra...
is the only full-time professional chamber orchestra in the country, and also tours and records. Professional orchestral ensembles outside the Twin Cities include the Duluth Superior Symphony Orchestra and the Rochester Symphony Orchestra and Chorale.
The Twin Cities' oldest major choral society is The Bach Society of Minnesota. The New York Times International Datebook calls the Christmas performance of the St. Olaf College
St. Olaf College
St. Olaf College is a coeducational, residential, four-year, private liberal arts college in Northfield, Minnesota, United States. It was founded in 1874 by a group of Norwegian-American immigrant pastors and farmers, led by Pastor Bernt Julius Muus. The college is named after Olaf II of Norway,...
choir "one of the five significant global holiday events". Extending choral work with VocalEssence
VocalEssence
VocalEssence is a non-profit choral music organization based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Each year the organization presents a series of concerts featuring the 130-voice VocalEssence Chorus and its core group, a 32-voice professional mixed chorus called the Ensemble Singers, along with guest...
, Philip Brunelle
Philip Brunelle
Philip Brunelle is an American conductor and organist. He founded VocalEssence in 1969 and remains the artistic director today...
commissioned more than 100 works for chorus.
For 42 years until 1986, the Metropolitan Opera
Metropolitan Opera
The Metropolitan Opera is an opera company, located in New York City. Originally founded in 1880, the company gave its first performance on October 22, 1883. The company is operated by the non-profit Metropolitan Opera Association, with Peter Gelb as general manager...
was in residence at Northrop Auditorium
Northrop Auditorium
Cyrus Northrop Memorial Auditorium is a stage venue at the University of Minnesota's Minneapolis campus named for Cyrus Northrop, the university's second president. Various events are held there, including concerts, ballet performances, and lectures. The structure was built in 1929 and has...
during its spring tour. Opera is now staged by the Minnesota Opera
Minnesota Opera
The Minnesota Opera is a performance organization based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It was founded in 1963 by the Walker Art Center, and is known for premiering such diverse works as Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak and Frankenstein by Libby Larsen...
, co-founded as Center Opera by Dominick Argento
Dominick Argento
Dominick Argento is an American composer, best known as a leading composer of lyric opera and choral music...
in 1963, as part of the Walker Art Center
Walker Art Center
The Walker Art Center is a contemporary art center in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. The Walker is considered one of the nation's "big five" museums for modern art along with the Museum of Modern Art, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim Museum and the Hirshhorn...
. With an early reputation as "progressive (and) 'alternative'", the Minnesota Opera began to include traditional works in its repertory when it merged with Saint Paul Opera in 1975.
Folk
Music of Sweden
Sweden shares the tradition of Nordic folk dance music with its neighboring countries including polka, schottische, waltz, polska and mazurka. The accordion, clarinet, fiddle and nyckelharpa are among the most common Swedish folk instruments. This instrumental genre is the biggest one in Swedish...
, Finnish
Music of Finland
The music of Finland can be roughly divided in the following three categories.Folk music is typically influenced by Karelian traditional tunes and lyrics of the Kalevala metre. Karelian heritage has traditionally been perceived as the purest expression of Finnic myths and beliefs, thought to be...
and Norwegian
Music of Norway
Music based on traditional Norwegian form usually includes minor or modal scales , making a sober and haunting sound. Pure major key dance music forms also exist. Prior to the 18th century, there is scant written record of what kind of music was played in Norway, but there is a large aural tradition...
music merged into Scandinavian music. This music is perceived as a type of old-time music
Old-time music
Old-time music is a genre of North American folk music, with roots in the folk music of many countries, including England, Scotland, Ireland and countries in Africa. It developed along with various North American folk dances, such as square dance, buck dance, and clogging. The genre also...
, which also developed from the area's German, Irish, English, Polish, Czech, and other Northern and Central European musics.
Norwegian folk dance (bygdedans
Bygdedans
Bygdedans or village dance is the term most commonly used for a variety of regional, traditional dances of Norway. Bygdedans are the oldest and most distinctive among Norwegian folk dances....
er) includes participatory social dances and dances performed for an audience like springar, gangar and halling. The Norwegian gammeldans tradition, and those of other ancestries, continues in ethnic communities in Minnesota, where waltz
Waltz
The waltz is a ballroom and folk dance in time, performed primarily in closed position.- History :There are several references to a sliding or gliding dance,- a waltz, from the 16th century including the representations of the printer H.S. Beheim...
es, schottische
Schottische
The schottische is a partnered country dance, that apparently originated in Bohemia. It was popular in Victorian era ballrooms as a part of the Bohemian folk-dance craze and left its traces in folk music of countries such as Argentina , Finland , France, Italy, Norway , Portugal and Brazil , Spain ...
s or reinlander, and polka
Polka
The polka is a Central European dance and also a genre of dance music familiar throughout Europe and the Americas. It originated in the middle of the 19th century in Bohemia...
s are newer forms of 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. By the 1930s the Finnish epic Kalevala
Kalevala
The Kalevala is a 19th century work of epic poetry compiled by Elias Lönnrot from Finnish and Karelian oral folklore and mythology.It is regarded as the national epic of Finland and is one of the most significant works of Finnish literature...
was still read and sometimes sung.
For those whose social life centered on churches where music was prohibited by the Pietist and other movements, music was sometimes done at home or disguised as a game. For others, secular, socialist and temperance halls became the community center where bands could include women. Musical accompaniment includes the accordion
Accordion
The accordion is a box-shaped musical instrument of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone family, sometimes referred to as a squeezebox. A person who plays the accordion is called an accordionist....
, violin
Violin
The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....
, guitar
Guitar
The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...
, bass guitar
Bass guitar
The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....
, piano
Piano
The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...
, harmonica
Harmonica
The harmonica, also called harp, French harp, blues harp, and mouth organ, is a free reed wind instrument used primarily in blues and American folk music, jazz, country, and rock and roll. It is played by blowing air into it or drawing air out by placing lips over individual holes or multiple holes...
, organ, banjo
Banjo
In the 1830s Sweeney became the first white man to play the banjo on stage. His version of the instrument replaced the gourd with a drum-like sound box and included four full-length strings alongside a short fifth-string. There is no proof, however, that Sweeney invented either innovation. This new...
and mandolin
Mandolin
A mandolin is a musical instrument in the lute family . It descends from the mandore, a soprano member of the lute family. The mandolin soundboard comes in many shapes—but generally round or teardrop-shaped, sometimes with scrolls or other projections. A mandolin may have f-holes, or a single...
. The Norwegian Hardanger fiddle or hardingfele tradition almost died out during the 1970s and then experienced a resurgence.
Duluth, Minnesota
Duluth is a port city in the U.S. state of Minnesota and is the county seat of Saint Louis County. The fourth largest city in Minnesota, Duluth had a total population of 86,265 in the 2010 census. Duluth is also the second largest city that is located on Lake Superior after Thunder Bay, Ontario,...
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 during 1959–1961, attending the University of Minnesota, where he played shows at the Ten O'Clock Scholar on the West Bank of the University of Minnesota
University of Minnesota
The University of Minnesota, Twin Cities is a public research university located in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, United States. It is the oldest and largest part of the University of Minnesota system and has the fourth-largest main campus student body in the United States, with 52,557...
Minneapolis campus. He was associated with Dinkytown, a bohemian area near the campus, where he listened to a wide variety of folk and blues. As of 2007, Dylan maintained a home in Minnesota.
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 in New York, including the guitarist Leo Kottke
Leo Kottke
Leo Kottke is an acoustic guitarist. He is widely known for his innovative fingerpicking style, which draws on influences from blues, jazz, and folk music, and his syncopated, polyphonic melodies...
and the trio Koerner, Ray & Glover
Koerner, Ray & Glover
Koerner, Ray & Glover is the name of a blues band from Minneapolis, Minnesota. The band featured Tony "Little Sun" Glover on harmonica, "Spider" John Koerner on guitar and vocals, and Dave "Snaker" Ray on guitar and vocals. Koerner, Ray & Glover were part of the early folk/blues explosion in the...
. 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
Garrison Keillor
Gary Edward "Garrison" Keillor is an American author, storyteller, humorist, and radio personality. He is known as host of the Minnesota Public Radio show A Prairie Home Companion Gary Edward "Garrison" Keillor (born August 7, 1942) is an American author, storyteller, humorist, and radio...
; the Red House
Red House Records
Red House Records is an American independent record label specializing in folk music and is based in St. Paul, Minnesota.The label was originally created in 1981 by Greg Brown as a method to distribute his own music, and is named for a farmhouse in Iowa where he was living...
record label is the most influential local label for folk, and releases records by Ostroushko and Greg Brown, among others. Boiled in Lead
Boiled in Lead
Boiled in Lead is a world music band from Minneapolis, Minnesota. They formed in 1983, going through a number of membership changes over the years...
who formed during the 1980s are still performing.
Gospel
Minnesota is a creative center of the gospel musicGospel music
Gospel music is music that is written to express either personal, spiritual or a communal belief regarding Christian life, as well as to give a Christian alternative to mainstream secular music....
tradition. Robert Robinson, a musical treasure who has been called "the Pavarotti of Gospel" and whose voice has been called "too big for radio", is the executive and artistic director of the Twin Cities Community Gospel Choir, which Minnesota Monthly said is the state’s most-decorated gospel group.
Produced by Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis
Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis
James Samuel "Jimmy Jam" Harris III and Terry Steven Lewis are an American R&B and pop-music songwriting and record production team...
, the Sounds of Blackness
Sounds of Blackness
Sounds of Blackness is a Grammy Award-winning vocal and instrumental ensemble from Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota who perform music from several genres music including gospel, R&B, soul, and jazz. The group scored several hits on the Billboard R&B chart and Billboard Hot Dance Music/Club Play...
won three Grammy Award
Grammy Award
A Grammy Award — or Grammy — is an accolade by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to recognize outstanding achievement in the music industry...
s for their music and have performed three times for audiences of 1 billion: at the 1994 World Cup
1994 FIFA World Cup
The 1994 FIFA World Cup, the 15th staging of the FIFA World Cup, was held in nine cities across the United States from June 17 to July 17, 1994. The United States was chosen as the host by FIFA on July 4, 1988...
, the 1996 Summer Olympics
1996 Summer Olympics
The 1996 Summer Olympics of Atlanta, officially known as the Games of the XXVI Olympiad and unofficially known as the Centennial Olympics, was an international multi-sport event which was celebrated in 1996 in Atlanta, Georgia, United States....
and the 1998 World Figure Skating Championships
1998 World Figure Skating Championships
The 1998 World Figure Skating Championships were the World Figure Skating Championships of the 1997-1998 season. Elite senior-level figure skaters from ISU Member Nations competed for the title of World Champion...
. Former Sounds of Blackness
Sounds of Blackness
Sounds of Blackness is a Grammy Award-winning vocal and instrumental ensemble from Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota who perform music from several genres music including gospel, R&B, soul, and jazz. The group scored several hits on the Billboard R&B chart and Billboard Hot Dance Music/Club Play...
lead Ann Nesby
Ann Nesby
Ann Nesby is an American R&B, gospel, and dance music singer and actress. She is the former lead singer of Sounds of Blackness; a songwriter with credits including hits sung by Patti Labelle and Gladys Knight; plus she co-starred in the 2003 romance musical The Fighting Temptations with Cuba...
has top-five hits on Billboard
Billboard (magazine)
Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...
Hot Dance Club Songs charts and is the grandmother of American Idol
American Idol
American Idol, titled American Idol: The Search for a Superstar for the first season, is a reality television singing competition created by Simon Fuller and produced by FremantleMedia North America and 19 Entertainment...
finalist Paris Bennett
Paris Bennett
Paris Ana'is Bennett is an American singer. She came to national recognition as a contestant on the fifth season of the reality television talent show, American Idol, finishing in fifth place...
.
Blues
The bluesBlues
Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...
tradition has been practiced in Minnesota for decades, notably by Lazy Bill Lucas
Lazy Bill Lucas
Lazy Bill Lucas was an American blues musician, who was part of the birth of the Chicago blues scene during the 1940s, 1950s and early 1960s, before taking his talents to Minneapolis, Minnesota, and becoming an important part of that city's blues history until his death.-Early career:Born to...
and Percy Strother who lived and performed in Minneapolis. Willie Murphy
Willie Murphy (musician)
Willie Murphy is an American pianist, singer, producer, and songwriter. He is best known as a singer and pianist for the blues band Willie and the Bees and his work with Bonnie Raitt and John Koerner.-Biography:...
, who replaced Willie Walker in Willie & The Bees "was named one of the three charter members of the Minnesota Music Hall of Fame
Minnesota Music Hall of Fame
The Minnesota Music Hall of Fame is located at First North Street and Broadway in New Ulm, Minnesota, USA, in the former public library. It has memorabilia of individual musicians and musical groups as well as photographs of all who have been inducted...
, along with Bob Dylan and Prince," according to Blues on Stage, who added, "the Minnesota Music Association has given more nominations and awards to Willie and his groups than anyone else".
Other players gained loyal fans. Called "The Voice" by Tony Glover, Doug Maynard and his band backed Bonnie Raitt
Bonnie Raitt
Bonnie Lynn Raitt is an American blues singer-songwriter and a renowned slide guitar player. During the 1970s, Raitt released a series of acclaimed roots-influenced albums which incorporated elements of blues, rock, folk and country, but she is perhaps best known for her more commercially...
in 1982. Until he died at age 40, Maynard could "break a note into two and three parts simultaneously so that it sounded like he was harmonizing with himself". Larry Hayes, formerly of the Lamont Cranston Band, wrote "Excusez Moi Mon Cheri" which The Blues Brothers
The Blues Brothers
The Blues Brothers are an American blues and soul revivalist band founded in 1978 by comedy actors Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi as part of a musical sketch on Saturday Night Live...
recorded. James Samuel "Cornbread" Harris
Cornbread Harris
James Samuel "Cornbread" Harris, Sr. is an American musician. He is a singer and pianist who performs in Minneapolis, Minnesota...
, who collaborated with Augie Garcia and is the father of Jimmy Jam, is one of the area's senior players.
Jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
has been alive in the state since World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
when the Andrews Sisters from Minneapolis recorded the song "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy
Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy
"Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy" was a major hit for The Andrews Sisters and an iconic World War II tune. This song can be considered an early jump blues recording...
" which Bette Midler
Bette Midler
Bette Midler is an American singer, actress, and comedian, also known by her informal stage name, The Divine Miss M. She became famous as a cabaret and concert headliner, and went on to star in successful and acclaimed films such as The Rose, Ruthless People, Beaches, and For The Boys...
covered
Cover version
In popular music, a cover version or cover song, or simply cover, is a new performance or recording of a contemporary or previously recorded, commercially released song or popular song...
decades later. Local radio host Leigh Kamman
Leigh Kamman
Leigh Kamman is an American radio host who has focused bringing jazz music to the airwaves for his career, which spans more than six decades. Kamman began his career in the Twin Cities area of Minnesota, but spent time in other places such as at WOV radio in New York City...
covered jazz for more than sixty years, with vintage recordings and interviews with jazz artists.
Pamela Espeland of MinnPost.com
MinnPost.com
MinnPost.com also known as MinnPost is a non-profit news website in Minneapolis, Minnesota, with a focus on Minnesota news. Its mission is "to provide high-quality journalism for news-intense people who care about Minnesota."...
has chronicled many of the 3,500 live jazz performances in the Twin Cities during 2009. Pianist Ethan Iverson and bassist Reid Anderson join Happy Apple
Happy Apple
Happy Apple is an American jazz trio.Formed in 1996 in Minneapolis, members of the band are David King , Michael Lewis and Erik Fratzke ....
drummer David King
David King (musician)
David King is a drummer/ composer from Minneapolis. He is best known for being a founding member of the jazz groups The Bad Plus and Happy Apple although he is active in many other projects including free jazz collective Buffalo Collision with NYC "Downtown" legends Tim Berne and Hank Roberts and...
in The Bad Plus
The Bad Plus
The Bad Plus are a jazz trio from the United States, consisting of pianist Ethan Iverson, bassist Reid Anderson, and drummer Dave King, originating from Minneapolis, MN.-History:...
, who have performed during Christmas for ten years at the Dakota Jazz Club
Dakota Jazz Club
The Dakota Jazz Club and Restaurant is a jazz club in Twin Cities, Minnesota. The club opened in 1985 at Bandana Square in St. Paul as a restaurant with local jazz in the bar. In 1988, the programming expanded to national artists with performances by McCoy Tyner and Ahmad Jamal...
, a well-known local jazz venue. Composer and pianist Carei Thomas recently celebrated his 70th birthday at the Walker Art Center
Walker Art Center
The Walker Art Center is a contemporary art center in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. The Walker is considered one of the nation's "big five" museums for modern art along with the Museum of Modern Art, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim Museum and the Hirshhorn...
.
No list of Minnesota music would be complete without mention of jazz great Jeanne Arland Peterson and her five children, Linda, Billy, Ricky, Patty, and Paul, as well as grandson Jason, who recently celebrated 22 years of performing their holiday shows. Dave Koz
Dave Koz
Dave Koz is an American smooth jazz saxophonist.- Life and career :Dave Koz was born on March 27, 1963 in Encino, California....
said, "There is no family in the world quite like the Petersons. First of all, there's like 700 of 'em, and each one is more talented than the rest."
Born, raised and residing in Minnesota, guitarist Reynold Philipsek
Reynold Philipsek
Reynold D. Philipsek Reynold D. Philipsek May 2010 Background information Birth name Reynold David Philipsek Born...
performs gypsy jazz music as a solo artist, and with Minnesota gypsy jazz acts East Side, The Twin Cities Hot Club, and Sidewalk Café.
Other musicians that live and play in Minnesota:
- George CartwrightGeorge Cartwright (musician)George Cartwright Born in Midnight, Mississippi, December 10, 1950, George Cartwright is most notably known as the founder of the band Curlew in 1979 in New York City. Besides playing soprano, alto and tenor saxophones he has composed music for Curlew, his own solo recordings and other music...
- Anthony CoxAnthony Cox (musician)Anthony Cox is an American jazz bass player.Played with: Geri Allen, Dewey Redman, Dave Douglas, John Scofield, Pat Metheny, Gary Thomas, Marty Ehrlich, Ed Blackwell, Joe Lovano, Dave King, and others.Lives and plays in Minnesota....
- Eric GravattEric GravattEric Kamau Grávátt is a jazz drummer who has played with McCoy Tyner, Joe Henderson, Weather Report, and others.-Discography:With Julian Priester*Love, Love...
Rhythm and blues
Rhythm and blues
Rhythm and blues, often abbreviated to R&B, is a genre of popular African American music that originated in the 1940s. The term was originally used by record companies to describe recordings marketed predominantly to urban African Americans, at a time when "urbane, rocking, jazz based music with a...
(R&B) in the 1980s, when the singing star Prince
Prince (musician)
Prince Rogers Nelson , often known simply as Prince, is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and actor. Prince has produced ten platinum albums and thirty Top 40 singles during his career. Prince founded his own recording studio and label; writing, self-producing and playing most, or all, of...
rose to fame. The city had little history in African American popular music, such as R&B, until Prince debuted in 1978. He became the first architect of the Minneapolis sound
Minneapolis sound
The Minneapolis sound is a hybrid mixture of funk, rock, pop, R&B and New Wave that was pioneered by Prince in the late 1970s. Its popularity was given a boost throughout the 1980s, thanks to his musical adherents, including The Time, Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, Morris Day, Vanity 6, Apollonia 6, Ta...
, a funk
Funk
Funk is a music genre that originated in the mid-late 1960s when African American musicians blended soul music, jazz and R&B into a rhythmic, danceable new form of music. Funk de-emphasizes melody and harmony and brings a strong rhythmic groove of electric bass and drums to the foreground...
, rock
Rock music
Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...
and disco
Disco
Disco is a genre of dance music. Disco acts charted high during the mid-1970s, and the genre's popularity peaked during the late 1970s. It had its roots in clubs that catered to African American, gay, psychedelic, and other communities in New York City and Philadelphia during the late 1960s and...
-influenced style of R&B, and inspired a legion of subsequent performers, including the Prince-related acts The Time
The Time (band)
The Time is a funk and dance-pop ensemble formed in 1981. They are close Prince associates and arguably the most successful artists who have worked with him.-Prince, Formation and Success:...
, Wendy & Lisa
Wendy & Lisa
Wendy & Lisa are a music duo consisting of Wendy Melvoin and Lisa Coleman. They began working with Prince in the early 1980s and were part of his band The Revolution, before branching out on their own and releasing their debut album in 1987...
and Vanity 6
Vanity 6
Vanity 6 was a female vocal trio assembled by Prince in the early 1980s.They released one studio album, which blended the sounds of pop, New Wave, dance music, R&B, and funk.-Formation:...
. Curtiss A
Curtiss A
Curtiss A, the Godfather to the Minneapolis rock scene, is both a musician and a visual artist. One of the original artists on the Twin Tone label, he performs one of the most popular shows in the Twin Cities, an annual tribute to John Lennon held at First Avenue.Curtiss formed Wire, his first Twin...
, who opened for Prince the first time he played First Avenue in 1980, at first thought that it was nice of Prince to let him open and then later realized: "You know: 'You guys think this is the top thing in town? Well, here: Minneapolis got a brand new bag.'"
Prince fired Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis
Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis
James Samuel "Jimmy Jam" Harris III and Terry Steven Lewis are an American R&B and pop-music songwriting and record production team...
from The Time
The Time (band)
The Time is a funk and dance-pop ensemble formed in 1981. They are close Prince associates and arguably the most successful artists who have worked with him.-Prince, Formation and Success:...
in 1983 because their production career began overtaking their roles in the band. Their Flyte Tyme Productions began to gain national attention for the Minneapolis sound, and excelled at mainstream urban contemporary music, which had often been shunned by critics. The pair's first big break was Janet Jackson
Janet Jackson
Janet Damita Jo Jackson is an American recording artist and actress. Known for a series of sonically innovative, socially conscious and sexually provocative records, as well as elaborate stage shows, television and film roles, she has been a prominent figure in popular culture for over 25 years...
's Control
Control (Janet Jackson album)
Control is the third studio album by American recording artist Janet Jackson, released on February 6, 1986 by A&M Records. Her collaborations with songwriters and record producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis resulted in an unconventional sound: a fusion of rhythm and blues, funk, disco, rap vocals,...
in 1986, which propelled her career and spawned numerous projects between Jam and Lewis with artists as varied as Twin Cities acts Mint Condition
Mint Condition
Mint Condition is an R&B band from Saint Paul, Minnesota. Formed in the late 1980s, its original members were lead singer Stokley Williams, bassist Ricky Kinchen, guitarist Homer O'Dell, pianist Larry Waddell, keyboardist Keri Lewis, and keyboardist/saxophonist Jeffrey Allen...
, Alexander O'Neal
Alexander O'Neal
Alexander O'Neal is an American R&B singer. He is best-known for the songs "If You Were Here Tonight" and "Fake", and the duets with Cherrelle, "Saturday Love" and "Never Knew Love Like This".-Biography:...
, and Sounds of Blackness
Sounds of Blackness
Sounds of Blackness is a Grammy Award-winning vocal and instrumental ensemble from Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota who perform music from several genres music including gospel, R&B, soul, and jazz. The group scored several hits on the Billboard R&B chart and Billboard Hot Dance Music/Club Play...
, to internationally-established acts Michael Jackson
Michael Jackson
Michael Joseph Jackson was an American recording artist, entertainer, and businessman. Referred to as the King of Pop, or by his initials MJ, Jackson is recognized as the most successful entertainer of all time by Guinness World Records...
, New Edition
New Edition
New Edition is an R&B group formed in Boston in 1978. The group reached its height of popularity during the 1980s. They were the progenitors of the boy band movement of the 1980s and 1990s and led the way for groups like New Kids on the Block, Boyz II Men, Backstreet Boys and 'N Sync...
, Boyz II Men
Boyz II Men
Boyz II Men is an American R&B vocal group best known for emotional ballads and a cappella harmonies. They are the most successful R&B group of all time, having sold more than albums worldwide. In the 1990s, Boyz II Men found fame on Motown Records as a quartet, but original member Michael McCary...
, Patti LaBelle
Patti LaBelle
Patricia Louise Holte-Edwards , better known under the stage name, Patti LaBelle, is a Grammy Award winning American singer, author and actress who has spent over 50 years in the music industry...
, and Human League.
In 1980, Steven Greenberg and Cynthia Johnson, recording as Lipps Inc. at Sound 80, recorded "Funkytown
Funkytown
"Funkytown" is a 1980 disco hit song by the disco band Lipps Inc. The song expresses the singer's pining for a metaphorical place that will "keep me movin', keeps me groovin' with some energy". It reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and Dance charts in 1980, also reaching number 1 in Germany,...
," which reached number 1 on both the U.S. and disco
Disco
Disco is a genre of dance music. Disco acts charted high during the mid-1970s, and the genre's popularity peaked during the late 1970s. It had its roots in clubs that catered to African American, gay, psychedelic, and other communities in New York City and Philadelphia during the late 1960s and...
charts. Homer Simpson
Homer Simpson
Homer Jay Simpson is a fictional character in the animated television series The Simpsons and the patriarch of the eponymous family. He is voiced by Dan Castellaneta and first appeared on television, along with the rest of his family, in The Tracey Ullman Show short "Good Night" on April 19, 1987...
said the song moved him like few others, and the song turned into the biggest seller in the history of the PolyGram
PolyGram
PolyGram was the name of the major label recording company started by Philips from as a holding company for its music interests in 1945. In 1999 it was sold to Seagram and merged into Universal Music Group.-Hollandsche Decca Distributie , 1929-1950:...
label. During the mid 1980s, eight children of the Wolfgramm family became The Jets
The Jets (band)
The Jets are a family band from Minneapolis, Minnesota, composed of brothers and sisters who specialize in pop, R&B, and dance music, particularly Latin freestyle.The group officially formed in 1985, with the original lineup fizzling out by 1990...
, who produced eight top 10 hits.
Rock
Rock and rollRock and roll
Rock and roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily from a combination of African American blues, country, jazz, and gospel music...
has a long history in the state. Garcia is remembered from the 1950s as the godfather of Minnesota rock 'n' roll. Called by Billboard
Billboard (magazine)
Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...
"one of the top 10 most consistent chartmakers ever", Bobby Vee
Bobby Vee
Robert Thomas Velline , known as Bobby Vee, is an American pop music singer. According to Billboard magazine, Vee has had 38 Hot 100 chart hits, 10 of which hit the Top 20.-Career:...
, who had 38 songs in the Hot 100 charts
Billboard Hot 100
The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday...
, still tours with his sons, The Vees. From the 1960s, a series of psychedelic and garage rock singles have become collector's items, including work of Mankato, Minnesota
Mankato, Minnesota
Mankato is a city in Blue Earth, Nicollet, and Le Sueur counties in the U.S. state of Minnesota. The population was 39,309 at the 2010 census, making it the fourth largest city in Minnesota outside of the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area. The county seat of Blue Earth County, it is located...
's The Gestures
The Gestures
The Gestures were a teenage American rock group based out of Mankato, Minnesota.They are primarily known for their chart hit "Run, Run, Run" from the fall of 1964...
, The Litter
The Litter
The Litter was an American psychedelic and garage rock band, formed in 1966 in Minneapolis. They are best remembered for their 1967 debut single "Action Woman." The group recorded an album in 1972 but would re-unite in 1990, 1992, and again in 1998, when they recorded a new studio album consisting...
's "Action Woman", "Faces" by T. C. Atlantic and Trip Thru Hell by the C. A. Quintet. The song Evil Woman (Don’t Play Your Games With Me) by the Minneapolis hard rock band Crow
Crow (band)
Crow is a Minneapolis-based blues rock band, that was first active from 1967 to 1972. They are best known for the song "Evil Woman ," which was notably covered by Black Sabbath.-History:...
made the Billboard Hot 100
Billboard Hot 100
The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday...
Top 20 in 1969.
While attending the University of Minnesota
University of Minnesota
The University of Minnesota, Twin Cities is a public research university located in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, United States. It is the oldest and largest part of the University of Minnesota system and has the fourth-largest main campus student body in the United States, with 52,557...
in the late 1970s, Yanni
Yanni
Yanni , born Yiannis Hrysomallis is a Greek self-taught pianist, keyboardist, and composer who has spent most of his life in the United States.He earned Grammy nominations for his 1992 album, Dare to Dream, and the 1993 follow-up, In My Time...
played keyboards and synthesizers in several Twin Cities rock bands. He joined the band Chameleon
Chameleon (American band)
Chameleon is a late 1970s/early 1980s American rock band founded by Charlie Adams. Chameleon made Billboard charts and was renowned for Adams’ two-axis revolving, upside-down drum set, which he played in live concerts and on MTV. The band toured extensively performing up to 260 shows a year...
in the early 1980s and enjoyed moderate regional commercial success before embarking on his solo New Age music
New Age music
New Age music is music of various styles intended to create artistic inspiration, relaxation, and optimism. It is used by listeners for yoga, massage, meditation, and reading as a method of stress management or to create a peaceful atmosphere in their home or other environments, and is often...
career.
New Wave music
New Wave is a subgenre of :rock music that emerged in the mid to late 1970s alongside punk rock. The term at first generally was synonymous with punk rock before being considered a genre in its own right that incorporated aspects of electronic and experimental music, mod subculture, disco and 1960s...
, The Suburbs
The Suburbs
The Suburbs were an alternative punk rock/funk/new wave band from Minneapolis, Minnesota popular in the late 1970s through the 1980s. The band frequently headlined at Minneapolis's most influential music clubs including Jay's Longhorn Bar and First Avenue....
were released under the local Twin/Tone Records
Twin/Tone Records
Twin/Tone Records was a record label based in Minneapolis, Minnesota that operated from 1977 until 1994 and helped several local groups receive national attention. The label was born from the Minneapolis punk rock music scene, which included venues like Jay's Longhorn Bar. The label was begun by...
label in 1978, and opened shows for Iggy Pop
Iggy Pop
Iggy Pop is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and actor. Though considered an innovator of punk rock, Pop's music has encompassed a number of styles over the years, including pop, metal, jazz and blues...
and The B-52's
The B-52's
The B-52's are an American rock band, formed in Athens, Georgia in 1976. The original line-up consisted of Fred Schneider , Kate Pierson , Cindy Wilson , Ricky Wilson , and Keith Strickland . Following Ricky Wilson's death in 1985 Strickland switched to guitar...
. The Suicide Commandos
The Suicide Commandos
The Suicide Commandos were an American punk rock trio from Minneapolis, Minnesota. They formed in 1975 and released two 7" EPs on an indie label in 1976 and 1977 before signing with Blank Records in 1977. Their first album, Make A Record was recorded and released in 1977, and then re-released on...
helped to galvanize a punk, new-wave community based at first out of Jay's Longhorn Bar
Jay's Longhorn Bar
Jay's Longhorn Bar, most frequently referred to by patrons as The Longhorn has arguably been considered what constituted the nexus of the...
.
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". "Every A&R person in New York was present at CB
CBGB
CBGB was a music club at 315 Bowery at Bleecker Street in the borough of Manhattan in New York City.Founded by Hilly Kristal in 1973, it was originally intended to feature its namesake musical styles, but became a forum for American punk and New Wave bands like Ramones, Misfits, Television, the...
s while The Replacements joyously flushed the set down the toilet, doing nothing but fractions of other people's songs," said Peter Jesperson who recorded them for Twin/Tone.
Minneapolis hardcore
The Minneapolis and St. Paul area, which is also known as The Twin Cities, has been a fertile ground for a hardcore punk scene since the mid-70s....
scene grew with The Replacements and Hüsker Dü
Hüsker Dü
Hüsker Dü was an American rock band formed in Saint Paul, Minnesota in 1979. The band's continual members were guitarist Bob Mould, bassist Greg Norton, and drummer Grant Hart....
, who started too early to profit from, but were pivotal in, the development of alternative rock
Alternative rock
Alternative rock is a genre of rock music and a term used to describe a diverse musical movement that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1980s and became widely popular by the 1990s...
. The Replacements, who "might be the most legendary" Minnesota rock musicians, eventually achieved some limited mainstream success, which led to member Paul Westerberg
Paul Westerberg
Paul Westerberg is an American musician, best known as the former lead singer, rhythm guitarist, and songwriter of The Replacements, one of the seminal alternative rock bands of the 1980s. He launched a solo career after the dissolution of that band...
's solo career, while Hüsker Dü started on local Reflex Records
Reflex Records
Reflex Records was an American independent record label formed by the members of hardcore punk band Hüsker Dü and Terry Katzman. It was formed to help promote independent bands, after Twin Tone Records rejected Hüsker Dü's first single in 1979....
and became the first hardcore
Hardcore punk
Hardcore punk is an underground music genre that originated in the late 1970s, following the mainstream success of punk rock. Hardcore is generally faster, thicker, and heavier than earlier punk rock. The origin of the term "hardcore punk" is uncertain. The Vancouver-based band D.O.A...
outfit to sign to a major label. Soul Asylum
Soul Asylum
Soul Asylum is an American alternative rock band that formed in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1983.The band originally formed in 1981 under the name Loud Fast Rules, with the original line-up consisting of Dan Murphy, Dave Pirner, Karl Mueller and Pat Morley. The latter was replaced by Grant Young in...
was originally a Minneapolis hardcore band called Loud Fast Rules, who played with bands like Willful Neglect, Man Sized Action
Man Sized Action
Man sized action was a post punk group from Minneapolis. They released two records in '83 and '84. The first one was produced by Bob Mould. Both albums, as well as two compilations on which the band appeared were released by Reflex Records. The band consisted of Pat Woods - Vocals, Tippy -...
, Rifle Sport
Rifle Sport
Rifle Sport was an American post punk band active in the 1980s and 1990s, from Minneapolis, Minnesota.-Studio albums:*Voice Of Reason *White ...
and Breaking Circus
Breaking Circus
Breaking Circus was a postpunk band from the 1980s, based in Chicago and later Minneapolis, led by guitarist and vocalist Steve Björklund.-History:...
; they mixed funk
Funk
Funk is a music genre that originated in the mid-late 1960s when African American musicians blended soul music, jazz and R&B into a rhythmic, danceable new form of music. Funk de-emphasizes melody and harmony and brings a strong rhythmic groove of electric bass and drums to the foreground...
and thrash metal
Thrash metal
Thrash metal is a subgenre of heavy metal that is characterized usually by its fast tempo and aggression. Songs of the genre typically use fast percussive and low-register guitar riffs, overlaid with shredding-style lead work...
with other influences. The Twin Cities rock scene came to national prominence by 1984, when the Village Voices critics poll, Pazz and Jop, named three Minneapolis recordings among the top ten of the year: Prince
Prince (musician)
Prince Rogers Nelson , often known simply as Prince, is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and actor. Prince has produced ten platinum albums and thirty Top 40 singles during his career. Prince founded his own recording studio and label; writing, self-producing and playing most, or all, of...
's Purple Rain
Purple Rain (album)
Purple Rain is the sixth studio album by Prince, the first to officially be credited to Prince and The Revolution, and is the soundtrack album to the 1984 film Purple Rain.Purple Rain is regularly ranked among the best albums in pop music history...
, The Replacements' Let It Be, and Hüsker Dü's Zen Arcade
Zen Arcade
Upon its release Zen Arcade received positive reviews in many mainstream publications, including NME, The New York Times and Rolling Stone. In his review for Rolling Stone, David Fricke described Zen Arcade as "the closest hardcore will ever get to an opera .....
.
The late 1980s saw new sounds coming out of the state, when two singles from electronic band Information Society
Information Society (band)
Information Society is an American band originally from Minneapolis, Minnesota, primarily consisting of Kurt Larson , Paul Robb, and James Cassidy; the latter two reconvened the band in 2006, initially with Christopher Anton as lead vocalist, then with Harland rejoining them as lead vocalist by...
, "What's On Your Mind? (Pure Energy)" and "Walking Away", were MTV
MTV
MTV, formerly an initialism of Music Television, is an American network based in New York City that launched on August 1, 1981. The original purpose of the channel was to play music videos guided by on-air hosts known as VJs....
favorites. The Jayhawks are a long-lived country-roots rock band who started in the mid-1980s. Another group to form about the same time was Babes in Toyland
Babes in Toyland (band)
Babes in Toyland was an American alternative rock band formed in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1987. The band was formed by Oregon native Kat Bjelland , with Lori Barbero and Michelle Leon , who was later replaced by Maureen Herman in 1992...
, an early quasi-riot grrl band. Many groups of the 1980s and 1990s eventually split up, and a number of other bands formed from the remnants. Bob Mould
Bob Mould
Robert Arthur "Bob" Mould is an American musician, principally known for his work as guitarist, vocalist and songwriter for alternative rock bands Hüsker Dü in the 1980s and Sugar in the 1990s.-Early life:...
left Hüsker Dü after it imploded in 1988, to head Sugar and do solo projects. Trip Shakespeare
Trip Shakespeare
Trip Shakespeare was a Minneapolis-based alternative rock band of the late 1980s/early 1990s.-Origins:The band originated when Harvard University English student Matt Wilson teamed up with Elaine Harris , a Harvard grad student in biological anthropology, in the early 1980s...
eventually transformed into Semisonic
Semisonic
Semisonic is an American alternative rock band formed in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1995. The band consisted of three members: Dan Wilson , John Munson , and Jacob Slichter...
, who gained popularity in the late 1990s. Other prominent, recent rock acts from Minnesota include slowcore band Low
Low (band)
Low is an American indie rock group from Duluth, Minnesota, formed in 1993. As of 2010, the group is composed of Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker , both founding members, and Steve Garrington ....
from Duluth and indie rockers Tapes 'n Tapes
Tapes 'n Tapes
-History:Formed in the winter of 2003 at Carleton College, the band has released four albums. First came the self-released Tapes 'n Tapes EP in 2004, followed by the full-length release, The Loon, on Ibid Records in 2005. The band signed to XL Recordings and re-released The Loon on July 25, 2006...
.
Hip hop
Underground hip hop
Underground hip hop is an umbrella term for hip hop music outside the general commercial canon. It is typically associated with independent artists, signed toindependent labels or no label at all....
scene, due largely to the presence of Rhymesayers Entertainment
Rhymesayers Entertainment
Rhymesayers Entertainment is an independent hip hop record label based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, co-founded in 1995 by Sean Daley, Anthony Davis, Brent Sayers and Musab Saad....
. Rhymesayers' artists, including Eyedea & Abilities
Eyedea & Abilities
Eyedea & Abilities was an influential American indie rap duo from Saint Paul, Minnesota, consisting of DJ Abilities and the rapper Eyedea...
, Brother Ali
Brother Ali
Ali Newman , better known by the stage name Brother Ali, is an American hip hop artist signed to Rhymesayers Entertainment.-Personal life:...
, Los Nativos, Musab, and, most notably, Atmosphere
Atmosphere (music group)
Atmosphere is an American hip hop group from Minneapolis, Minnesota. The group is composed of rapper Slug and DJ/Producer Ant...
, began to receive national attention in the late 1990s.
Heiruspecs
Heiruspecs
Heiruspecs is a live rap/hip hop band based in Saint Paul, Minnesota, specifically the Midway neighborhood. The band's name is based on a deliberate misspelling of haruspex.Their album, 10 Years Strong, was released in December of 2007...
won City Pages
City Pages
City Pages is an alternative weekly newspaper serving the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area. It features news, film, theatre and restaurant reviews, and music criticism. It is printed in a tabloid format, and is available free every Wednesday...
"Best Live Artist" in 2004, and in the same year Doomtree
Doomtree
Doomtree is a hip hop collective based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Members of Doomtree bring various bases of knowledge and musical backgrounds together to create alternative-influenced rap and hip-hop music. Nearly as prominent as the influence of hip-hop in their music is that of punk, and their...
won "Best Hip Hop Artist". For the past several years, through 2008, the scene owed some of its success to the annual Twin Cities Celebration of Hip Hop sponsored by Yo! The Movement and the website D. U. Nation.
Music about Minnesota
Several composers and performers have featured the state in their works. Classical composer Ferde GrofeFerde Grofé
Ferde Grofé was a prominent American composer, arranger and pianist. During the 1920s and 1930s, he went by the name Ferdie Grofé.-Early life:...
depicted Minnesota in his Mississippi Suite
Mississippi Suite
The Mississippi Suite is an orchestral suite in four movements by Ferde Grofé, depicting scenes along a journey down the Mississippi River from its headwaters of Minnesota down to New Orleans.-History:...
. John Philip Sousa
John Philip Sousa
John Philip Sousa was an American composer and conductor of the late Romantic era, known particularly for American military and patriotic marches. Because of his mastery of march composition, he is known as "The March King" or the "American March King" due to his British counterpart Kenneth J....
wrote "Foshay Tower-Washington Memorial March" for the dedication of the Foshay Tower in 1929. Sonja Thompson recorded "Dan Patch Two-Step", and Vern Sutton, Charlie Maguire, Peter Ostroushko
Peter Ostroushko
Peter Ostroushko is an American violinist and mandolinist.-Background and career:Of Ukrainian ancestry, Ostroushko grew up in northeast Minneapolis...
and Ann Reed
Ann Reed
Ann Reed is an American singer-songwriter and guitar player from Minneapolis, Minnesota. She is one of the few women who primarily play the 12-string guitar. Ann has appeared on Good Morning America and on radio shows such as A Prairie Home Companion and The Morning Show on Minnesota Public...
have recorded songs celebrating the Minnesota State Fair
Minnesota State Fair
The Minnesota State Fair is the state fair of the U.S. state of Minnesota. Its slogan is "The Great Minnesota Get-Together." It is the 2nd largest fair in the United States, and the largest state fair in the United States in terms of average daily attendance, though the State Fair of Texas runs...
. Tom Waits
Tom Waits
Thomas Alan "Tom" Waits is an American singer-songwriter, composer, and actor. Waits has a distinctive voice, described by critic Daniel Durchholz as sounding "like it was soaked in a vat of bourbon, left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months, and then taken outside and run over with a car."...
released two songs about Minneapolis, "Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis
Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis
"Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis" is a song written and performed by Tom Waits, and released on his 1978 album, Blue Valentine. The song also appeared on Waits' compilation album, Used Songs 1973–1980 .-Lyrics:...
" (Blue Valentine 1978) and "9th & Hennepin" (Rain Dogs
Rain Dogs
Rain Dogs is the 9th album by American singer-songwriter Tom Waits, released in August 1985 on Island Records. A loose concept album about "the urban dispossessed" of New York City, Rain Dogs is generally considered the middle album of a trilogy that includes Swordfishtrombones and Franks Wild...
1985). In 1987 The Silencers
The Silencers (band)
The Silencers are a Scottish rock band formed in London in 1986 by two ex-members of the post-punk outfit Fingerprintz. Their music is characterized by a melodic blend of pop, folk and traditional Celtic influences...
released A Letter from St. Paul. Lucinda Williams
Lucinda Williams
Lucinda Williams is an American rock, folk, blues and country music singer and songwriter. She recorded her first albums in 1978 and 1980 in a traditional country and blues style and received very little attention from radio, the media, or the public. In 1988, she released her self-titled album,...
recorded "Minneapolis" (World Without Tears
World Without Tears
World Without Tears is Lucinda Williams' seventh album. It was released in 2003. It debuted at number 18 on the Billboard 200, selling about 54,000 copies in its first week...
2003). In 1975, Northern Light reached the Billboard charts when they released a song titled "Minnesota" that sang the praises of the state's natural beauty.