Music of Minnesota

Celtic, German, Scandinavian, and Central and Eastern European song and dance remain part of the vernacular music of the state today.

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.

Traditional arrangements are generally based around vocal, percussive and dance music; Dakota folk songs can be celebratory, martial or ceremonial.

Modern-day traditional dance music is based mostly around schottisches, polkas and waltzes with instrumentation including fiddle, mandola, accordion and banjo.

[8] 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.

[12] 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.

Classical music is heard at Orchestra Hall in Minneapolis, a 2,500-seat auditorium "justly renowned for its rich, lively acoustics",[24] and St. Paul's 1,900-seat Ordway Center for the Performing Arts.

Others include the Cabooze and the Amsterdam Bar & Hall, all of which host all-ages shows as long as they meet local curfew laws (Although some may be listed as 15+ or 16+ for legal liability reasons involving hardcore dancing and other forms of moshing).

[54] These stations include KAXE, KBEM-FM, KFAI, KMOJ, KMSU, KMSK, KQAL, KSRQ, KUMM, KUOM (Radio K), KVSC, WDSE-FM and WTIP.

[62] Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis founded Flyte Tyme on Nicollet Avenue in Minneapolis in 1985 and then moved to a 17,000-square-foot (1,600 m2) complex in Edina, Minnesota, before relocating to Santa Monica, California, in 2004.

[57] Flowers Studio in Minneapolis, founded in 1998 by the late Ed Ackerson, leader of the alternative rock bands Polara and the 27 Various, has hosted many notable musicians including the Jayhawks, The Replacements, Motion City Soundtrack, Golden Smog, and Soul Asylum.

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.

Its live performances and recordings in a program of the complete works of Ludwig van Beethoven have been received with enthusiasm,[75][76][77] the group has been called "brilliant",[78] and a critic has stated the musicians are enjoying "their first golden age" since the days of Ormandy and Mitropoulos.

When these immigrants settled in rural farming areas, their communities retained Old World social and religious patterns that gave a context for music performance.

[95] The Norwegian gammeldans tradition, and those of other ancestries, continues in ethnic communities in Minnesota, where waltzes, schottisches or reinlander, and polkas are newer forms of old-time music.

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.

[107] 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.

[111][112] Jazz has been alive in the state since World War II when the Andrews Sisters from Minneapolis recorded the song "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy"[113] which Bette Midler covered decades later.

[118] "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.

The city had little history in African American popular music, such as R&B, until Prince made his debut in 1978, eventually achieving five #1 hits on the Billboard Hot 100 with "When Doves Cry", "Let's Go Crazy", "Kiss", "Batdance" and "Cream".

He became the 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.

'"[33] Prince fired Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis from funk group The Time in 1983 because their production career began overtaking their roles in the band.

[125] The pair's first mainstream breakthrough was Janet Jackson's Control in 1986,[126] which propelled her career and spawned numerous projects seeing the writing/production team work with artists as varied as Twin Cities acts Mint Condition,[127] Alexander O'Neal and Sounds of Blackness, to internationally-established acts Michael Jackson, New Edition, Boyz II Men, Patti LaBelle, and Human League.

[135] 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.

[142] "Every A&R person in New York was present at CBs 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.

[148][149] The Replacements, who "might be the most legendary" Minnesota rock musicians,[150] eventually achieved some limited mainstream success, which led to member Paul Westerberg's solo career,[151] while Hüsker Dü started on local Reflex Records and became the first hardcore outfit to sign to a major label.

[153] The Twin Cities rock scene came to national prominence by 1984, when the Village Voice's critics poll, Pazz and Jop, named three Minneapolis recordings among the top ten of the year: Prince's Purple Rain, The Replacements' Let It Be, and Hüsker Dü's Zen Arcade.

[161] Rhymesayers' artists, including Eyedea & Abilities, Brother Ali, Los Nativos, Musab, and, most notably, Atmosphere,[162] began to receive national attention in the late 1990s.

"[168] Two locally and internationally-recognized Minneapolis electronic dance music artists are Woody McBride and Freddy Fresh (who walks a line with hip hop).

[177] 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.

Old five story building with two old cars parked in front, sign says MUSIC - MAC PHAIL SCHOOL - DRAMA. Circular inset at upper right of head of male in late twenties, wearing white shirt, black suit and tie, labeled WILLIAM MacPHAIL. Under photo says MacPHAIL SCHOOL OF MUSIC AND DRAMATIC ART/816 NICOLLET AVENUE MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA.
1920 image from the MacPhail Center for Music yearbook
Modern building seen from across the street, cyclist out front, snow on the ground. Six story silver tower. Two story entrance. First floor is glass, second floor is high-ceilinged, dark solid with window in front.
MacPhail Center for Music designed by James Dayton, who worked for five years for Frank Gehry [ 9 ]
After dark, hundreds of silver stars on the walls. In front of tall buildings downtown, cars parked in front.
First Avenue nightclub
Four stories, with mirror-windows. Electric sign above second floor says MINNESOTA PUBLIC RADIO - AMERICAN.
Minnesota Public Radio in St. Paul
Modern building, red entrance labeled BOX OFFICE, in front of yellow and blue segments. Trees planted in front. Advertising has images of people's heads painted on building.
Orchestra Hall , Nicollet Mall , Minneapolis
Three musicians, left to right: older man with white hair playing drums, middle-aged man looking into camera, older woman with white hair playing accordion. Walls are covered with an American flag and signs.
Ruth Adams and The World's Most Dangerous Polka Band , Nye's Polonaise, voted "The Best Bar in America" by Esquire in 2006 [ 94 ]
Black and white, waist high portrait of middle aged man with curly hair, leather jacket, electric guitar.
Bob Dylan in 1980
Full length portrait of young woman wearing a sleeveless dress on left, blond hair pulled back into ponytail, and middle aged male wearing a brown tuxedo on right, in brown longish hair, singing into microphones. Three people seated at right listening, guitar player visible in band at left.
A Prairie Home Companion in 2005
At left man in his thirties plays piano, man in the middle is in his seventies also playing piano, man at right in his twenties or thirties playing a snare drum. On the Mississippi waterfront
Cornbread Harris (center) sings "Deeper Blues" at Minneapolis downtown's National Night Out 2010 with Cadillac Kolstad and Johann Swenson
Stage with three musicians in their thirties. Left to right, man in a suit next to a Steinway grand piano, man in jeans holding a bass fiddle, man in jeans playing drums. Heads of audience visible in front.
The Bad Plus in Amsterdam in 2005
Waist high portrait of thirty-year-old male, wearing longish hair and short beard, and a black jumpsuit over one shoulder, right hand extended to hold microphone stand. Shirt has unnamed "Prince" symbol on it. Guitar visible behind him.
Prince invented the Minneapolis sound during the 1980s.
Shoulder high portrait wearing red polka dot shirt and blue sunglasses, sweating, singing into microphone which partly hides his face.
Paul Westerberg , at one time of The Replacements , in 2006
Six dark haired women sitting at a table in a black room
Têtes Noires , Minneapolis' first all-female rock band, [ 144 ] backstage at First Avenue
Full length portrait, wearing gray T-shirt and blue jeans, no hair, short gray beard, playing electric guitar.
Bob Mould , formerly of Hüsker Dü and Sugar , in 2007
Knee high portrait of male in his twenties, facing right wearing a black t-shirt and jeans, singing into microphone. Young man covering his ears and three people listening in background behind him.
Slug of underground hip hop group Atmosphere , in 2003