Decades ago, there was a connection and an area wide idea. House concerts with well known folk artists who played acoustically. Mostly these concerts were actually in homes of people who listen to those types of things. Many, if not most of these singer/songwriters were well known from the popular radio show, ‘The prairie Home Companion’. This radio show was hosted by local personality and writer, Garrison Keillor.

I knew these performers from my immersion in the folk music scene back in the early 70’s. I toured with a few of them and they all played at the New Riverside Café in Minneapolis. It was good music and an outgrowth of the beat generation ( Jerry Garcia, Joan Baez, Carolyn Hester, Utah Phillips and Woody Guthrie to name a few) It was the musical time of the singer-songwriters and very popular when I was in the Navy overseas. I even ordered a classy Martin D12-20 to be mailed overseas to my ship. Never arrived. “Lost in transit” as so many of us were as well. Middle sixties, lots of war everywhere.

When I got back home, I went to Schmidt music to ask about that Martin guitar they shipped. No delivered notice received by them. They still had my 400 dollars on account and pointed to the wall display of guitars and asked me which one I would like to have. I picked a Brazilian rosewood D28. Still have it, It’s worth has increased over the years.

I went to Junior college and transferred to another after a short stint in my Mother’s basement after discharge. A common experience for vets at that time. Focus is a common experience issue for vets. You miss all your buddies but you don’t miss the rest of it. Authority rebellion occurred with me as well. I tuned in and dropped out as the saying of the 60’s went. Long hair and an attitude of hippies and old beatniks began for me. The wars were not popular with anyone.

After a year in Mom’s basement, I moved into an upstairs apartment in a somewhat unfashionable part of town and met my lifelong friend, Bruce, at the yellow cab stand at the airport. They became roommates at the crummy apartment. It worked. I practiced painting on the walls of the apartment doing reproductions of art seen on the Beetles albums. Acrylic paints left over from my Minneapolis School of Art classes.

After a short time with Bruce he and I began playing country blues together. Advertised as 16 string blues, they went under the stage name of ‘Actual Mexicans’ Before we met, Bruce spent half a year on China Beach after getting blown up in a PSY OPS truck. After a month or so, Bruce’s skin got lighter, I said “I thought you were a black guy!” Bruce then replied, after his distinctive laugh, ” Heck no, I’m a dark Norwegian” It became the subject of many humorous conversations. He is gone now and I misss him a lot. You know how it is. We grieve. Not lament.

We got a bit antsy and Bruce knew some people who lived in Berkeley. Why not ditch this joint, get some cool English motorcycles, strap our guitars on the back of them, and go west? A long story in the archives here under ‘ motorcycle pilgrimage 1-6. We came back to Minneapolis and I wound up on the west bank and got involved at the New Riverside Café. Music, our real life focus’ became the catalyst for the next few years. I joined the Riverside staff and Bruce drove Yellow Cab for a while and married one of the café women and moved north to Trade Lake.

It was glorious to be playing on the stage where famous musicians and poets came. I got a money to perform, bit none of the of the cafe workers did. Record contacts helped for some of us and we had a good friend at KQRS radio that did some recording of myself and Bruce. Alan Stone was his radio identity.

Remember records? We never made one although we did some reel to reel stuff at the radio station. Tony Glover worked there as a DJ at those times too. Tony was already well known from recordings of Koerner Ray and Glover. (I just had contact with John Koerner late last year for a funeral for one of my good friends, another 12 string folk artist, kyell. He also had a distinctive laugh.) How many times friends and their laughs are remembered!

I finally tired of the poverty of the café, and started track labor with the railroad. Upon urging from Bruce, I moved up to Trade Lake a half a mile from him. That was in 1976. Bruce lived just down the road from my 30 acre homestead. It was a good introduction to the rural life. Frozen pipes, racoons, gigs with country western bands and lots of new friends. Wood heat. Chain saws and splitting mauls. The railroad work got me fit enough to endure the northern life. It felt right and the air was clean and the noise of the freeways was gone. Highways 35 and 94 surround that area.

Through Bruce and and my music connections, we continued to visit the West Bank. It was grand times and upon meeting a radio star at a party, he and I got loaded on some of my homemade wine. First and last time they ever got together. I dropped the name of his good friend that performed on that show to get in the door. She was the fiddler for the Powder Milk Biscuit Band.

I was still friends with a lot of the West Bank performers from the café days. They were usually broke and I offered ‘House Concerts’ up north of Highway 8 in Wisconsin for them. Actual money was made, not much, but gas and housing guaranteed. Advertising of those concerts found it’s way into the St.Paul Pioneer Press. Turn outs were large enough to get a scramble for usable chairs, baked treats and rug cleaner. It was grand for a time and my friends became a rumor and a quaint source of amusement for the locals. Most of them were radio fans. Old hippies that had graduated to organic gardeners and ford 8N tractors. Those times are gone now. Radio shows are passé with U tube, CD,s Television and the internet. Television is actually now supplanted with Netflix and other streaming computer web sites.

We are not the better for computer tansition. It is not nostalgia perse, but the loss of good fellowship and neighborly entertainment. Except for a very occasional pricey large venue concert, there is little to replace this loss.

There is one platform where some of these musicians still play however. It is not billed as entertainment however. Some of these ‘old timers’ can still be seen and heard locally. It’s in the churches and it abounds. Old hymns, gospel and up tempo worship songs can be heard and felt. The music just starts getting in the groove of a team vouting off one another and it’s over. Older pickers, strummers and such. It’s called worship music.

One of the greatest fiddlers I heard, quit the stage and it’s acclimation and applause. We all thought it was a tragedy for us. At that time it did not make sense to me. Later, much later, I discovered why he went on to play for Jesus. The applause from Jesus moves me and it moves my spirit and the joy is stunning. It often causes the me to stop playing and just stand, overwhelmed with the Joy. Jesus loves the worship. After all, the man after God’s own heart was a musician. He loved to dance for Him too. David. It’s the best music anywhere. Jack Gator