Phil Nusbaum KM: Kim Monson MM: Mike Monson

Home , Forget About It, Hayseed Dixie, I Really Want You

Kim Monson and Mike Monson Narrators

Phil Nusbaum Interviewer

March 13, 2010

PN: Phil Nusbaum KM: Kim Monson MM: Mike Monson

PN: What we’re trying to do is document Bluegrass in the state of Minnesota. You guys have been here for a pretty long time. I guess to me what matters is performance, and also the scene, the informal performance, people who hang around and play, and the socializing that goes along with it, because there’s a lot of performance that takes place that isn’t formal, that isn’t at a Bluegrass show. So all that’s really important to me and how all of this has changed over time. So, let’s just start by asking you where you’re from and how you came to this - Kim or Mike, whichever wants to start?

KM: I grew up in Grand Rapids [Minnesota], born in 1959. My dad was a musician and best friends with Lloyd LaPlant, so we grew up with all the LaPlant kids, and Lloyd and my dad were musicians together. They did a lot of jamming when I was a kid, and my father played guitar, mandolin, and a little bit of banjo. I remember going over to the LaPlants at a very young age, and seeing guitars stripped out on the top of his freezer, ‘cause that’s where he made ‘em. He didn’t have a bigger workshop then, he did it out of his basement. So, from very early on I was listening to the music, not really thinking that I was going to ever become involved with it. My sister did a lot of singing, and I did do some singing with her from time to time. My dad passed away when he was 40, so I was 12 and left those three instruments, and brother and I started just kind a picking up stuff and teaching ourselves how to play some of them.

PN: What was your dad’s name?

KM: His name was Clayton Hanson. From there I just started doing kind of Folk music and did that through my high school years before I moved down to Duluth to go to college. So that kind of music I was around when I was younger, and kind of grew up with that.

PN: Your father was really ahead of the curve by playing banjo. He must have been playing that in the ‘50s.

KM: He wasn’t a banjo banjo player, and it was a four-string banjo he was playing. It was more like “Way Down Upon the Swanee River” kind of banjo, but he was doing all kinds of the traditional songs you would pick on guitar and mandolin.

MM: Well Phil, I was born in 1956, I kind of came from a musical family; we always had piano, guitars. I wanted to be a drummer, so I got a paper route, and saved up $40 for a drum set, and my parents bought the rest it. I played in a little Rock band for the ski club banquets that we had.

KM: The Polka Dots! [Laughter]

MM: to make a long story short, when you move out of the house you don’t haul drums around to apartments, so I bought a guitar. This was the mid to late ‘70s, and I was kind of listening to A Prairie Home Companion, Powdermilk Biscuit stuff - I loved that. I’d hear Lester [Flatt] and Earl [Scruggs] on the Beverly Hillbillies and thought, “Hey! That’s pretty cool music!” I was playin’ guitar, my favorite stuff to play along with was like Ozark Mountain Daredevils stuff. Then one day, like I said, I was a ski jumper. I was jogging at Chester Bowl. I used to run the cross-country trails up there. I get done runnin’ and there’s this banjo player sittin’ under a tree, and I said, “Wow, you are really good!” and he says, “You know any geetar pickers around here?” I happen to have one in the car, so he told me to get it, and showed me “Foggy Mountain Breakdown.” He said, “You’re pretty good at this. I live in the Chester Park Apartments, and come on over and pick a few!” And I said, “Ok, what the heck!? This is a blast!” He was in the Air Force here, the Air Force was in town, his name was Matthew Kelly Imbodin. He’s a really good banjo player.

KM: He’s a great banjo player, and has played with some good bands.

MM: He says, “I know this fiddle player, he’s in the Air Force, he’s up at the base, why don’t I give him a call.” So he calls Ken Sherman, so Ken comes over. “Hey we know a singer/guitar player,” so they called this other guy, Dave Montgomery, and he played bass also, and he brought a bass. And the next thing I knew I was in a Bluegrass band called, Elbow Grease. So that’s my history and how I got into it early, and that was in the late’ 70s.

PN: How did you meet?

KM: Mike had been down at Sir Benedict’s tavern starting a jam down there with his band before I ever kind of came on the scene. But we met down there at Sir Benedict’s. Prior to that there were some places you could go out and play that kind of music; maybe the Orpheum was one of ‘em.

PN: Is that a movie theater?

KM: It was more of a cafe/coffee shop. KUMD [at University of Minnesota Duluth] would even do a Second Saturday radio show there, where they would play live music right there, and do the radio broadcast from there. So I played out there, and there was a little pizza place, Mr. Frank’s Pizza, I used to live right next to, and they played some good acoustic music in there. Then I met Mike at Sir Ben’s in the mid ‘80s.

MM: We were looking for places to play with this Elbow Grease band, and we happened to call Sir Ben’s, and they said, “Sure, come on down, we’ll give you sandwiches and beer.” …That was for the band. We did that for a few months, and then it turned into a jam, which is still going today. Wednesday night is Bluegrass jam at Sir Benedict’s. Now it’s only free beer, ‘cause there are too many people to give sandwiches to, but…it’s a great jam session.

KM: That’s been 30 years.

MM: Yep, I hate to think of that, but…

PN: In your experience, is Bluegrass Country? Is it Folk? Is it its own thing?

MM: I’d say it’s all of the above. The Country music that I like is the old stuff. Country music’s not Country anymore…to me. But there’s the old Country was almost Bluegrass. But you know us, we take Rock-in-Roll and play it Bluegrass style. We’re not the pure traditionalists, but we love the traditional stuff, and the Gospel…

KM: I think that the Country music today, and I’ve heard even Country music stars admit that it’s not like the old stuff, that’s really, really evident in the music. But the writing is what, I think, keeps it “Country,” is what they write about. That’s how they can call it “Country” because of the themes that they use in it, but it so much more rock-y today. The Bluegrass of today certainly has lots more influences; and I don’t even tend to call what we do “Bluegrass” anymore, because we do such nontraditional stuff sometimes.

PN: What makes Bluegrass “Bluegrass?”

KM: I always think it’s the instrumentation. You’re lookin’ for a guitar, a stand-up bass, a banjo, mandolin, fiddle, and those kinds of things. But it’s tricky, because those are the instruments that are used in Bluegrass, but you can take those instruments and play anything with ‘em, too, and that’s also becoming more evident today in the music that’s comin’ out.

PN: Whatever you call what you do, and I think that fans would consider what you do “Bluegrass”?

KM: Sure they do.

PN: And if they’re aware of the musical trends, they would be able to say just what you say, “Oh, that’s a Rock tune played on the Bluegrass instruments.”

KM: Right, right.

PN: But what makes you want to continue playing, whatever your word for it is, I’d hope you’re not offended by my saying, “Bluegrass,” ‘cause that’s what most people would consider that’s what you do – at least it’s a Bluegrass base.

KM: It is. I’m not going to answer for you, but I know that part of it for us is that you can do it anywhere! We do this kind of music sittin’ on the dock at Isle Royale in the middle of Lake Superior…we do our music. You can take it anywhere; you don’t need to plug it in. It’s the roots of all different kinds of music shoved into whatever is comin’ out of your instrument at the time. But I love it that you can do anywhere. We meet people from all over the world, playing this music; they may play the same instruments, they may play the same song, but it’s different, it’s is theirs, and ours is ours. And I love, also, the Bluegrass family, especially our Minnesota Bluegrass Association, ‘cause I can’t really speak for anybody else’s, but it’s an extremely tight- knit community.

PN: What do you mean?

KM: We encourage each other; we love to play with each other. There are bands that are marketing the same places to play, and yet, we’re all friends, we’re all good friends, many of us. That camaraderie that you have in that music is amazing to me. I think it’s really, really an amazing community. I don’t know what it’s like in other parts of the states, or anywhere else. I just know that here it’s really amazing…the music community is really amazing.

MM: And it’s all good people…everybody’s good people.

PN: Have you always found that this is sort of a comradeship or fellowship among Bluegrass players?

MM: Yep, everywhere. Another thing that she didn’t mention, the Bluegrass, it’s kind of a universal language where you can meet people from all over the world, and you can do a whole bunch of songs, ‘cause everybody knows the same songs. And then when you hit a good harmony it gives you goose bumps.

PN: I wonder if it’s always been this way, in the Bluegrass community, where the community itself is the reason to play the music. Care to speculate?

MM: For us here in Minnesota I think it is, ‘cause our community has grown so much in the last 25 years, 30 years now. It’s a lot of work, but we have one of the best Bluegrass communities, I think, of anywhere.

PN: What do you think is the driving force behind this community?

MM: The people.

KM: I really think it really comes back to the people. We’re all kind of hearty Minnesotans. I think it comes back to just how we are as people. I’ve heard many people visit Minnesota and comment about what the people are like here and how different it is. Our fiddle player, Karyn, she moved out to Seattle, and it’s different out there. She’s missing a lot of things back here that aren’t the same. It’s not as friendly, it’s not as cohesive, it’s harder to get to know people, there’s

a lot of stiffness and that about people in other parts of the country that other people feel they don’t get here. So when they come to Minnesota, they do feel like its “Minnesota nice,” and I do think it starts with the people, I think some of that’s just where it’s at.

PN: Do you think the Bluegrass Association plays any role in this?

KM: For certain, I certainly wouldn’t know as many people as I know without being part of the Association, without working the Festivals and being part of that. Mike and I have worked at the Festivals, we’ve volunteered there and put in time over many years, and I think that that’s all a part of keeping us together, and keeping us getting to know each other better and better. We’ve seen these little kids, we remember when they weren’t even there, and now they’re extremely good fiddle players. It’s amazing to watch the kids come up in the community. There’s more and more kids coming up in the community, and if there weren’t places like Minnesota Bluegrass and Old Time Music Association, you’re not going to have the Grass Seeds Academy, and those kinds of things that start kids out young and continue on the traditions of Bluegrass and Old Time music.

PN: You’ve got a thing locally, a week from now - Cabin Fever [Duluth Bluegrass festival held during the cold months]. What is that like? I’d like to get your perceptions of how that plays into all this.

KM: Well, it’s fairly small still, which we really like, and of course, Mike and I are really likin’ it ‘cause it’s in our town, so we don’t have to travel very far. I think, really, we just wanted to just have something up north that was a little easier for people from even north of Duluth - International Falls, Thunder Bay, those kind of places - to get to, that was something of our own. It certainly isn’t a big festival; it works with having some draw bands and having one national act, and having a lot of jamming going on over a couple-day period. But it’s really in its infancy; it’s the very beginnings of it. It’s only been going a few years now, so it’s got a lot of room to grow. We’ll just see where it goes from there. It’s been really nice to hear…when we down at the winter weekend last weekend, we heard a lot of new people that were going to be coming up to this, so I’ve already felt the growth.

PN: What do you think Bluegrass represents to other people who are part of it, who are pickers, but are not in bands?

MM: I’ll give you an example of a great friend of ours, Jim Whitney. We met him at Zimmerman [Minnesota]. He was just coming to listen, and he stumbled upon us blonde, tie- dyed hippies, as he’ll tell ya, and we fell in love. MBOTMA [Minnesota Bluegrass and Old Time Music Association] has quite a few fans that work really hard for us. The popularity of the music when we go out to play is pretty phenomenal. We get some really good crowds, and people love the Bluegrass music.

KM: It really relates to…it’s a common thread through many people’s lives. I can’t tell you the amount of times I’ve heard people say, “I really love Bluegrass music because my dad used to listen to it” or “My grandpa used to listen to it on a radio program”, or they really love Gospel, because they remember sitting around with their family was listening to a Gospel Hour. So, there’s been lots of people over the years, that have come up to me and voiced that that’s why they are such fans of Bluegrass, was because it has to do with their family thread.

PN: They seem to draw a connection, somehow, between the music and themselves, even though here we are, up here in the northern part of the northern-most tier of states, far from where it came from.

KM: Right, right. Mike has been down to Bean Blossom [Bill Monroe Bean Blossom Bluegrass Music Festival - the oldest, continuous-running Bluegrass festival, located in Nashville, IN. Begun in 1966]. I’ve never been there.

MM: I’ve been to Bean Blossom four times in the ‘80s, and we have a whole lot better festival than Bean Blossom did down there. I think it’s improved now, but…

KM: There are people who have come through our festival…big entertainers who have said it is the best-run festival that they’ve ever played at.

PN: What’s it like when you get together to play? How do you propose to get together…with people you know and maybe some you don’t?

KM: I can think, certainly, of times at the big festival when we’ve been at our campsite and there’s a good number of people pickin’, and there’s a lot of people that will walk up with their instruments and stand there, you know that decision of, “Should I, or shouldn’t I?” “Is it something that’s above my level, or not something I’m used to?” We certainly try always to invite people in, to have them experience or try to experience what we’re experiencing, which is just meeting people and having a good time. We do, occasionally, go down to Sir Ben’s to jam, to just kind of get that old feeling of that Wednesday night. That’s fun when we do, and Mike’s daughter comes down now, because she’s grown up in the Bluegrass community with us…so she’s a bass player, and that’s always fun. She’s kind of tangled up with a few bands here in town, playin’ some bass, and that jamming…

MM: That wild, spontaneous stuff, we’ll be out on Isle Royale, and we’ll ask if there’s any musicians out here. They’ll say, “Oh, yeah, there’s a little girl working the Ranger station who plays fiddle.”

KM: So they go get her and we go play in a natural amphitheater, and do all these fiddle tunes with somebody we’ve never known before, because we all know a common song or 12. [Laughter]

PN: When you’re playing Bluegrass do you feel like you’re promoting the music at the same time?

KM: Well, certainly I think you’re always keeping that in mind that if you aren’t playing it, nobody’s hearing it. If you’re playing it, then it’s getting heard, and people are enjoying it and people are responding to it.

PN: Since the time you started playing, is there an evolution to the music, and what the changes might be?

KM: Yeah, I mean I certainly do, especially with really progressive stuff. When we started out, New Grass Revival was the progressive band of the time. There have been lots of changes along the way with Alison Krauss, and bands like Nickel Creek. Some people say that that’s not even Bluegrass now. It’s got so much Jazz influence in it that they really feel it’s not Bluegrass, but that is the evolution.

MM: I think that O Brother, Where Art Thou? movie sparked a boom, too, of people getting exposed to the music with that Album of the Year, and the people that it brought to the forefront touring, and playin’ the soundtrack for that. It was great.

PN: Yeah, I recall that it was the number one Country album without any Country music airplay.

PN: But what about your evolution and the other players you come into contact with here?

KM: We go down to Sir Ben’s and jam every once in a while, and I think that they know that the dust is going to swirl when we come in, because they’re used to kind of playin’ the same songs - the same familiar tunes - it’s really easy to get caught up in doing that, especially when it’s in a jam and you’re trying to welcome people in and you’re trying to keep things simple. And when we go down sometimes, we don’t necessarily keep things simple, and they know that, and they do like us to come down and play. I think that they would say that we’ve steered a little too far one way or the other in our music.

MM: Kim’s latest evolutionary song is “Superstition” by Stevie Wonder, so, it’s fun! We like to get to funky [Laughter].

KM: It’s way fun to do stuff like that. When I started out playing, I started out playing Folk music. Then when I got down to Sir Benedict’s they were playing pretty traditional stuff down there, so then you’re either doing really traditional Bluegrass or Gospel. From there I was doing some jobs on my own, so I tend to look at different kinds of music. I really listen to a lot of different kinds of music. Where Mike is pretty typical with straightforward Bluegrass and Rock- n-Roll. He’s a Bluegrass/Rock-n-Roll guy, so I listen to lots of different stuff than he does, so my influences are different than his are, and then we bring them together…and fight [Laughter].

MM: And we’re working with Brian Ford again, right now, and he is a lot of fun, willing to take a stab at anything and pull it off with amazing talent.

PN: I’d like to hear you talk about the different bands that you’ve been in and their different character.

MM: Ok, well, like I said, my first one was called Elbow Grease, and that was back in the ‘80s.

KM: What kind of stuff did you guys play then?

MM: We did more or less traditional Bluegrass and Folk. Our lead singer had a real smoky voice. About as farfetched as we would get is “Misty”.

KM: But you did Folk tunes like “Darcy Farrow”, and real traditional stuff.

MM: Yup, yup.

PN: The “Misty”, was that the Ray Stevens arrangement, up tempo?

MM: No.

PN: You did the Johnny Mathis…

KM: [Singing] “They did Misty…da da” [Laughing] Oh yeah, it was real smooth.

MM: Until I met Kim, I was pretty much traditional.

KM: [Laughing] There you have it!

MM: Because my next band was Bluegrass Crossing.

KM: They wore matching shirts and hats.

MM: And that was with Brian Ford, and Lance Rhicard was in it for a while, and Ted Heinonen on mandolin. And we did mostly pretty much traditional stuff and Gospel. Then we got Kathy Obey in the group and became Natural‘grass in the ‘90s.

KM: So then we played with Brian, and Al Roline was on fiddle, and Kathy and Mike and I were Natural‘grass. We were together for about 12 years, and participated in the first Minnesota album that was out…we had one on there. We did a recording. A great group for a long time… made a cassette tape. It was a busy band, and it was before Minnesota had so many bands. Now I look at that page and there are so many Bluegrass and related bands. Back when we were Natural‘grass, there were a handful of Bluegrass bands that were out performing as much as we were. After that we’ve been the Fish Heads.

MM: Natural‘grass was fairly traditional still with great harmonies.

KM: Lots of Gospel, we did lots of church services, because we had killer Gospel stuff, it was wonderful, and that was pretty traditional stuff. Every once in a while we would do one of my originals, one of Brian’s originals, maybe a little Patsy Cline, some Old Country, but it was pretty traditional.

PN: Do you try to learn music to fit the types of venues you might get into, or do you just try to learn music and the heck with the venue?

KM: [Laughing]

MM: We learn music we want to learn. You have to want to learn a song. Sometimes Brian or Kim will want me to learn one, and I’ll say, “I don’t really think this song fits me.”

KM: But, on the flip side of that, if we’re going to do a wedding, I tell the people in the wedding to send me what they want to hear. We did a wedding last fall, up the shore, and we did Michael Jackson’s “Black or White”, all kinds of stuff that they wanted to hear at their wedding dance. I just threw them at the guys, printed off the words, and we blew through ‘em and they loved it. I really think that, especially for something like a wedding, it’s nice to have what you want there. So, that’ll one think that I’ll work a little harder at.

MM: Not that we learned ‘em [Laughing].

KM: Yeah, we didn’t learn ‘em, but we did ‘em. Working, we definitely work set lists around whatever the establishment it, and the venue.

PN: You seem to relish following your own path, and you seem to like it even better if it’s considered kind of edgy, kind of not obeying the rules.

KM: I would say that that’s true, but I would say that we have just as much fun doing an absolute traditional Gospel tune and singing with each other or singing in a small group in a living room. We have fun with both, but I do lean towards the stuff that I learn. I want it to be different from other people are doing, because there are so many bands in Minnesota playing Bluegrass music…a place like Dulono’s where they have two bands in there sometimes every weekend, I like to think that people will come out to hear us because we’re different.

MM: …fresh.

PN: You seem to be leading into an area…sort of a competition…between the different groups.

KM: There’s just so many…We’re not out playing a lot. There are certainly a lot of other bands out trying to play more than we are…They’re really just out getting more jobs than we are. We have certain jobs that we play, and we have certain jobs that we don’t play, because of maybe the hours or whatever. I wouldn’t say that I feel like I’m competing with anybody, because I can call and get a Dulono’s gig, as well as somebody else, but I do want ours to be different; I want ours to sound like us, to sound like people will remember the Fish Heads. I don’t like walking on 9

other people’s stuff. I like learning new, fresh material, like Mike said, keeping it really, just fresh stuff. Sometimes we’ll learn a song that’s really progressive, and really great, and we’ll do it maybe once, and then we kind of forget about it. So we spend a lot of time practicing when Brian comes up, on certain songs, but then sometimes we don’t do them. I do like keeping it exciting; I get bored quickly, Phil. I can only take so much of “Old Home Place”. If it’s something that I’ve done over many years, it needs to be set aside until you can get a fresh feeling for it, I think.

PN: You hit on something there, with a song like, “Old Home Place”, which was written by a guy from Missouri, Mitch Jayne, and a lot of that Bluegrass, it’s really southern. Do you seek a northern identity?

KM: I think we already have one with just our name [Laughter]. People ask us why we named ourselves the Fish Heads, and it’s clearly because we just like to fish, that’s it.

MM: Well, not clearly.

KM: Not clearly to them, but it is why we named the band that. I don’t know, there are not as many bands north of Hinckley in Minnesota that play Bluegrass as there are in the southern part of the state.

PN: I mean “northern” as opposed to south of the Mason-Dixon Line?

KM: Oh, ok, um, well, yes, then.

PN: What are your feelings about being a northern states Bluegrass band?

KM: I think that for a northern states Bluegrass band we are a really good Bluegrass band. And if we were stuck south of the Mason Dixon Line we would be a dime a dozen, because there’s probably so many amazing bands down there, that you would have even more competition. I think up here, that I really feel like we’re a great band. Just like I tell our banjo player, he’s an amazing banjo player, but if you go south there are really amazing banjo players, because this music has been living down there for so much longer than it has in the northern states. That’s just a part of who they’ve been for such a long time, almost a century, so it’s got to be so much harder to make it, and so much harder to make a name for yourself if you’re in the southern bands. So up here maybe we kind a stick out because of the kind of music we play, too.

PN: Is there a difference between the northern sound and the southern sound?

KM: Yeah. I think that the vocal piece of it and the harmonies that some of the bands carry are just incredible. We used to have really great harmonies with Natural‘grass, and that was one thing that kept us, I felt like, kind of right up there with some of those southern bands. They’re all just such fast, fast pickers, they’re starting ‘em younger, they have all those music schools down there.

MM: Where do they get all those tenor singers that are guys?

KM: It’s like they grow ‘em down there. There’s all the schools of music down there where they’re just producing all these kids that can pick do fast, those are the things that I don’t feel like northern-wise we can compete with. We have a great Becky Buller, and she leaves Minnesota to go down and go to school down there, then is kind of with a southern band. I adore Becky, and love that she did that, and we have lots more kids that can go that direction, but it’s kind of the difference: they really grow amazing musicians down there, they have amazing family bands, amazing vocals, and it’s something that I don’t think we’ve really reached, so much, in northern bands.

MM: It’s getting’ there, though.

KM: It is.

PN: You’re saying that in Minnesota we’re pretty far from the center of things, so if we have bands that are playing really non-standard does it cut both ways: it’s a great thing and not a great thing?

KM: Well, it’s not traditional, so you lose a little bit of that history...

MM: But you get your southern, non-standard bands, too. Look at the Reno Boys, and what they’re doing with Hayseed Dixie.

PN: Let me cycle back here and talk about the North Country. Is there a layer of performers, players, listeners that were before you?

KM: Sure

MM: Lloyd LaPlant.

KM: We had a couple of great, old friends, good friends of Lloyd’s, too: Don Crist and Jim Grussendorf, who were our inspirations in the music, a banjo player and a guitar player, that did a lot of old, traditional tunes, that both Mike and I…

MM: Did you know Jim Grussendorf?

PN: Yes, I met Jim. I did not meet Don. I knew Bob Andresen and his wife, Gail, quite well, and the fiddle contest that they ran. Is that a part of your pantheon?

KM: Well, the Lake Superior Fiddle Contest…certainly Mike and I were friends with both Bob and Gail, and I played in a band with Gail for a little while. I went to the fiddle contest, but I didn’t really do anything there.

MM: I went to jam in the parking lot of the contest, because I love fiddle music and there are lots fiddlers there.

KM: Of course now, that is no longer there, and we have the Cotton Fiddle Contest up here, but we’ve only played at that as a band, we haven’t really participated in anything else up there.

PN: Where I’m going with this is the layer that was there before you guys entered the scene…how is it similar to what you guys do, and how is it different, from the socializing part and the musical part?

MM: I don’t think they socialized like we do, because they didn’t have the ability. Jim and Don would play in the kitchen. And I’ve got tapes of them guys just having a ball in the kitchen. When Sir Ben’s came along, we had a chance to play with them. With the festivals, too, you have a chance to get out and meet people and play with them.

KM: When they were in their 40s and 50s, there weren’t festivals, there wasn’t that opportunity to be part of a big organization that we get together to go camping [and playing]. From the time I was a kid, I remember my dad and Lloyd [LaPlant] would get together in the kitchen, which was kind of what they did. They got together and they would have a jam, and all of us kids would go outside and play tag. We didn’t realize how important it would be in our lives at the time. But it has changed, they didn’t have the direct contact all the time with people playing, and there weren’t as many venues to play out in, either. I remember when I was up in Grand Rapids, we would go to a place called Nine Mile Comer. Now I know they had a Country show jam session up there two years ago that Lloyd was a part of, but we used to actually go to Nine Mile Comer, this bar, to hear people play. They were kind of Country music legends that would come through there. I got exposed to that as a kid, also. I know that Charlie Pride came through, he was at Lloyd’s house, and I had a neighbor who had Bobbie Goldsboro over, and all these musical people were kind of in my neighborhood when I was smaller. There just weren’t places for them to play out at or connect, like we can now. We have the internet and we have all these ways to intermingle with people.

PN: I heard someone from that generation once saying, commenting about the Bluegrass lifestyle, that he liked the music, but it wasn’t his religion. So maybe if they would have had the opportunity to go to festivals and all the opportunities to meet people and play all the time they would have went for it, but because they didn’t, at a later time in life when they saw it going on, this person wasn’t 100% behind it, just thought it was a little bit over the top.

KM: Don went down to the festival, but Jim never went down to the festival. It was just fine for him to just stay away from that, and every once in a while get together. We used to have these big summer parties here, too, and we would always have music. We’d set up the sound in the back. I remember one year, Mike asked Jim, “I really want you and Don to come over and play.” “Oh no.” He wasn’t gonna do that. He didn’t play out in front of people. It was a very nervous thing for him, and he was amazing!

MM: He could have made a living at it, though.

KM: Definitely could have made a living at it, he was amazing.

PN: You talking about Jim Grussendorf?

KM: Jim Grussendorf, yeah. Oh yeah, he was amazing…he had a real soft voice, and finally told Mike, “Ok, Mike, I’m gonna come over, but I want you to play bass, and I want Ted Heinonen to be there on mandolin, and we’re gonna stay for half an hour.” So they played in our backyard for a half an hour, he just did a half an hour set and that was it. He knew it was important to us, that we wanted him to come over and play music, but it was a very nervous thing for him; he just was not used to being in front of people.

MM: But he was fine at Sir Benedict’s, he loved to go down there. We had a job at Spirit Mountain, and we needed a banjo player, and I called him and he came out, but he wouldn’t take any money, so we bought him a set of strings and he took the set of strings.

PN: Why wouldn’t he take any money?

MM: That was just Jim. He played for the love of it.

KM: He did. Which is the other piece of this music, if you’re going to be in it and you’re going to think that you’re going to make any money at it, then you’re in the wrong profession. You need to be in this music to really play and enjoy and love it. Many times we go out and play, and for us, you’re not even paying for your time and energy in going down there, as far as any monetary value that you’re making off the gig. But, we just love it, just to be able to go out and play, to go out and see people, and have people’s responses…that’s what you really feel like your payment is.

PN: This preceding layer of player, did they mentor you in musical or other ways?

MM: Absolutely. I would sing with Jim and Don, back in the day when I could hit some tenor notes, I’d throw some tenor in there and they would just tell me how fabulous it was. We would go to Sir Benedict’s early, so we could have some quiet time, and it was just fantastic to sing with them!

PN: Quiet, you mean where it would be only you guys? Kind of funny, you could have done that at someone’s house.

MM: Yeah...

KM: Right.

MM: They also enjoyed when it got rowdy, when Ted would come and the rest of the folks would come, but just so we could hear each other sing and experience that, ‘cause you know what it’s like to hit good harmonies when you can hear it well; ‘cause Sir Benedict’s gets a little noisy and there’s no PA system, so it was nice have it quiet just to do that stuff. My rhythm

13 guitar, when I was first learning rhythm guitar, Jim was also a fantastic guitar player, but Bluegrass banjo…he would comment on my bass runs, “Oh, keep it up! That Martin sounds so good. I love those bass runs. Hit that Lester run more…”

KM: I ended up, years after I had moved here, I called Lloyd LaPlant and I said, “Lloyd, I need a guitar.” He said, “Well, I’ve got one here, it’s one of mine, my brother gave it back to me, but before that, it was owned by Jim Grussendorf.” It was a #16 LaPlant that didn’t have the headstock LaPlant on it. It was a beautiful, tiger wood guitar. So I bought that from him and I brought it down to Sir Ben’s one night when Jim Grussendorf was there and I said, “Hey, I’ve got something I think you might want to see.” He said, “Oh my goodness.” He was so happy to see his old guitar! They were really incredible mentors in how they performed and how they really loved…you could see the love of the music, could feel the love of the music in what you heard. Later, when Jim died, I wrote a song for him that is called “Tonight I Cried”, and there’s a line in there that says, “I’d give anything to hear your touch of string.” That is what’s on his gravestone, his family decided to put that on there. So, those connections that were made from those years, and Jim was another one who knew my dad, that big circle of having these older gentlemen in my life that have been really close to my dad, father figures, Lloyd is like a second dad to me, has been an incredible, huge piece of how I came into this music and who I’ve become through this music.

PN: One of the things that you seem to be glossing there about when they’d sit around and play, it seems to point to valuing a high level of performance, if that’s right.

MM: Well, it was, but having a good time was more important. But they were quality musicians - that’s a fact.

KM: Don always had some silly songs, he was a character and the clown of the two of ‘em. Jim always a little more serious. But when they sang, you were quiet, because you wanted to hear everything that they were singing.

PN: What kinds of songs did they sing?

MM: Reno and Smiley stuff.

KM: “The Gold and Silver Will Fade Away”. I loved when they sang that.

PN: “The Talk of the Town”, “Silver-haired Daddy of Mine”?

KM: I can’t think of the name of it [The Gold and Silver Will Fade Away]…

PN: Can you sing a bit of it?

MM:/KM: [Singing] “People steal, they cheat and lie…”

KM: That was the favorite one of mine to request of them, because when the two of them played that together, it couldn’t have gotten more perfect. You didn’t need to add a bass, you didn’t need to add a mandolin, and you didn’t even need to add another vocal.

MM: One of my favorites to sing with them was “New Heartache”.

KM: Oh, “I’ve Got a New Heartache”, Rick Skaggs made a hit out of it, I don’t how old that is, you would probably know a little bit more of it.

MM: But Reno and Smiley stuff they did to a tee. You could tell that that’s who they listened to.

PN: So they liked Reno and Smiley?

MM: Yeah, they would know it; I don’t know the Reno and Smiley stuff.

KM: It’s very possible that they would have done it, because they had a whole repertoire built around Reno and Smiley.

PN: Did they push the envelope stylistically?

KM: There was nothing to compare them to. We didn’t have anything else here in town but what we were doing ourselves, and them, so we didn’t know what the envelope was at that point. You know what I mean?

PN: So if they were pushing the envelope, you couldn’t tell.

KM: We wouldn’t have known it. I wasn’t listening to Bluegrass music before I came down to Sir Ben’s, like Mike was doing Bluegrass music, but I wasn’t doing it nor listening to it when I showed up there. So they were my first influence of what they were doing, so I couldn’t tell you. But looking back on that, I would say, of course you could think about it as they were pushing the envelope, because the other people in town were playing Folk music - guitar, singer/songwriter stuff basically, and they were doing Bluegrass stuff. But I don’t really have anything to compare it to.

PN: We live in a territory that is rich in other music, like Polka music - Scandinavian music. Do you take anything of these traditions in what you do, in any way?

KM: Sure we do. Go ahead, Mike, I know you want tell the Polka story on Isle Royale. [Laughing]

MM: When Elbow Grease used to play dances, people would ask how to dance to this stuff. So we would be doing a Bluegrass song, [singing] “Heart to heart dear, how I need you…” Then we’d break into [singing] “I don’t want her, you can have her, she’s too fat for me…” They’re the same beat. So once they discovered that they could dance to Bluegrass music, they were fine. We jammed with an older couple on Isle Royale who played Polka music on their accordions,

and we had a ball. I was banging rhythm guitar, Kim was playing mandolin, and people couldn’t believe it.

KM: They said, [Scandinavian accent] “Oh, the hippies are gonna play with the accordion now.” [Laughter]

MM: We amazed ‘em.

KM: We had so much fun! I think there’s certainly within a lot of the stuff that we have listened to and done, and even if you listen to Laurie Lewis stuff there’s accordion things in there that are maybe more a little Tex-Mex stuff. But we have three accordions in the back room, so we always keep them on standby just in case we want to add a little bit when we record…so it’s there.

MM: I was just recently turned on to Jimmy Jensen, so watch out [Laughing]! I’m learning that Scandinavian hot shot from Duluth.

PN: You know who used to sing that? Bob Andresen. I recorded Andresen doing that with Penny and Gail at Nordic Fest.

KM: [Laughing] If we could get a recording of that, we would pay you heavenly.

PN: I may have it on a cassette tape. It was “Hot Shot” with a rumba rhythm, and Polka, Bob would always say, “Huute” [“hoot” with a Scandinavian accent] [all laughing].

MM: Don’t go out of your way; if you stumble across it, though…

KM: Bob and Gail were certainly…what was the show that he did?

PN: Northland Hoedown.

KM: Because he would add some Scandinavian stuff in there from time to time.

PN: When you go to the ‘40s and ‘50s, there was some of this. My friend Jim Leary gives it this name, called “Polkabilly” by some, somehow combining Scandinavian music with Bluegrass. I recorded a little bit of this and put it on that album that I produced called, “Norwegian Music in Minnesota” with the Bjorngjeld family. What they did was they sang close harmony, sometimes in English and sometimes in Norwegian, and really the main accompanying instrument was the accordion playing the fiddle part. So they would laughingly call it Norwegian Bluegrass. But that is what it was. Both Andresen and Leroy Larson were in contact with that dialect humor. The guy who does this now in the Twin Cities is Art Bjorngjeld. He and Leroy both like this dialect stuff. So, that’s my experiencing of that, and I’m sure they would say there needs to be more carrying of this ball.

KM: I grew up with an aunt that played accordion, so I was exposed to accordion at a young age, too, and my mom played a little piano, so we always had an accordion laying around the

house, too. Mike’s dad actually plays accordion, too, so both of our parents played accordion. I think that was also what we grew up with, so that’s a part of our heritage is hearing that accordion and things.

PN: You guys Scandinavian?

KM: We are.

PN: What kind of accordions do you have in the house here?

KM: Oh, I don’t even know. I’ve got a small, little button box, we have a concertina, we have a full-key accordion; I’m not big into knowing the brands. Mike’s dad gave us his, and we actually got rid of it, because it was so heavy, you could plug it in, it weighed as much as that recliner you’re in, it was biggest thing I’d ever seen in a box, so we let that go down the road .

PN: Socially, what happens when you run into chance encounters with other people that you know are Bluegrass people?

MM: We pick. [Laughter]

PN: ...in the supermarket, anywhere.

MM: Well, we don’t pick there…we would if we had instruments, [Laughing]

KM: Certainly, picking anytime you can, with anybody…we’ve had Bill and Kathe Liners sitting in the living room with us pickin’. This community is such a part of our family, that so many of those people have been here, and we’ve been at their place. So, getting a chance to play music with people in a simple setting is wonderful, so when we can make those chance encounters happen, so to speak, not in the supermarket, but when we can go down and say, “Hey, we need a place to stay,” and then it’s our chance to pick.

PN: So if you run into someone at the supermarket who is a Bluegrass fan, do you stop and talk?

KM: Oh, absolutely! We meet people who recognize us, because they’ve been watching us for years, and they know our names and we don’t know their names, who comment on how much they love our music. They want to connect with you. I have actually spent time standing in line at the supermarket talking with people who saw us playing in the park or something, whom I’ve never met.

MM: Or the deli lady, “Where you playing next?” [Laughter]

KM: So, we do stop and talk with people about it if they come up to ya.

MM: Make sure they know about upcoming events.

PN: Are you familiar with any other Bluegrass associations, other than MBOTMA?

KM: I think SPBGMA [Society for the Preservation of Bluegrass Music in America] and things like IBMA [International Bluegrass Music Association] - those kinds of big ones.

MM: I wouldn’t say we’re familiar, because we’ve never been…we stay pretty close to home.

PN: Ever been to a SEMBA [Southeast Minnesota Bluegrass Association] event?

KM: No. We haven’t. For being in this music as long as we’ve been, we really have not gotten around much. We’ve played in Thunder Bay, we’ve played a little bit in Wisconsin, we’ve played in southern Minnesota, other than that we haven’t ventured out of the state.

MM: We’ve do the Lake Superior tour on the boat. [Laughter]

PN: That sounds fabulous.

MM:/KM: It is fabulous.

PN: I’m satisfied, but is there something you’d like to address?

KM: Ah, well, one of the things I would say is that for many years, Mike and I, on Saturday nights, would listen to our radio station here in town, our University radio station, KUMD, we would listen to the Folk Migrations, and many times they would have Bluegrass music interspersed in there, and many times not, it depended on the DJ.

MM: We’d always have the tape recorder ready.

KM: Yep, back in the days when you were playing cassette tapes, we’d always have that ready, and that’s where we learned our music is off the radio station. But now, five o’clock in the morning your show comes on, and dang they’re going to move it, though! She said she’s looking for another slot for you, she said to tell you. There might not be a lot of people listening to it at that time of the morning that it is, but I think it’ll pick up steam.

MM: And now there’s Pandora, we had Pandora running on the computer today: Bluegrass music any time you want it! Like the SteelDrivers, ok, they’ll play anything similar.

PN: You like the SteelDrivers, I bet if you like Rock-n-Roll and Bluegrass, you like the SteelDrivers. To me, that was an idea waiting to happen, because Blues and Bluegrass are very, very similar.

MM: And that guy really reminds me of the first singer we had in Elbow Grease, he had a voice like that; I miss Dave. But I just think we’re so fortunate to have, it’s enriched my life beyond imagination; the friends we have, Kim…

KM: Mike and I would not be together if it were not for this music, and that is the absolute truth.