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Donnie Larson, Mickey Mickelson, Linda Mickelson, and Eric Mickelson Narrators

Phil Nusbaum Interviewer

April 24, 2010

PN: Phil Nusbaum DL: Donnie Larson MM: Mickey Mickelson LM: Linda Mickelson EM: Eric Mickelson

PN: I’m on a project to document in Minnesota; everything from the way people use it to have fun with it, so that’s why I’m in Fosston [Minnesota]…appreciate you’re having me out. So what I’d like to do is, Donnie, start with you. Tell me your name, so when we transcribe this tape, the person will match the voice with the name.

DL: My name is Donald Larson, and I’m originally from Oklee, Minnesota, and I got to be friends with this guy here [Mickey], back in 1957. The rest is history…and such history. [Laughter] Oh! I’m lucky I’m alive.

PN: Is it because of Mickey?

DL: Yes. I’ll tell you a story…can I tell you a story?

PN: Go ahead.

DL: We call it “The Bemidji Story.” Mickey and I had brought Linda back to school in Bemidji, she’d been going to Bemidji College. All of the sudden, I was in the back seat, mind you, and all of the sudden Mickey says, “I gotta get goin’ quick, because my dad will be madder than” …ya know… “I’m supposed to milk the cows!” So we took off, and I was in the back seat, I wanted to be in the front seat, so you know how I got there? I crawled over the seat, goin’ a hundred miles an hour, which was the dumbest thing I ever did, but I made it, especially when…didn’t we roll up to the stop light in Bagley, and Mickey stopped and rolled me right into the front seat.

LM: …slammed on the brakes and he fell in the front.

DL: It was terrible. It was not fun at all! But I’m glad we did it. I have another funny story, if you don’t mind, about him. We were going to Red Lake Falls to play, and goin’ down that road with that old, International pick-up, and all of the sudden it kind a shuddered, and Mickey parked it on the edge of the road, and I looked behind me and here there was something black laying in the middle of the…I said, “Mickey there’s a black box back there.” Here, the battery had fallen out. We never did go and play in Red Lake Falls. We went and played in Plummer at the bar or

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some bar. We had fun. Mickey was always fun, so…he could play that mandolin better than…Oh! You’ll hear tonight, so he better do a good job and not make a liar out of me! [Laughter]

PN: Well, that was by way of your introduction, Mickey, so why don’t you give us a little of your voice right there.

MM: Hello. [Laughter]

DL: See what I mean!?

PN: Ma’am, what’s your name?

LM: My name is Linda, I’m Mickey’s wife.

PN: Ok.

EM: Eric Mickelson.

PN: Who’s the young guy?

Unknown: Marshall Mickelson, Eric’s son.

PN: I’m Phil Nusbaum, and this April 24th, 2010. This place is First Care Nursing Home, in Fosston. Donnie, give me when you were born, and where, and all that.

DL: Ok. I was born 4 ½ miles north of Oklee, and about a quarter of a mile east. I was born on the farm, I wasn’t born in the hospital, and it was fun growing up, in fact I’m trying to write a book. I was on the farm, and I loved it.

PN: What was the date?

DL: I was born in 1940, so I’m an old guy.

PN: Which date?

DL: Minnesota.

PN: [Laughing] Which date?

DL: Oh, ‘Which date?’ Oh.

PN: You thought I said, “State?”

DL: November 20th, 1940.

PN: What about you, Mickey, when were you born, and where?

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MM: Ok, I was born September 14, 1931, in Kelvington, Saskatchewan [Canada].

PN: How did you get started with Bluegrass?

DL: We just tried playing it. We both loved it. We played Country, too, but Country got to the point that I didn’t want to play it anymore.

PN: Why?

DL: ‘Cause the people that were involved in it, you know, they aren’t what they used to be, and I didn’t like the sound of the music.

PN: About what year are we talking about now?

DL: Oh, 19--, let’s see now, when was that, that I cursed ? 1980’s.

PN: Oh, you didn’t like Countrypolitan?

DL: I didn’t like the way the girls come on stage hardly wearin’ anything. For most men they’d really think that’s alright, but I didn’t think it belonged on a Country stage. And the men would come on there wearing old blue jeans, and shirt that hung out, ya know. I liked it when they wore suits.

PN: What about you, when did you start playing any kind of music?

LM: When did you get that first ?

DL: I started in about 1949, listening to , the old, original Hank Williams. I think Mickey kind of did the same thing. Didn’t ya, Mick? He was older than me, much, much older.

LM: I was asking him how was he when Freddy Broman taught him.

MM: …chord on a guitar…I was 16.

PN: Where were you living then?

MM: At that time I was at Clearbrook, Minnesota. Goin’ back in time, I did live in Minneapolis, and my sister took guitar lessons from, you probably heard of him - Slim Jim and the Vagabond Kid?

PN: Yeah, heard a lot about him.

MM: Ok, well she took lessons from the Vagabond Kid. He’d come to the house once a week and give my sister lessons. She had a guitar, but I was pretty small and bashful and I’d stand in the other room and peek around the comer at this Vagabond Kid, see. Then my sister left home, got married, and the guitar was in the house for many years. Once in a while I’d pick it up and strum, didn’t know what I’s doin’, but eventually I got to Clearbrook, and a friend of mine was a

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pretty good guitar player, so he said, “Mick, if you learn some chords on that guitar, we could have fun playin’ together!” he played mandolin. So, it happened, and that’s how I kind of got involved.

DL: Can I ask a question, Mickey? Who was that that played the mandolin?

MM: Freddy Broman.

DL: Oh, I don’t think I ever met him.

PN: Is this is about the late ‘40s, what kind of music is it: what do ya call it, and then what’s it like?

DL: Well, it was Country in the ‘40s, but there was Bluegrass, too. and were playin’ some.

MM: O’course, was the man.

DL: I used to listen to Old Lem Hawkins on KFGO, and he played some really good music! He played some, um, oh…

MM: Jim and Jesse.

DL: Yeah, he played Jim and Jesse, and I believe he played - he just played a lot of good ones. I remember he sang this one, “I went all over Europe, a pipin’ for my life…” [Singing] It sticks in my mind. I always loved it, ‘cause I liked the sound of it.

MM: So, you have heard of Slim Jim?

PN: Oh, yeah.

MM: I shook his hand once. Ya know he was considered a drugstore cowboy?

PN: What is the definition of a drugstore cowboy?

MM: Well, back in them days, they’d go and he’d make appearance in drugstores - that’s where I shook his hand, we were in a drugstore up there by the fairgrounds in St. Paul. We went in there and Slim was in there with his guitar, and he’d play and sing. My dad and I were standin’ there and he come up and shook our hands, and so…

DL: And I suppose he said, [with a Norwegian brogue] “You’re gonna be a good musician, one day, Mick!” [Laughter]

EM: I got a story I want to interject, it’s just a story I like that I’ve heard my dad tell, and I would like to hear it again, it’s vintage, but when you’re living up here, it’s just so different than it is now, for me, listening to a Country star, or any kind a star that I want to see, now, and you

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got to go to the Target Center and pay $50. Tell the story about Bill Monroe comin’ to Thief River Falls, Minnesota, which, at that time, you call, or probably still now call a small town, but coming to this movie theater to play, and you could just kind of walk in and see him. Just tell about that. To me that’s an interesting story.

MM: Yeah, well, Bill came to Thief River twice. How that happened, I’ll never know, but you just paid the admission of the show. At that time, the first time I saw Bill, his kind of big hit was that number “Cheyenne” - you remember that? Somethin’ about was kind of a nice tune. We come in, I remember the name of the movie, it was Cobra Cult, and there wasn’t too many in that theater - it was a cold night, it was like 10 below, here’s Bill Monroe, I can’t believe this - he’s in Thief River Fall, Minnesota! We go in and kind of sat down, and I notice, there was, I think it was four people sittin’ down, fairly close to the front. It never dawned on me that that was Bill and the band, there, ya know, but by golly, when the movie was over, they got up, went up, and here they come out, and there’s a guy playin’ the was Joe Stuart - remember him?

PN: Yes, I’ve seen Joe with Bill.

MM: Ok, and I don’t know who the…ya know one of the players, it was the guy that was playin’ now a lot with - what was his name?

PN: Bobby Hicks.

MM: Yep! He was with him. And…

PN: It’s really not that long ago, then?

MM: Well, it’s going back.

PN: Probably the’ 80s.

MM: His wife played the bass…

PN: Oh.

MM: I think it was his wife, kind of a plump lady. They walked out on the stage, and they weren’t…ya know you’d think they’d really be kind of spiffed up, but they just looked like common people. Of course they had these nice hats on, all of the sudden. I think their first number was “Cheyenne”. I was just in amazement, listenin’ to that group.

EM: That would have been about what year, roughly?

LM: Before me.

MM: It was before Linda’s time.

EM: Somewhere in the ‘50s?

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MM: Yeah.

DL: Didn’t you see him twice?

MM: Yeah, I did. It was a couple years later, he came back. I tell ya, I heard why he was up here - he had friend that was kind of in charge of that Lake Agassiz Wildlife Refuge, and he was a good friend of his, and that’s why he came up to the Thief River area. They unloaded, did a good, nice show, and then there was a second feature of Cobra Cult, and I sat through that again - me, and there they came out and did another program. And all of this was the price of admission of the movie theater.

PN: What was the response like?

MM: I tell ya, it wasn’t much, because, I don’t know, at that time, Bill Monroe and that, people did realize what was to come of this guy, I mean, I suppose there was only 40 of us in the theater, so that was the response.

PN: I wonder, in this territory, outside of a few people like you, or Lloyd LaPlant, even in the Cities it was a really small group of people who knew what it was. You could put up the name “Bill Monroe,” and the public might think, “Well, I know Vaughn Monroe…” [Laughter]

MM: And I think if I remember right, when the first feature was over, a few people got up and left, you see. I mean they weren’t there to see Bill Monroe and the Bluegrass Boys.

DL: I tell you what I think they were expecting, I’m gonna talk with my Norwegian brogue now, “They come there to listen to the accordion, the accordion.” That’s about what they wanted to hear. If you’d have come with an accordion band, it would’ve been packed.

PN: Did your families play?

DL: No. My sister sang at funerals. And my other sisters sang a little bit.

MM: For me, when I lived in the Cities, I never missed Saturday night . We got good reception there and was one of my favorites, and I forget some of the greats of that time era, but I remember and his sister - what the heck was his sister’s name, she was always with him…

DL: I liked the Geezinslaw Brothers - aren’t they kinda Bluegrass?

MM: Uh, they had a mandolin

DL: Guitar and mandolin.

MM: They were something like we put out.

PN: When did you live in the Cities - between which years, or about which years?

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MM: I started kindergarten there, and I went through sixth grade. It took me a few years to get through sixth grade. [Laughing]

LM: I suppose ‘32-’44.

DL: I’ll tell ya what was the big trouble, Mickey fell in love with his sixth grade teacher.

PN: The reason I ask that is because when you lived in the Twin Cities, Bluegrass was not established, or any kind of Country, and since, in this territory, there are people who know about it now, but in the ‘40s and ‘50s it must have been a really small thing. So, I’d like you guys to address what it was like then, and what was attractive to you about the Bluegrass that was around, or the Bluegrass and Country.

DL: Well, I tell you, what attracted me was the skill of the instruments - the expression of the guitar players. We had a guitar player around here and all he knew was bom bom bom bom, and he couldn’t play any better, and he played that way for years. He didn’t get any better, and I thought, “If I can’t play better than that, I don’t wanna play.” So I worked to play Bluegrass and Country and I loved Bluegrass, the sound. I remember I heard one song called, Rocky Mountain Special, on Lem Hawkins, that I really liked, but they only played it once or twice. I should have called and told them to play that song. I remember, though, when Mickey was on the farm milkin’ cows, and I’d saddle up my palomino, and away I’d go over there to Mickey’s, I rode horses, ya know, and whenever I went over there and he wasn’t home, I always got molasses ginger snap cookies from his mother. [Laughter]

LM: So you were hopin’ he wasn’t home, right?

DL: Yeah, yeah. Hope he’s out in the field someplace, so I can get some…and it never failed, I got cookies every time, did you know that, Mickey?

MM: Yeah.

DL: I imagine you suspected it sometimes, when there weren’t any cookies. But when you’re a farm boy, homemade molasses ginger snap cookies cannot be beat, as far as I’m concerned. See, that’s the thing, we took the ... we always had homemade stuff, and we took it for granted. I never thought about people in the Cities who never got to hardly eat stuff like that. But I don’t really know what started me lovin’ Bluegrass. The instrumentation, I guess, is what started, it’s so skillful. You have to be so skillful. Mickey will show you that.

EM: I want to interject something that I think could answer a little for both of them, just for me, being on the outside lookin’ in, ya know, Donnie talks about the instrumentation, it’s just the fact that, and I’ve heard my Dad say it many times growing up, I think that Bluegrass, and even some of the older Country, what we might call Country music at that time, that’s what it was, ya know, some of it was three guys and three instruments, and maybe one microphone, and it was kind of…everybody was makin’ the music, there wasn’t any great amount of electronics that were, do

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you know what I mean? That kind of plain and simple part, I know a lot of people appreciate, I guess that’s what I liked about Bluegrass music, and I think I’ve heard it from both these guys that, ya know, just that acoustic and down-home touch was appealing.

DL: You don’t have to have all that fancy equipment. Eric is right. He played with us at first, we had a group called, The Back 40, and we played Country, but I think we did some Bluegrass, too, didn’t we, Eric?

EM: Oh yeah, a little bit.

DL: I remember “Will the Circle Be Unbroken” kind of got be our theme song. I’ll have to tell you, one time they had a farmers union, what was that? Tractors reunion…

PN: Threshers…

DL: Threshers Reunion in…

EM: In Bagley.

DL: …Bagley. Anyway, we did our thing, and I walked out to the dining room to get something to eat, and here these two people, a man and a woman, come walkin’ up, tears are just rolling down their face. The lady said, “We’re from North Carolina, and you boys took us home tonight.” I cried, I cry quite easy, and I went and told the boys about it, I think they almost cried, too.

PN: Is the excellent part of it what attracted you, Mickey, or you had some other reason?

MM: I loved to hear a good fiddle, mandolin, somebody that can chord a guitar put them little runs in there - I enjoy all that stuff.

DL: dadadada dada dee!

MM: Ya know, the Bluegrass runs there. One thing, ya know, back in the ‘40s there, people didn’t have much money to buy fancy musical instruments…maybe somebody in your family 25 years before you, had an old fiddle or somethin’ that was in the closet - everybody seemed to have a guitar. So, that’s kinda what you got involved with, ya know, what you had available. You didn’t go down and buy a $3000 amp and a fancy guitar to go with it. And, electric weren’t really that popular in the ‘40s.

DL: Not until the ‘50s.

MM: They had the KSTP Sunset Bam Dance, and I used to listen to that. In the summertime they’re always at the Como Park Pavilion [St. Paul]. The first guy that I remember on an electric guitar was Andy Walsh - he was from the Cities, and he was a good guitar ... played a lotta melody, ya know. It was a good show - KSTP Sunset Bam Dance.

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PN: It was kinda Country, but it was kinda Minnesota Country with all the accordion music.

DL: Yeah, that’s the only thing.

MM: What was the name of…Flash from Rice Street - the guy who played the accordion - they called him The Flash from Rice Street.

PN: Rice Street. ..

EM: Speakin’ of radio shows then, obviously up here, there wasn’t probably what you’d call a Bluegrass radio show, but obviously, up here, your local stations had…whether it was Co-op Shoppers, that was Country, but, I mean, tell about…who was that…I’ve heard you talk about that before, like that…was that out of KTRF, or Thief River, or where…the Co-op Shoppers…

MM: It came out of WDAY - Fargo. The accordion player was Axel Umpdegarden, and they had a fiddle player - Little Joe, and one of their main attractions was Linda Loo, she was a vocalist, and she was quite good at yodeling. It was only a 15-minute radio program. I guess it was from 12:30 [p.m.] to quarter to one. Then WDAY, back in them days, they had Dinner Bell Time, and they had their orchestra there, which one of the members was Frank Scott, who went on to play with Lawrence Welk, and arranged Lawrence Welk’s music. But, it was a little Polka band, then they had the two people I liked: Hank and Thelma. They came on for a couple of numbers. WDAY, back in them days, had a pretty good…

DL: Wasn’t Slim Jim there, too, for awhile?

MM: No, not that I…

PN: He was on ‘CCO [WCCO AM radio station in Minneapolis].

DL: Oh, yeah.

MM: Slim Jim was from North Dakota. One of my favorite songs was - I don’t know the correct title, but it’d start out, [singing] “I’m a big Swede from North Dakota, workin’ on the farm for…” and he’s gonna go to the great Minnesota State Fair, that was in the song. [Laughing]

DL: What I got such a kick out of was, [doing impression of Slim Jim with Norwegian brogue] “Even my shovel was buried between the [inaudible].” Up in this country nothing could be truer - your shovel could get buried. I think Mickey was buried a few times. [Laughter]

MM: His wife was gonna go to the Ladies Aid, remember? And he was gonna shovel out the old Model A.

DL: [Impression of Slim Jim with Norwegian brogue] “My wife said to me, ‘I got to go to Ladies Aid. Shovel out that old jalopy, so I started in with that old spade,” and he said, “and I

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dug and dug, all afternoon, and I never found it.” Then in the end, when the snow melted he says, “All I found was the hood.” [Mickey laughing] I like to do my Norwegian brogue.

EM: Donnie, tell me, not that I haven’t heard this story, but tell me again - some of your time that you really learned music and enjoyed music was when you were at the Crippled Children’s Hospital in Jamestown - true or false, didn’t you, wasn’t that when you were getting into music?

DL: That’s where I learned. I tell you, I wrote a song after my brother passed away and they were selling everything on the farm, and they were havin’ an auction sale, and that was tough on me, and I wrote this song called “Fields and Woods”. I was ready, and wanted to buy our farm, and I how much I loved it, and I knew it - every inch of the fields and the woods. When we get going, I’ll do that one. My voice isn’t the greatest right now, ‘cause of some drug they got me on, which I won’t go into, but I’ll do the best I can. See, I had cancer last, I still got a little bit, I’m still fightin’ it. I got that last summer - I’ve almost beat it yet, and they’re gonna help me beat it in Oklee. Yep. Anyway, I wrote this song called “The Fields and the Woods”, so when we get to playin’, I’ll sing it.

PN: Do you want to just sing it now, so it can be part of this interview?

DL: Ok. I’ll sing it the best I can…

There ain’t nothin’ on this place that isn’t worn and old, and soon there’ll be an auction, and everything will be sold. As I walk around the farmyard with the teardrops on my face, the memories all come floodin’ back about the old home place. Fields and woods, where I used to roam, all around our country road…

I can’t remember it now…I think when we start playin’ it it’ll be easier. Eric probably knows it better than I do. Eric, have you ever sang that song?

EM: No, I’ve never sang that one.

DL: You did at that one, remember when we did that show for the people at Brookfield apartments?

EM: Yep.

DL: Yeah, you sang it then.

EM: I don’t know if I remember all the words, though.

DL: I tell ya, Eric’s got a son who can sing “Good Old Mountain Dew” better than any kid his age I ever heard.

PN: Tell me about some of your experiences with some of the bands you’ve played in.

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DL: The bands I’ve played in? Mostly just one, and that was the Back 40, and that was…all I can say is - that was fun! We never made any money, ‘course hardly anybody in this country did, around here. We had a lot of fun. We were half Bluegrass and half Country. Wouldn’t you say that, Mickey?

MM: We were pretty much Country.

PN: This is about which year?

DL: Oh, 1981, ‘82.

PN: I talked to a guy named Tommy Andersen, out of St. Paul, and he’s a little earlier in time. He said, basically they were doing Country music, but it wasn’t the Nashville Country, it was just acoustic - it wasn’t Bluegrass, it was Country. They would have a banjo player. They would play a song that was definitely Bluegrass, just to liven it up.

MM: Did you ever hear of Billy Folger?

PN: Yes, I enjoy his coffee product often. [Laughter]

MM: Well, he was a guy on KSTP, and that guy has wrote mega songs - my goodness, every time he came on the radio he had a song or two he had wrote and sang. I can’t remember, I got a song book at home and I think I got some musical selections that Billy had wrote, but I guess that when he made it so good in Country music, he went into the coffee business. [Laughter]

LM: He played a lot with Hillary Stoltman.

MM: Oh yeah.

DL: Fiddler who used to play with us from Thief River Falls - he played with us a lot. He was good.

PN: I met him.

MM: He was Canadian.

PN: I met him in about 1988.

MM: He was kind of a Canadian star.

PN: Big, strong, tall man, as I recall, and he farmed, I think.

DL: No, no, he never farmed.

PN: I know I met him, but I’m just not…

LM: He played a lot of Canadian fiddle tunes.

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DL: That one tune I know I just hate. He played…he was an engineer on the train for 30 some years, wasn’t he, Mick?

MM: Yeah.

DL: He drove the Soo Line, except for when he first started he was on the Great Northern. He told me a couple stories, and one wasn’t very pleasant.

MM: Was that the time he furnished Gonvick [Minnesota], the whole town, with free pop?

DL: Oh yeah, he broadsided a Pepsi truck, and there was pop all over, and he told the kids to pick up anything you want. And boy, the kids did a good job ...

MM: Don’t pick up the driver, just pick up the pop. [Laughter]

PN: Let me ask you a couple things about Bluegrass and Country in this area. Before, anytime in you guys’ memory, did people get together to jam or share music, and what’s that like?

DL: Well, it was mostly accordions, and maybe a little fiddle, and the fiddling was never very good.

MM: [Laughing] Basically, nothing was good - mandolin, guitar, whatever…

LM: No, but we’re going back to when we used to go your relatives there - Hanson, and Vernon - there was lots of excellent music just jammin’ around the house, without any accordions.

DL: Jim Smith was the best accordion player I ever…

LM: But, I mean, most of the time, when we were at our house, there wasn’t too many accordion players, it was mostly you guys just doing what you want to do.

DL: Yeah, we were kind of fussy, we didn’t let just anybody play with us, they had to be pretty good. I know I was that way.

MM: [Chuckling] Who’d we ever deny?

EM: That’s my history. When you originally called me, Phil, my experience playing is exactly that: yes I like to listen to Bluegrass music on the radio, and when Monroe Crossing comes to Thief River, I like to go listen to that, because that’s what I like to listen to. My experience with these two guys is basically that - five guys come over to our house and we play until two o’clock in the morning for fun.

PN: Every kind of song?

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EM: Everything we liked. Just growin’ up with these guys I like the older Country and the Bluegrass, so that’s kinda what it was, but probably because of record players back then most of the music I listen to is a lot of Country with a little Bluegrass thrown in there.

DL: I have to admit, I like the Rock-n-Roll from the early ‘50s, because it was almost like Country or Bluegrass. Now days, Country music would be considered Popular.

MM: Well, Elvis did “Blue Moon”.

PN: Yes he did.

DL: He did a good job.

PN: The funny thing was, one of times I saw Monroe, and this was pretty close to 1970, and he had changed the way he did “”, to where he started it off as a waltz then finished it up as 4/4.

MM: Can you believe in them early records Bill had an accordion in that song? Did you ever hear that?

PN: I don’t know if I heard it on “Blue Moon of Kentucky”, but I heard it on some other songs.

MM: I was so surprised.

PN: “Rocky Road Blues”, I think it’s on, and “True Life Blues”, maybe, I can’t remember exactly.

MM: This early recording I heard there was an accordion in there, and they kept the same beat through the whole song…slow, ya know.

PN: Where are some of the other places that you would get out and play? …jam sessions, and when you had your band…

DL: Where’d we go, Mick? Not too many places. Usually most places had a…

MM: Well, we were turned down quite a few times. [Laughing]

LM: Well, you played - actually, we played at all the community functions; whether it was the Jubilee celebrations when we had…

MM: Country Fair.

LM: …more hometown opportunities for everybody to play. Don’t forget all the Farmers Union stuff. All the dances at the County Fair…you were busy.

DL: We got on the radio one time.

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MM: Television.

DL: And you know what Mickey said when he got on television? He says, “Look Ma, I’m on TV!”

PN: Where was this?

DL: In Oklee.

MM/DL: In Grand Forks [North Dakota].

DL: KNOX in Grand Forks.

MM: Was it KNOX?

DL: Yeah. The station went out of business after that, after we were on it.

MM: Shortly after we were on it…

DL: We had fun destroying that radio station, and we destroyed it, I think.

PN: What about your radio things?

DL: We weren’t on the radio too much.

MM: You were.

DL: Well, yeah. When was I on? Oh, yeah, in the ‘50s. I think they were a little scared of us, ‘cause they heard what we were gonna do in Grand Forks. But I was on the radio a couple times, with mostly with Howard Grossin. He was quite a guy; we did Everly Brothers’ stuff.

MM: “Wake Up, Little Suzie.”

DL: Somebody told me that we sounded just like . ‘Course, I think they were lying.

PN: Maybe it would be a good idea to take that book of photographs, to get some responses.

DL: Ya know there’s a story I heard about Bill Monroe: did not buy that song, he stole it from Bill Monroe, and he did that same thing with “Blue Moon of Kentucky”. When he met Bill Monroe in Nashville and he went up and apologized to him. Bill said, “Son, as long as you’re sendin’ in them checks you make, I’ll send you another one!”

EM: I was just lookin’ in here, and I think we’ve mentioned the names, but when you’re talkin’ about local: Oklee, Minnesota population 500, and Fosston, Minnesota, here, population 1000 or whatever it is, but I do think there was a time and place, well, Laura Seaverman may be an example of a girl I met, but some really good friends of Donnie and Dad, and myself, too, would

14 be the Vernon Brothers. They were more of a Country/Old Country-type band, but they played with us on a lot of these occasions. They had a little bit of a following, they played a lot of music and made a couple little cassette tapes that the locals around here used, and I think that was fond memories for me. When we played with the Vern’s, that was always kind of fun.

LM: Yeah.

MM: Well, the player - what was his name?

EM: Orland Hanson.

MM: Orland told me they played 280 wedding dances, and not a one of those couples ever divorced. [Laughing]

DL: 35 cents, the first dance he played at he got 35 cents.

MM: Say, here’s another two-some that I used to remember: Frank and Esther. You remember them?

PN: I don’t know that at all.

MM: They were…she played accordion and Frank played the violin.

DL: That’s probably why I never heard of them. [Laughter]

MM: They were so good. Another person: Kim Weston - you ever heard of her?

PN: Maybe I have, but I can’t really recall that.

MM: ‘Course she was a female, and she sang that song, “Playmate, Come Out and Play with Me”. She had a real good voice. That was a couple more that was on the KSTP Barn Dance.

DL: I used to go to the Crippled Children’s School, eight years I went there in Jamestown, North Dakota. I learned my music there. We went on a tour, playing all around North Dakota at churches and schools.

MM: Ya know, Donnie?

DL: Yeah?

MM: Just the other morning they were talkin’ about Minnesota history, and it was this past week was - I forget the year - but Gillette Hospital was opened. I forget the year, but…Donnie was at the Gillette Crippled Children’s Hospital in St. Paul, for…

DL: It wasn’t really a hospital, it was a full-fledged school. We had to dress ourselves in the morning, and do everything by ourselves, and we had to help other kids sometimes. I remember my experience in helping was this guy - I fed him, and that was a dangerous… - I wish Mickey

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would have been around, because I’d have handed him the spoon and said, “Here. You feed him for a while.”

MM: Don’t forget to tell him about the most miraculous guitar player in the world.

DL: Yeah, Jerry Burts - you’d have to meet him to believe…and he loves Bluegrass; he can play any Bluegrass tune you can…the one I liked that he does is, [singing] “Why did I leave the farm…” You know which one I mean, Phil?

PN: Um, [singing] “Ten long years since I’ve been gone…”

DL: Yeah. Oh, I love that song.

PN: Jerry who?

DL: Jerry Burts is his name, and it’s a shame that he hasn’t been heard of more.

MM: Well, the miraculous thing: one-armed.

DL: One arm.

EM: One arm. Fantastic.

DL: He played guitar…and he played guitar!

EM: He’d take a regular guitar and lay it flat, form the chords with these three fingers, and strum next to it with these three fingers. Amazing.

PN: Wow. Where there’s a will there’s a way.

EM: Where’s he from?

DL: Originally from Bismarck, North Dakota.

MM: Mandan [North Dakota].

DL: Now he’s living in Dillon, Montana. I haven’t heard a thing about him since.

EM: Very amazing individual.

DL: We had a lot of fun with him. Tell him about the time that you guys needed to do something with the car, and you jumped on the hood. “Cause Jerry never forgot that. He’d tell people about that and he’d laugh.

MM: Him and Donnie made a tape. Too bad you don’t have a tape to give…

DL: I do, I do…

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MM: …to this person.

DL: I do have one. It’s in my room. Another guy I’d like to get, that should’ve been here, he’s a pastor - I just love Bluegrass Gospel, ya know - he’s a pastor up north of Clearbrook. Kent Dudley’s his name. Boy, can he - he plays the guitar and he sings. My gosh, the way he sings. He sounds like a cross between Allen Jackson and somebody else, but he is SO good; and he loves Bluegrass Gospel. I love Bluegrass Gospel. I think that’s one of the things that got me going on Bluegrass, too, because of the . I never got along with the church music that they played in the Lutheran church where we went. I got a little story before I shut up about Mickey and the gang playin’ at church in Oklee - remember that? I asked Mickey afterwards, “How did things go?” “Well, we woke up the Lutherans.” He says. [Laughing] You remember that?

MM: Yeah, I guess I do.

DL: They were so sleepy and they were so slow. Boy, Mickey woke ‘em up.

LM: The day Mickey woke up the Lutherans.

DL: Yep. I wished I’d have been there to help him. [Mickey chuckling]

PN: When would you say, in this territory, that Bluegrass really got to be known for what it is- the typical person would know that’s Bluegrass?

DL: Probably five, ten years ago. Not too long.

PN: Just after the year 2000.

DL: Yep. I’d say that. I don’t know, I just didn’t hear it until then…didn’t hear it locally.

MM: We got Bluegrass stations kind of came in.

DL: Public Radio.

MM: Television had a lot to do with that, I’m sure.

DL: O Brother, Where Art Thou?

EM: That really livened up a lot of what you might call the Old Timey, leaning to Bluegrass, or Country/Gospel kind of music came from that movie, and I think maybe that gave mainstream people more information about it, ya know you hear that on TV that a certain movie has some kind of impact, but I would say that it had impact on local people.

PN: I think the movie did. Unlike the other so-called Bluegrass movies like the Bonnie and Clyde movie, it wasn’t just one song, it was a group of artists, and you might say that they weren’t all Bluegrass and Old Time, but still, there was a lot of Bluegrass and Old Time mixed

17 in. Kind of funny it caught on that way, even without any Country music airplay. It was kind of a Public Radio thing, then a movie thing, then a grassroots thing, and people caught on.

PN: Deliverance was another one.

EM: I would say, too, just one other tiny thing, like Donnie said, and Donnie and my Dad probably will tell you that they don’t care for a lot of the modem Country sound, and since I grew up with them, I kind of agree, but there are a few artists out there, which is a modem Country sound that I like, and you’re gonna find a few of those. Another thing that maybe made a few more people aware - you’ve got doin’ that song “Me and God”, and then the last verse comes in - things like that little collaboration. You got hanging out with , who isn’t really Bluegrass, but that Old Country style, so, all of the sudden you start seein’ these guys on television or a video, and now you’ve heard of it - you might not have heard of Little Jimmy Dickens all your life, but now, if you watch Country videos, you’re probably gonna see him on two or three videos and you kinda know who he is.

PN: Is there something that you want to address, otherwise we can end this thing?

DL: Not me.

EM: A story about how people get their start: Just tell me the story, Dad, about your first mandolin. I always liked that story.

LM: I do too.

EM: It’s kind of a fun story, and it kind of relates to me - you’re talkin’ about people livin’ out here in a rural area, far away from the city, and radio, and a like for Country and Bluegrass music, but just not a lot of exposure. But here’s a young guy who wants a mandolin, and instead of goin’ to “Joe’s Fancy Music Store” with a hundred to pick out, I just always liked this story, so Dad, maybe you could tell them about your first mandolin.

MM: Well, the guy who got me playin’ guitar, he played mandolin, and eventually, he had to move. What he had was a stradolin. Did you ever see a stradolin?

PN: Ah, what is this thing?

MM: It’s like a mandolin, only a little smaller, but it’s got a crisp sound.

PN: No, I don’t know this at all.

MM: Well, anyway, when my partner moved away, I said to my mother, “I’d like to have a mandolin.” Well, guess what? We had a Sears Roebuck catalog and there was a Silvertone mandolin, I think was $17 or $18.

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DL: I remember that one.

MM: Yeah, well, my mother ordered it, and I was waitin’ patiently, and one day, by golly, in the country mailbox - we had a fairly good-sized mailbox - went out there and here the mandolin, but we didn’t order a case. It just came wrapped in a brown wrapper. I was so happy with that thing.

DL: I have to tell you one more story about Mickey and his mandolin.

MM: No, don’t tell that story.

DL: Mickey broke his mandolin somehow. I’m not gonna tell you how…

MM: You better not! [Laughing]

DL: But he didn’t have a mandolin for a long time! And that was affecting me.

LM: ...and then you bought him one, Donnie.

DL: So I went to Thief River and I bought him one. He hasn’t let me down ever since. I paid $300 for it, ‘cause that’s all I could afford. Now they’re $600.

MM: Yeah, and there was one there for $2500…why didn’t you buy that one for me? [Laughter]

DL: Every time we’d play some place he says, “Gee, if you weren’t such a cheapskate, and buy me that good mandolin…!”

MM: That , there… [Laughter]

DL: You can see how close friends we are. I wanted to shoot him a couple times, but I couldn’t find the gun.

LM: You didn’t want to spend the rest of your life in prison.

DL: No.

MM: I wasn’t worth that.

DL: No. I never really got mad at him. I would be for 10 minutes, and then he’d say something funny and I’d laugh.

PN: We can call it a day.

DL: Yeah. Let’s hear some music. [Everyone stays and jams]

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