Phil Nusbaum AB: Art Bjorngjeld PN
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Art Bjorngjeld Narrator Phil Nusbaum Interviewer May 18, 2010 PN: Phil Nusbaum AB: Art Bjorngjeld PN: Well, this is May 18th, 2010. I’m Phil Nusbaum, and Art Bjorngjeld is the interviewee. We’re talking about Art’s experiences and perceptions in Bluegrass, and related idioms and such. Let me ask you first, your birth date, where you’re from, and all that information. AB: Alright. I was born in 1954, grew up in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota. My dad built a home there in ‘49, after the war, and settled there and that’s where I grew up. PN: When did you first become aware of music? AB: I grew up in a family that had get-togethers, and every time we’d have a get-together they’d play music: my uncles and my dad. My dad played the accordion, my Uncle Irvin played the banjo, Clarence played the harmonica, and so every time there was a family get-together, there was music. I did not participate much, and didn’t really appreciate it for a long time, but I was certainly aware of it. PN: Were you encouraged by the others to participate? AB: Oh yeah, always. When I was about six years old, they had a drum set for me, and I’d drum along. They encouraged me to play music in band, and as a kid, we had an organ in the house, I had organ lessons. I played clarinet in high school, but no real big interest in any of it. PN: Just something that was taking place in the house. AB: Yeah. PN: Was there some event that caused you to want to get involved as a player? AB: I don’t know what it was, in the ‘70s, when I was in about 10th grade, all the sudden I started hearing music, guitar music - I think some of my friends were playing guitar - involved at the church. All the sudden I just got the bug to play the guitar. Every free moment, I would pick up the guitar and fool around with it. I listened to the Folk music: Simon and Garfunkel, James Taylor, John Denver, but I also had, because my Uncle Clarence was an avid record-collector, and my dad had a reel-to-reel machine and would tape all this stuff, I would hear a lot of Country 1 music and Bluegrass music…and recordings of my family, and I would listen to all them, and start to try and pick it up. PN: He would record LPs? AB: 78s, singles, LPs, yep, my dad would put it on big reel-to-reel things so it’d run for a couple hours. PN: They would play it back, just to have music in the house? AB: Yes, yep. PN: Your friends were playing guitar, so you joined ‘em, basically. AB: Yeah. PN: And which came first: the Scandinavian music or the Bluegrass? AB: Bluegrass. PN: What caused that to happen? AB: In the early ‘70s, when I was going to the University of Minnesota, there was great street music: Bill and Judy were out there; Peter Ostroushko, Jim Tordhoff, Mike Cass - all these people you’d hear ‘em out on the street, and I’d just stop and watch, and listen. I was kinda fascinated with it. A big turning point came when I got acquainted with Doc Watson. I bought that, Doc and Merle Live. It was on Vanguard - a double album set, and I listened to that morning and night - all the Blues songs on there, and the Folk songs. That album really opened my eyes to traditional music, and the just superb guitar work on there - I couldn’t believe it! Those folks were comin’ around to the college scene, down in The Whole Coffeehouse [at the U of Minnesota]. I’d bring Clarence and my dad, and we’d hear Norman Blake, and Doc Watson… PN: Oh, those at The Whole in Coffman Student Center in Minneapolis? AB: Yep, yep. You go down those long stairs down there and they had all the peanuts shells - they gave out free peanuts - so that was taking me closer. Then the first Bluegrass band - professional, top-notch Bluegrass band - that I ever heard, Country Gazette, came. They had Alan Munde, Byron Berline. Roland White played guitar, and then they had that bass player who was kinda the emcee, I’ve forgotten his name right now… PN: They had a number of bass players. AB: He was a real funny guy. PN: About what year was this? 2 AB: ‘73 or ‘74. Man! That, to me, was just so exciting! My dad had been talkin’ to me about trying the 5-string banjo, and I had never had any interest in it, but after seeing that show, I went down to The Podium and bought a banjo. PN: Alan Munde could have that effect on people. AB: [Laughing] Well, it was just the whole thing; the atmosphere - that whole place was alive, like it was charged! PN: You mean the music and the crowd? AB: Yeah! Yeah! It was just exciting, but it was deep in a way…not politically, the way the songwriters were in the ‘70s, or in a feely, touchy kind of way, just an earthy way. It just hit me. PN: How did hearing Bluegrass hit you in a different way than the Folk music - the singer/songwriter, and the associated things that you heard…started with, with your friends - how did Bluegrass hit you in a different way, or traditional music in general? AB: I don’t know that I can answer that, Phil. It’s just a feeling, you know that high, lonesome sound is so intense, and it just draws you in; the drive of the banjo keepin’ things goin’, the fiddle above the whole thing - just soars above it, the mandolin drivin’, and the guitar punctuating everything with the bass runs, and it’s fun. There are fun songs, and there are blue songs, and there’s dance music. It’s…I don’t know what it is, but I was hooked. PN: What did you do once you got the banjo? AB: I got Pete Seeger’s book - that red one, learned Foggy Mountain Breakdown, and Cripple Creek, and then got the Earl Scruggs book, then spent most of the summer of 1974 just tryin’ to learn the banjo. PN: What’s the hardest part about learning the banjo? AB: Well, I think the real key to it is getting your right hand just so solid that those notes are…your rolls don’t speed up, ya know. If you go from a reverse roll to a forward roll or anything else, it should be flawless. I remember Earl Scruggs, in his book, he did an exercise where he covered like…made three strings all have the same G note; the fifth string, and the first and second string. Then he said he would just practice rolls, and he should not be able to tell when he switched from one roll to another, it should be just an exact stream of 16th notes playing the G, which will drive you nuts in a hurry, but whether you’re doing [making banjo sounds]…whatever kinda roll you’re doing, it’s gotta be just absolutely solid. I think if you can get your right hand disciplined like that, that’s a good start. PN: What did your dad think of this - the banjo playing? 3 AB: Oh, he was thrilled - both him and Clarence - that all of the sudden, someone from the younger generation was excited about Bluegrass and Country music. PN: I know they were interested in Country and Bluegrass, but it really wasn’t their playing forte. AB: But when they grew up, Country…Bluegrass was part of Country music. They didn’t differentiate it. I have recordings of my Aunts and Uncles. Whether it’s Country songs or Bluegrass songs, it’s all about their tempo, their feel, their harmonies - they would just take the song, whether it came from Country or from Bluegrass. They did it their own way. PN: Would they consider themselves Scandinavian musicians, although I knew they knew that a good deal of Country music had crept into their Scandinavian music, and I think that they really enjoyed that - that special niche that they had. Well, it was shared by others like, Slim Jim, and other players in the upper Midwest, but I think that made it even more fun for them. AB: Yeah, I don’t think, they, in their own mind, pigeon-holed themselves as Scandinavian, or as Country, or really as anything else. Clarence used to call it, “Music in the Bjorngjeld manner.” [Laughing] PN: Could you describe the Bjorngjeld manner? When I saw the family play it out at Dulono’s Pizza, it was a little event - more people than average would come to Dulono’s, and it was sort of family, it was funny, and it had its high points, musically. AB: Yes, Olga and Borghild, the Dakota Sweethearts… PN: Those are your Aunts? AB: My Aunts, yes, could really sing the duets style of singing, but the instrumentation of different. Olga would play the mandolin, but she wouldn’t play lead, it was just a rhythm instrument. Guitars didn’t play lead, most of the leads were taken by the accordions, and when I came along and tried learning fiddle then, well, they were happy to have a fiddle player, too.