Phil Nusbaum MM: Marv Menzel

Marv Menzel Narrator

Phil Nusbaum Interviewer

March 24, 2010

PN: Phil Nusbaum MM: Marv Menzel

PN: It's March 24th, 2010.

MM: Wow, where does the time go?! [Laughter]

PN: ... and we are a few doors down from the store of the Homestead Pickin' Parlor. Do you know the address of this place?

MM: This is 6629 Penn Avenue South [Richfield, Minnesota].

PN: Marv Menzel is here. I'm Phil Nusbaum. This is some Bluegrass oral history that has been funded by the Minnesota State Legislature Legacy Amendment, and we're going to talk about Bluegrass in Minnesota.

PN: How did you start your Bluegrass life?

MM: Well, being 66, as I am, I grew up in northern Minnesota, Hibbing is my hometown, in a period of time when AM radio, WMFG [1240 AM] in Hibbing, Minnesota, had a lots of Folk music, Classic Country. You'd wake up in the morning and hear Hank Williams, Peter, Paul, and Mary, and The Kingston Trio. So, I grew up with that all around me, but then it was suppressed when I came down [to Minneapolis] to go to the University [University of Minnesota], and started working in the military industrial complex. It wasn't until mid to late '70s, through some friends, I was reintroduced to the rich Folk music tradition here in the Twin Cities, first through the singer/songwriters - Jerry Rau [Minnesota Minstrel], and eventually I got into the Dulono's scene and found out the Bluegrass and went crazy for it. I wound up eventually taking the Schmidt crash course in banjo, and started playing the banjo in '78, and ultimately in 1979 we opened the Homestead Pickin' Parlor.

PN: To you, is Bluegrass its own thing? Is it Country? Is it Folk?

MM: I look at it, in my more philosophical moments, as part of Folk music. But I think definitely, among the devotees, it is its own thing. There's not a lot of overlap between players and listeners of and to Bluegrass and other forms of music; very seldom will you see a hardcore Bluegrass musician listening to James Taylor, or anything else - it seems pretty consuming. It's a healthy thing to be consumed by.

PN: Why do you suppose that is?

MM: Well, in this day and age, we only have so much time to devote to non-vocational endeavors, and it is kind of consuming, particularly as a player, and I don't think you have that much time to spread yourself too thin. And it's fortunate for those of us that like to listen, because we get some pretty good quality Bluegrass around here.

PN: When you moved down to the Twin Cities from Hibbing, it was to go to school.

MM: Yep.

PN: Could you describe this Bluegrass and Folk music reawakening?

MM: Well, it wasn't immediately when I came down to school, in fact, I was already married and had a family by the time I was reawakened. It was vocational pursuits that took all my time.

PN: I should ask you your birthday.

MM: July of 1943.

PN: ...and you graduated from the U [University of Minnesota] about when?

MM: It would have been '66.

PN: And you studied?

MM: Engineering.

PN: And you went to work for?

MM: Honeywell.

PN: Oh, and that lasted how long?

MM: 9 ½ years. At 10 years I would have been vested and probably would have spent my entire life at Honeywell. But, with several other engineers, I started a part-time endeavor which eventually became a full-time endeavor. I left Honeywell after 9 ½ years.

PN: What was the part-time endeavor?

MM: We called ourselves "Engineering Unlimited," and we had a couple of proprietary products we manufactured. We made gaskets and did a lot of custom wiring; many different hats we wore.

PN: Then what happened?

MM: One of my employees, who eventually became an employee of the Pickin' Parlor, played guitar - Tom Broman, you may have met Tom. I grew up playing accordion; that was my first

2 instrument. Tom was the first guitarist I got anywhere close to, and he started me playing guitar; we'd sit around at noon hours and after work playing guitars. At the time, Schmidt [Schmidt Music stores in the Twin Cities] was doing their crash courses, where you sign up for eight weeks of lessons; you get the use of the instrument, $39.95, or whatever it was. I was smitten by the banjo, and took the crash course in banjo. I wound up taking two or three sequential courses at that time. At the end of the first eight weeks I knew I didn't want the banjo that they'd allowed me to use for the first eight weeks. So I knew a friend that had a music store in Edina (western suburb of Minneapolis) at that time, and I went to him and said, "Hey! We gotta find me a banjo." And all he had was catalogs; he had no banjos on the wall. There were no banjos anywhere in town, which is part of the genesis of the Homestead Pickin' Parlor. So I found a banjo out of a catalog, used that to play, and initially I was playin' 6-8 hours a day. My frustrated search for banjos, for recorded music, you could hardly find anything around here commercially that was connected with Bluegrass - and that's what planted the seed for the Homestead Pickin' Parlor.

PN: Was there some point that you stopped playing altogether?

MM: Not until the Pickin' Parlor was well down the road, when I found how consuming it was to keep a Bluegrass store afloat…so, just for lack of time to do everything.

PN: What made you stay with Bluegrass ahead of the other Folk styles that were and are around?

MM: I wish I could answer that. All of them are wonderful, and I'm surrounded here by all types of what I call Folk music. I think that Bluegrass is sociologically the most rewarding. It's almost like an extended family. You've, I'm sure, experienced this yourself, going to jam sessions, going to festivals. It makes no difference if you're going to a festival a thousand miles from home and it's the first time you've been in that part of the country - you're immediately accepted, just by nature of your interest in Bluegrass you're part of the family and accepted. That's pretty rare in this day and age; and, I think, unique to Bluegrass. I never got that deep into Cajun, it may be true in Cajun, as well, and Old Time, but definitely in Bluegrass, and I like it.

PN: The Homestead Pickin' Parlor started about which year?

MM: 1979.

PN: Did you do market research and that kind of thing?

MM: I'd like to say yes, but I was really pursuing my own interests. I knew, through the people I met in Bluegrass, that it was difficult to find instruments, accessories, recordings. That's all I really needed. I just wanted to provide a vehicle to get that in the hands of the people that wanted it.

PN: Has the store always been in the same location?

MM: Yes.

PN: I'd like to ask you about Bluegrass socializing; your store is a part of that with the jams. What made you decide to host jams?

MM: That came about early on; both hosting jams and providing teachers became apparent as a need very early on. We opened in the fall of '79, and by the spring of '80 we had teachers and jam sessions going. I think that the people that are attracted to Bluegrass have an innate sense of belonging, they want to socialize. I don't think we did anything overtly, we just allowed it to happen on our premises. We've had everything from bands to marriages form in the middle room there during jam sessions.

PN: Any compelling examples you could mention?

MM: I think Bill Nicholson met his wife here. Rich Smith and Holle Brian met here - many instances like that.

PN: Jane and Ken? Did they meet here?

MM: I don't know, may have.

PN: When you watch the jams, are there any lasting memories of particular occasions?

MM: Well, obviously there's been some really wonderful musical sessions to come out of it, but as I get older I tend to philosophize a little more, and I'm heartened by people gettin' along, doing something in common, having a good time, leaving feeling exhilarated, and establishing contacts that are carried far beyond the walls of the Homestead Pickin' Parlor. There are other jams that have spun off from this jam, and other social relationships that have become pretty profound in many instances. That's heartening to me, I like that.

PN: Where else on the Bluegrass scene do you see this kind of musical sociability?

MM: Anywhere I've ever been where there's Bluegrass played, be it a concert, a festival, just about any gathering of Bluegrass people you will see an affinity one for the other.

PN: Let's talk about business.

MM: Ok.

PN: You serve a niche interest, and it has, I would presume, ups and downs. What is the key to your business' longevity?

MM: Determination and willing to go without. You must have a modest lifestyle to survive in the Folk music business. What we've tried to do, and there have been changes in the business, whether it's the instrument that's in vogue at the present time or the accessory, we try to listen to our customers. They're usually the first ones to tell ya, "Hey, there's a new capo out, or there's a

new kinda string, or new banjos…” Whatever, we just listen to them and follow up on it. I don't have time to read all the publications or spend the time on the computer to know the new developments, but if it's something of interest to our customers, then we take note.

PN: Have you changed some of your practices to suit the business climate as it evolves, either in the type of instrument that you stock or the way you promote it?

MM: Definitely in the type of instruments we carry. Right now there's been probably a ten year period where mandolins have been very fashionable. So we try to keep a deeper stock of mandolins. You saw the Flinthill banjos on the wall that represent a particularly good buy right now in professional-quality banjos. So, again, it's following where the customers take you.

PN: Is it correct to say it's a Mom-and-Pop business?

MM: Oh, definitely.

PN: Do you see other businesses that are like this?

MM: There's a few around the country; not as many as there were ten years ago. It's not a real lucrative business. You got to have a mission that you want to fulfill to do it. You can make a lot more money in many other businesses.

PN: What's your mission?

MM: My mission is allowing people to plug into this music - and again, that's not just Bluegrass, but whatever their passion might be in the whole world of Folk music - allow them to plug in, prove to themselves that they can create this music. Or some people just want to be listeners… provide them an opportunity to listen to the music they enjoy. So, it's fulfilling other people's needs.

PN: What need does it fulfill in you, though?

MM: I guess I feel that somehow I'm of service to these people. I think there is an innate something in all of us that we want to serve our fellow human beings, without getting too altruistic I think that's part of my motivation.

PN: Let's talk a little bit about the musical evolution that you see in town here, or that you see in Minnesota. You've been really following it since '75. Tell me about what changes you've seen.

MM: The changes are always an overlay. We still have the Middle Spunk Creek Boys, the Platt Valley Boys; there's a base that has stayed the same throughout my 30 years in business. But at the same time, youngsters comin' in, and I don't mean that in a derogatory fashion at all, but young people have a different way of lookin' at the music: they enjoy the roots part of it - they enjoy the Bluegrass as Bill Monroe would have us play it, but they have a sense of adventure,

too. Some of the other music that they've grown up contemporarily, they want to incorporate into the music they play, and I think we're fortunate in this area to have that.

PN: Like for example…

MM: Oh, some of the new bands you've got right now ... names are escaping me…

PN: I could name a few.

MM: Name a few.

PN: High 48s…

MM: High 48s, Trampled By Turtles, you know, all these guys, they're in touch with basic music, they know what's going on out there, but that's not what they want to play. And they've developed huge followings - Pert' Near Sandstone is another one - and that's wonderful, it's bringin' people into the music! And some of these people, not all of them, some of them are going to explore the real roots of the music and perhaps wind up playing it, but in the meantime, they're bringin' in a lot of people. One of the regrettable things about this music, and I don't mean it from a personal standpoint, is very few people get to hear it. You have to trip on the scene, like I did, or wander into Dulono's to get a pizza and find a Bluegrass band playing. It's not on the radio, your show being the only exception in town; you can't turn on a commercial radio station and hear Bluegrass music. So it's regrettable. These young bands, they're called "jam bands" - there're many different names applied to 'em, but they're bringing in a lot of different people hearing roots-based music, and I think that's healthy for the society at large.

PN: Do you think that there's any stylistic schism in the Bluegrass community?

MM: Countless [Laughter], but they're not social schisms. Musical schisms - there're a lot of these young bands have their own way of doin' things, and they're not interested in playing Bill Monroe covers, but they'll still socialize with everybody that has anything to do with the roots music.

PN: When you started to get involved, the Bluegrass Association [MBOTMA] had already started.

MM: Yeah, it started right about the same time my interest first developed, but before I had opened the store.

PN: What can you tell me first about that early time?

MM: We attended; I think probably, the first festival up at Taylors Falls. There had one or two festivals prior to that, but not organized on an organizational basis. I think it's been a wonderful thing for the Bluegrass music and the Old Time music; it's a focal point - everybody knows that they're going to get together several times a year and reacquaint with one another, and getting the

word out when there's bands playing in the area. I think it's contributed a lot to the popularity of Bluegrass in Minnesota.

PN: What's your view of the so-called, "Bluegrass lifestyle?"

MM: Quantify that for me.

PN: I mean, the festival lifestyle, where Bluegrass is like air. I ask this because, you might not have a reference point, in which case this is a fallacious question…I wonder, before the Bluegrass festival movement really got going, if there were these occasions where people would get together with the purpose of having, I guess, a total immersion experience in Bluegrass music over a number of days.

MM: I don't think so. I think it was the festival phenomenon that allowed that to happen. Which, I think, was the mid '60s to late '60s that that evolved; I don't think there was anything before that. People would get together in their own homes, or perhaps their little social circle, of people that enjoyed the music, but not en masse…and I think that's [festivals] been a healthy thing.

PN: What do you see in it that's of benefit?

MM: I like the music, obviously, or I wouldn't go to 'em at all, but, again, the socializing - people just treating each other as equals, and that includes, as you well know, you can go to a festival and watch the main-stage performers, and after they're done at the record table they're out in the parkin' lot jammin' with everybody else. There is no star system in Bluegrass music. So, it's really an egalitarian form of entertainment, and I think that's wonderful.

PN: How has Bluegrass business like yours benefitted from the festival movement?

MM: I don't know that we have. We've actually been part of the interest development, as well. For a number for years we did go to festivals, and we still go to one a year, but it's a lot of work to go to a festival. When we do go to festivals we try to keep the store open here, too, and with the minimal staff we have, it's just too much work. After 30 years, we're pretty well-known, most of the people, if the festival is in this area, they'll come by the store. If it's not in this area and they need something to go to a festival, they'll give us a call and order it by mail. It's definitely a symbiotic relationship, but I'm not sure if either has benefited more than the other.

PN: The Bluegrass Association, when it started, there was the one festival a year, then there was the Swap Meet, which became the winter Bluegrass Weekend, then there became the June Festival. Somewhere along the line jam sessions started, then they petered out because there were so many other jam sessions. Then the fall Festival started out. What do you think of this growth?

MM: I think it's wonderful. It may be saturated now - once a quarter. From the standpoint of the organization, that takes a lot of work to put on a festival, so I'm sure you'd be able to call on your

staff more than four times a year to put in that energy to get it done. And, people have lives, and to carve out a whole weekend, and in some cases, four-five days to go to a festival - you don't have the luxury of doing that more than three or four times a year. So I think it's just about right, right now.

PN: Could you tell us about your involvement with the Bluegrass Association over time?

MM: Generally it's been pretty much arm's length. I did serve one year as President, during a time of some pretty profound changes in the organization.

PN: Tell us about that.

MM: It was just some real, I felt needed, and a lot of other people felt needed, organizational changes that had to be undertaken. Nobody was willing to jump in and do it, and so I did.

PN: What kind?

MM: The whole way that the thing was put together: it was crafted along a professional standpoint with an active Board.

PN: What was going on before?

MM: Well, because it had started with a handful of people who were very interested in the music, quite understandably, those people kept it going, and it's not that they did a bad job, but it perhaps stifled the growth. At some point you need to get more people involved.

PN: It seemed at the time, and others have said this, that the argument was some wanted it to be sort of a friendship group, and others wanted it to be more of a formal organization. Is that right?

MM: I don't know if those lines were that clearly draw at the time. Being run by a handful of people it was not that responsible to the membership; you know, those people did things the way they wanted to, and the membership could come along or not. So there was very little say in the running of the organization on the part of the membership. I'm sure you've seen other organizations have grown that way, and it's not an unusual situation to find yourself in. I think it's been healthier as a result of it.

PN: Who were the other folks on the Board with you at the time?

MM: Joann Wright, Kate McKenzie, Kevin Barnes, I'd have to go back and check my notes, but those are some names that jump out at me.

PN: What did you do to set the tone for what came later?

MM: Mostly, from an organizational standpoint, I just set it up with active Board members. Each Board member was assigned an area of responsibility, and they were expected to carry out that area of the organization's endeavors. We stumbled a few times in that first year, but it did

keep on going. We got a new set of bylaws in place, and I think it's still pretty much going along the same lines.

PN: How did it evolve that the group would get a paid Executive Director?

MM: I was not involved at that point, so I can't address that. The way it had run, prior to having an Executive Director, it did demand a lot of work of some volunteers. The Festival was always put on by a Volunteer Director. There were times when it was time for the summer Festival, like three months off, and nobody had come forward to volunteer, and there were some anxious moments, but somebody always came forward to get the job done. Thank God for whoever that person was - they put in a lot of work. So I think some Board members somewhere down the road, long after I was involved, decided they didn't want to either have to find that volunteer, or take the place of that volunteer if one didn't come forward, and started moving towards the Executive Director position.

PN: Your business does some of the same things, although on a different scale, that the Bluegrass Association would do: you put on concerts from time to time, and you have instruction events. Why is it that you've gone that way with it? Putting on a concert is work.

MM: ... and it's not a money-maker. [Laughter] Either it's to pursue friendships with artists that I've come to know and have a relationship with, or if I feel that a particular group is not being heard as it should be. It's always some kind of a personal decision on my part.

PN: Give me some examples of that.

MM: Well, Steve Kaufman, who's coming up now, 14 years ago nobody had a hope of ever having personal contact with him, so we started bringing him up to do flat-picking workshops, then later on we added mandolin workshops, concert with Adam Granger. So we've been doing that for 14 years now, every spring you can count on Steve Kaufman coming around. Alan Munde is another one that I've had a long-standing relationship with and have done concerts and workshops for a number of years. Oh, we've done many, many over the years. I don't think we've ever overlapped with the Association, or duplicated any efforts; I think it's been a good fit. And as far as the workshops and stuff, we've always done that, that was right from the inception, so, we probably started doing that before MBOTMA did.

PN: That has to be a good thing for your business, because you bring pickers into the store and they buy strings and things and develop associations, too.

MM: Yes.

PN: I'd really like to hear about some of the more memorable concerts you've promoted at Armatage School. It's hard for me to separate in my mind whether you've promoted something there or whether the Bluegrass Association has.

MM: Both. We used to do Hot Rize, quite regularly, including their farewell concert just before they broke. Country Gazette we did many times over the years.

PN: Have you done Special Consensus, or is that an Association thing?

MM: That's an Association thing. Yeah, I'd have to really scratch my head.

PN: I have noticed that Kaufman comes here quite a bit. It was actually quite memorable when you brought him to the Bluegrass Saturday Morning [radio show hosted by Phil] when the show was still done live. He played that 7-string guitar.

MM: He enjoyed that.

PN: Tell me about some of the other relationships with players that you've made. Brian Bowers would seem to be one.

MM: Brian Bowers currently we've done for three years every January he comes through. And artists, I wouldn't say they're creatures of habit, but it is nice from their standpoint to, as we observed earlier in our conversation, you can't ever get off your game and just assume you're going to be working in perpetuity; you got to work the phones. Brian is one guy who likes to establish tours, and every spring, or mid-winter in this case, he knows he's going to do Minneapolis, Chicago, Michigan, and he has his loop carved out, and we keep him busy for a couple of weeks. So, as long as we're agreeable and it turns out to be an acceptable payday for him, we just keep doing it.

PN: Let me ask you about the record business. We keep hearing that it is not what it was ... is that true?

MM: Oh, very much so.

PN: Tell us about the changes and how you've responded.

MM: Well, obviously when we first opened, it was vinyl. The browsers that you see out there are LP record bins. I remember Doc Watson was one of the first CDs to ever come in. The Bluegrass community generally is 2-5 years behind the curve: changing formats, and this kind of thing. We didn't get into CDs whole hog right away, it took several years to switch over, and cassettes came and went during that whole period. And now with the advent of the downloading phenomenon, I don't think either the entertainers or the listeners are well-served by this phenomenon: for one, the quality of the downloaded music is really inferior to what you would get on a pre-recorded CD, and two, it's completely obliterated the concept of a concept album. If a Producer says, "Hey, I wanna do an album on which I will do these things… " that's gone, 'cause the public is going to decide, probably the airplay is going to decide what the hits are going to are on that record. Those are the ones that are going to get downloaded, the other 10 or 12 songs are just going to get ignored. So, I don't think it's been a good thing. One of the things I

miss, personally, about the LPs is the liner notes. Now when you download you get nothing, it was bad enough goin' to the small print on the CDs, but now when you download you get nothing. So, I hope people come to their senses, and see what they are missin' out on. I think it has affected the artistic quality of the music.

PN: It's kind of like the way it was before LPs, when you bought a 45 or a 78, you get two songs, and one of 'em is the hit side. Then someone figured out that you could have an album, and then you could have a concept album, or even if it wasn't a concept album, listeners might take it as the current statement by a given artist. So now, it's just, "Oh, I just want the song, give me the hit," so it's back the way it was, in a way. It's changed things, I think, because of what you're describing wouldn't you say there are fewer CDs being issued by the labels?

MM: Oh, definitely. A good case in point is Rounder Records has just deleted probably 25% of their catalog - no longer available, and they had one of the most exciting catalogs out there; they were probably the biggest independent label in the world, 25% of it gone. That's distressing. The real heyday for me was right after CDs became full tilt boogey in this business, this kind of music, it seemed like all the labels, whether it was County Records or Rounder, they were pulling back catalog out and putting it on CD and it was just rich. Stuff that hadn't been around for years on LP was all of the sudden available on CD. That was the heyday of this kind of music. Anything you wanted was there. It's waned ever since, and I don't think it's been good.

PN: Is the sale of music on CD less of your income now?

MM: Oh, definitely. It's a fraction of what it used to be, probably 25% of what it was 10 years ago.

PN: How can you make that up?

MM: You can't; you cut your income. There's only so much that can be sold.

PN: Do you see more local product, more artists releasing their own CDs?

MM: That's the clue. Yeah. I'm not sure there are fewer CDs being released, but there are fewer CDs on labels. I think artists, and rightfully so, finally figured out that the smaller labels aren't doing that much for them, and unless you can get on a Rounder where they've got a huge marketing organization, smaller labels can't offer an artist anything. If you just look at the raw cost of a CD as an artist produces it and orders it from a CD maker, versus what he or she has to buy back from a label, that's a big part of their income. And I think there's far more CDs sold from stage today then there are probably either downloaded or in stores such as ours.

PN: What do you think the public thinks of buying from the artist from the stage?

MM: Oh, I think they're into it if it's an artist they appreciate, and I think you almost have to assume that it is or they wouldn't even go to the concert, they want to have whatever records they

don't have in their collection from that artist. And support is part of it; I think they're very conscious of the fact that this band is working hard and I'm enjoyin' what they're doin', the least I can do is kick in a few bucks for a CD.

PN: What do you think is the quality level on this type of CD?

MM: Well, with the advent in the recording equipment available to even the garage band today, probably better than they were in the recording studio 20 years ago. [Laughing]

PN: Do you see anything that would cause the return of the recorded musical product that has a number of songs that cohere together that seem like a total project altogether?

MM: You used the word "precious" a little while ago, for me that's precious. I enjoy seeing an artist and producer collaborate and have a statement to the public. The Alison Krauss and Robert Plant album - the first time I heard that album, I thought, "Oh, what has this girl done?!" But after about the third or fourth listening, I really enjoy that album, and it's one of my favorites. And if it was left to the whim of the downloading public, that project may never have happened.

PN: Can you think of other projects like that?

MM: Oh, we can go way back to one of my all time favorites: Paul Simon’s Graceland - that should have been carved in stone, there's something really unstated there that grabs you.

PN: Let me ask you about this type of project that is done by a local band, are there some like that? I have one of two; I have one in mind especially.

MM: That really jump out as a project?

PN: Yes.

MM: I can't think of any that I would put in the quality of the ones we just mentioned. They are very good representations of what the band is doing, and I think that's why most people purchase them.

PN: For example is there one or two that you really love?

MM: The High 48s I enjoy a lot. I think they are a very professional band and I their recordings represent that. Trampled by Turtles isn't my cup of tea, but their recordings very well document what they're all about. When I see these young folks talking about a concept, they're putting energy into this, they think, often times for months before they even start recording, what they want to do. They're not leaving it up to a record label or producer to dictate, it's home-grown, they're doing it, and I think that's good.

PN: I'll throw on the first album by the Buffalo Gals. I loved the concept of all the cool, danceable fiddle music that's around today in one package and really well-chosen songs. I can't help but mention that.

MM: Oh, yeah!

PN: We've talked a bit about musical evolution, about the Bluegrass Association, about the business ups and downs; did you ever consider moving from this space?

MM: Proximity to home. I spend a great deal of time here; I'm here seven days a week, we're only open six days, but the seventh is not a day of rest, it's a day to get the paperwork done. So, no. We are very much a destination business, people know of us now, after 30 years, and the last thing I'd want to do is have 'em look in a whole new part of town for us. Countless times people have said, "Why don't you open one in St. Paul?" Pragmatically that's just never going to happen, there's not enough profit in this business to support one store, let alone two. No, I think it will be here as long as I'm here opening the door in the morning.

PN: Is there something you're surprised we've not addressed?

MM: Well, we didn't talk about the teaching that much. We do have a roster of 20 instructors.

PN: How do you go about finding your instructors?

MM: Well, early on, through my reawakening to the Folk music scene, it was people like Bob Bovee, and Gail Heil, Pop Wagner, Kevin Barnes was one of the first instructors of truly a Bluegrass nature, and I just approached him at Dulono's one night and asked him if he'd be interested in teachin', and to my lasting appeasement, he said, "Yes." We were very delighted to have Kevin Barnes join us as one of the early Bluegrass instructors, and names you might recognize since that time who have taught - we've had a total of some 58 instructors over the years: Bill Cagley, Adam Granger, John Wallace, Gordy Abel, Joe Trimbach, Russ Rayfield, Dakota Dave, Brian Wicklund, Karen Mueller, Chris Kaiser, Patty Shove, Brian Barnes, Bill Hinkley, Barry St. Mane, Bruce Johnson - of course is one of our main instructors now, and a big part of the Homestead Pickin' Parlor, Kari Larson, Lisa Schultz, Brian Fesler - probably the busiest instructor we ever had, Chuck Millar, Larry Beem, Mary Du Shane, Geoff Shannon, Jerry Spanhanks, so, been a lot of them gone through here.

PN: So what's the future of the Homestead Pickin' Parlor?

MM: People ask me that a lot, and I don't know. Obviously, being 66 years of age, it's not something I'm going to continue doing forever, but I'm still havin' a lot of fun doin' it, so I have no plans to stop doing it at this time. There are other things I'd like to do in life, too, but for right now I'm content.

PN: Assess the health of Bluegrass in this town.

MM: I think it's very healthy. I think there's a constant dialogue between young artists and new artists, between listening audience, performing artists, the organization - MBOTMA, and the people who participate in its events. So I think there's good dialogue going on all the time, a willingness to share on the part of everybody involved at any level, so as long as that continues I have no fear for the…obviously the economic situation has an impact on it, like everything else; music, like so many other discretionary outlets, suffers when income suffers, but once you really fasten onto Bluegrass there's really nothing that's gonna substitute it.