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 Bluegrass music 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 1 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? 2 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 Country music? 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 guitar? DL: I started in about 1949, listening to Hank Williams, 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 3 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. Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs were playin’ some. MM: O’course, Bill Monroe 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 4 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.