Northfield Downtown Development Corporation

Several people have asked about the Folk Revival that I mentioned in my blog on Monday. I’m really not an expert but I’m willing to share my very basic understanding of it with you.

The great Folk Revival of the 1960s really begins in the late 1940s or early 1950s. Most historians tie it to 1958 and the Kingston Trio’s #1 hit, “Tom Dooley”, a catchy little tune allegedly written by a returning Confederate soldier sentenced to death for killing his girlfriend. Many of these historians view the revival as a reaction to the bland homogeneity of the mass culture that arose after the Second World War. The seemingly innocuous return to acoustic instruments and themes of everyday life were often implicitly political with their underlying message of the power of the common working people during a period which saw the rise of what President Eisenhower called the military-industrial complex, not unlike the earlier vital periods of folk music in the United States during the periods of urbanization in the 1890s and economic expansion in the 1920s.

In the 1950s and 1960s, a number of traditional music enthusiasts/musicians started a renaissance of Appalachian folk (thought to contain the most unadulterated imports from the British Isles) and blues (considered by many to be essentially African-American folk) music in America. Inspired by the rare records they were able to obtain from the pre-war period (particularly the work of Harry Smith for his Anthology of American Folk Music) they searched out the surviving musicians for performances at folk festivals and revived the music themselves for contemporary audiences, in the process dramatically shaping the development of music on both sides of the Atlantic. This is how Spider John Koerner influenced Bob Dylan and John Lennon.

Perhaps things occur in 30 or 40 year cycles. The movie “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” once again revived European-American and African-American folk music. The soundtrack featured long-time folk musicians like John Hartford and Ralph Stanley as well as emerging artists like Allison Krauss and Gillian Welch playing a number of traditional songs as well as some songs composed by great American artists from early in the last century like A. P. Carter, Nehemiah “Skip” James, “Mother” Maybelle Carter and Jimmie Rodgers.

But, hey, why settle for anything less than the real deal, come see Spider John at The Grand, this Thursday night from 8 to 10 pm. Doors open at 7:30 pm.

Melinda Russell, a professor at Carleton, called me about the Spider John Koerner show (Thursday, February 23rd, 8 to 10 pm, at the Grand). She wondered if there was going to be a special student rate. I told her, yes, admission is $6, with students paying only $4. She was pleased, because her whole class is coming. You see, Melinda is teaching a class called “The U. S. Folk Music Revival” and Spider John plays a big role in this history. Here are some of her comments:

Now that I’m teaching a new course about the Folk Revival, I’m becoming more aware of the scholarship. One of the most important undercurrents in the scholarship is that of regionalism. While the revival was a national phenomenon, with magazines and t.v. shows and cross-country tours, etc., it was also an extremely regional one, with hot spots across the country, like Cambridge, Greenwich Village, Chicago, Berkeley, Madison, and, of course, the Twin Cities. Spider John Koerner helped to start and shape the folk revival as it occurred in the cities, starting in the late 1950s. In his solo work, his work with Ray and Glover, and others, he has brought his unique talents to an unusually broad repertoire. Spider John’s work has always sounded like no one else’s, and even playing traditional repertoire, he has always brought to it his singular style, earning him an ardent and still-growing group of followers. It’s a luxury to have him pop right down to Northfield for our convenience, and I’m sure it will be a memorable night.

Well Melinda, I couldn’t agree with you more. Spider has unique talents, a singular style, and a still-growing group of followers. The NDDC thought that it was a relatively affordable luxury to have him here in Northfield and we sure do hope that it’s a memorable (in a positive way) night for everyone.

I spent some time Saturday afternoon in the KRLX studio with Griff, Morgan and Cameron, (doing the podcast thing)…and our special guest, Elizabeth Schott, Executive Director of the Northfield Area United Way. This year’s community campaign is coming to a close and Elizabeth was sharing an update with us.

I learned a number of things about the United Way during the session. One thing that I had heard before but is worth repeating is that all the money that is raised in the community stays in the community. Your contributions are not shipped off to New York City or Washington, D.C., they are used to support programming in the Northfield area. Another thing that merits special mention is the tremendous generosity of our local businesses. When you spend money in Northfield some of that money is reinvested in the community. Finally, Elizabeth talked about the increasing number of contributions from the Latino community. We must be doing something right about welcoming them to Northfield as they are already starting to give back to the community through donations to the United Way.

To learn more, visit the Northfield Area United Way website. And if you haven’t already donated, help them reach their goal and to continue to support this important community programming.

After 20 years of living in Northfield, on Friday I finally made it to my first Carleton Convocation. I had previously made plans to attend the presentations on various topics, but something always came up. When my Board President, Dan Bergeson, told me it was about New Orleans, I got it together and was sitting (next to Bardwell and Charlotte Smith) in Skinner Chapel at 10:50 am.

The speaker was Charles H. Long, Professor emeritus of history of religions and former director of the Research Center for Black Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara. The specific subject was “New Orleans as an American City: Origins, Exchanges, Materialities, and Religion.” According to Carleton, “Charles H. Long has a unique perspective from which to speak of the general meaning of religion in history and culture, and specifically about African religions in Africa and in the Atlantic world”. That was an understatement.

In a presentation that ranged from Thomas Jefferson’s alleged abuse of presidential power in making the Louisiana Purchase from France without consulting anyone, much less Congress, to Fernand Braudel’s analysis of the relationship between human development and environmental forces in his “The Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II”, while touching upon the French desire to import slaves with rice-growing skills and it’s impact on the development of music in the Ninth Ward, Professor Long’s perspective was indeed unique.

Long’s thesis may be that New Orleans has unique experience in, and thus unique potential for teaching about, multi-culturalism. As the proverbial American Gumbo, the City has a particularly spicy mix of Aboriginal, European and African peoples. He amusingly but accurately described New Orleans as a French Canadian Outpost. It’s development saw powerful and, perhaps, ironic forces shape its economic structure. The Europeans claimed sovereignty over the land, the Aboriginals were the only ones who understood how to live off the land and the Africans ended up doing most of the work on the land. It is from this series of relationships that Long moved from rice cultivation to The Meters, trust me.

A major concern for Long resulting from the destruction of Katrina is the threat to the physical manifestation of multi-culturalism. The neighborhoods that were the most damaged are also the deepest reservoirs of the cultural history of the city. Unfortunately, Long believes, the political leadership at the local, state and national level lack the insightfulness to recognize the potential significance of this loss. A particularly rich source of ideas for achieving maximum leverage of our nation’s multi-culturalism will be lost along with these historic neighborhoods.

Like Joni Mitchell said in “Big Yellow Taxi”, “Don’t it always seem to go, that you don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone”…

No, it wasn’t Lee Lansing and Glenn Switzer, at least not yet. It was Chris Coleman of St. Paul, Stephanie Klinzing of Elk River, R. T. Rybak of Minneapolis, and Nancy Tyra-Lukens of Eden Prairie. It was called the “Mayors’ Summit on Affordable Housing’s Green Issues: Environmental and Economic Sustainability” and it was held at the Humphrey Insititute of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota.

The Summit Program was part of a larger Initiative by the Weisman Art Museum at the University of Minnesota called “The HOME House Project: the Future of Affordable Housing“. I found it to be a way cool show and I urge you to check it out. It runs through April 30th.

The Weisman show features nearly 80 designs from a national competition for affordable single-family homes organized by the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The focus was to design affordable housing that uses environmentally friendly materials and methods that are not only better for the planet but better for the people inhabiting the housing. The hope is to make affordable and sustainable design an important goal for communities all around the country.

There were several themes that emerged in the competition. They included:
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