Brown: The music scene is alive and well in rural Minnesota

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A few years ago, I talked to Minnesota musician Charlie Parr about life on the road. The Duluth folk icon, famous for his resonator guitar and footboard percussion, told me about a hand-bound book he used to sell at shows. The title? “Recipes Gauged for Long Drives to Montana: A Guide to Manifold Cooking.”

“You get hungry for a hot meal once in a while,” said Parr. “So, you get leftovers given to you and you wrap them in tin foil and put them on the manifold and drive away. If you get to the next town, and they’re still there, they’re warm and you can eat them.”

His first attempt at cooking under the hood of a car was a loaf of bread. I asked if it was any good.

“The bread? Oh, no.”

Manifold cooking has been around since motorists first discovered that the high heat of sputtering Model T engines could bake a potato. It is telling, however, that 100 years later, the face of manifold cooking is a rural musician.

Minnesota has long boasted a thriving music scene with clubs like First Avenue drawing A-list headliners while thrusting local talent toward stardom. But outside of bustling Twin Cities venues, hundreds of musicians travel long highways to bars, brewpubs and public libraries — really, any place willing to pay a few hundred bucks for a night of music. They’re out there tonight, playing shows that won’t be reviewed, recorded or streamed: trees falling in the woods of musical media. But contrary to assumptions, people hear them.

These greater Minnesota musicians play country, rock, gospel, jazz and folk: original songs or their 300th cover of “Hotel California.” They perform for church ladies, hipsters and drunks. Once, Christopher David Hanson could barely finish a number because he was laughing too hard. An inebriated woman kept putting dollar bills in his water glass, thinking it was a tip jar.

“That vantage point has been the most entertaining thing about all of it,” said Hanson, a singer/songwriter living in the Iron Range town of Babbitt. “I’ve seen people fall on the dance floor and split their head. I’ve seen people meet the person they’re going to marry. Just being on the stage when the music connects … . That feeling lets you know you’re doing your job correctly and helping people forget they have a job on Monday.”

Few drive as far as Hanson. He plays three to five shows a week in venues across the state, but almost never in the Twin Cities, even though he grew up there. The road can be hard. On a winter trip up the North Shore, he once nearly slid his fully loaded van off an embankment into Lake Superior.

“It’s lonely,” said Hanson, who just wrapped up more than a decade helming a self-titled country rock band. He now mostly plays solo shows and acoustic sets. “All your mistakes are heard. You’re naked out there, but I’ve finally grown to love it.”

One advantage for rural musicians is the recent proliferation of brew pubs and social venues in small towns, something Hanson calls “the season of taprooms.”

“If you want to go out and make a living, you can do breweries and wine bars,” he said. “You can make your whole living at that. You don’t even have to leave the top half of the state.”

In tiny Mahtowa, Colleen Myhre and her husband, Jim, run the Rugged Spruce Golf Club, a busy venue for local music, especially in the summer. And Myhre knows music. She also performs as Boss Mama, singing blues, country and folk with what she describes as “soul, rhythm and grit.”

Myhre, a mom of two kids who taught herself to play guitar in her 20s, didn’t start playing professionally until she was 30. She saw Parr play in Duluth, which inspired her decision to go for it. Today she plays 3 to 5 shows a week and several festivals each year. She often collaborates with northern Minnesota musicians and has become one of the venerable voices in the Duluth scene.

“From Grand Marais down to Winona, there are tons of places to play and people are coming,” she said.

A survey of arts venues across the state conducted by MinnPost last August revealed that most arts venues reported smaller audiences since the lifting of COVID restrictions.

But Hanson and Myhre both say audiences have returned to rural Minnesota music venues — and might even be bigger than before.

“Maybe I’m just hopeful, but I think it’s growing,” said Myhre. “We live in a place with 80 people and we’re getting 250 people on Saturday nights. When you have good bands at your place, people come out. People want it.”

Over the next few months, some may find themselves traversing the snow-swept highways of rural Minnesota. Perhaps visiting relatives and friends for the holidays or picking out a Christmas tree. More likely, you’re close to home, passing the same bar or brewery you see every day. If you check the marquee, you’ll see there’s a show tonight. I know it’s cold, but it’s warm inside, and the music is hot.

When we support local music, we help local musicians find success beyond the Twin Cities. And that only serves to build the quality of music, and life, across Minnesota.