Ferdinand Joseph LaMothe, known professionally as Jelly Roll Morton, was an American ragtime and jazz pianist, bandleader, and composer of Louisiana Creole descent. Morton was jazz's first arranger, proving that a genre rooted in improvisation could retain its essential characteristics when notated. His composition "Jelly Roll Blues", published in 1915, was one of the first published jazz compositions. He also claimed to have invented the genre.
Samuel Cornelius Phillips was an American disc jockey, songwriter and record producer. He was the founder of Sun Records and Sun Studio in Memphis, Tennessee, where he produced recordings by Elvis Presley, Roy Orbison, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash, and Howlin' Wolf. Phillips played a major role in the development of rock and roll during the 1950s, launching the career of Presley. In 1969, he sold Sun to Shelby Singleton.
Richard Wayne Penniman, known professionally as Little Richard, was an American singer, pianist, and songwriter. He was an influential figure in popular music and culture for seven decades. Described as the "Architect of Rock and Roll", Richard's most celebrated work dates from the mid-1950s, when his charismatic showmanship and dynamic music, characterized by frenetic piano playing, pounding backbeat and powerful raspy vocals, laid the foundation for rock and roll. Richard's innovative emotive vocalizations and uptempo rhythmic music played a key role in the formation of other popular music genres, including soul and funk. He influenced singers and musicians across musical genres from rock to hip hop; his music helped shape rhythm and blues for generations.
Jamesetta Hawkins, known professionally as Etta James, was an American singer and songwriter who performed in various genres, including gospel, blues, jazz, R&B, rock and roll, and soul. Starting her career in 1954, she gained fame with hits such as "The Wallflower", "At Last", "Tell Mama", "Something's Got a Hold on Me", and "I'd Rather Go Blind". She faced a number of personal problems, including heroin addiction, severe physical abuse, and incarceration, before making a musical comeback in the late 1980s with the album Seven Year Itch.
The music of Minnesota began with the native rhythms and songs of Indigenous peoples, the first inhabitants of the lands which later became the U.S. state of Minnesota. Métis fur-trading voyageurs introduced the chansons of their French ancestors in the late eighteenth century. As the territory was opened up to white settlement in the 19th century, each group of immigrants brought with them the folk music of their European homelands. Celtic, German, Scandinavian, and Central and Eastern European song and dance remain part of the vernacular music of the state today.
George "Buddy" Guy is an American blues guitarist and singer. He is an exponent of Chicago blues who has influenced generations of guitarists including Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page, Keith Richards, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Jeff Beck, Gary Clark Jr. and John Mayer. In the 1960s, Guy played with Muddy Waters as a session guitarist at Chess Records and began a musical partnership with blues harp virtuoso Junior Wells.
Jon Gordon Langseth Jr., known as Jonny Lang, is an American blues, gospel, rock singer, songwriter, and guitarist. He has recorded five albums that have charted on the top 50 of the Billboard 200 chart and won a Grammy Award for Turn Around.
Isadore Blumenfeld, commonly known as Kid Cann, was a Romanian-born Jewish-American organized crime enforcer based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, for over four decades. He remains the most notorious mobster in the history of Minnesota. He was associated with several high-profile crimes in the city's history. He was tried and acquitted for the 1924 murder of cab driver Charles Goldberg. Blumenfeld was also present at the scene of the attempted murder by Verne Miller of Minneapolis Police Department officer James H. Trepanier. Blumenfeld was also tried and acquitted for personally firing the murder weapon, a Thompson submachine gun, in the globally infamous December 1935 contract killing of Twin Cities investigative journalist Walter Liggett. He was also unsuccessfully prosecuted in Federal Court for both conspiracy and racketeering in the mobbed up hostile takeover and dismantling of the Twin City Rapid Transit streetcar system during the early 1950s.
James Samuel "Jimmy Jam" Harris III and Terry Steven Lewis are an American R&B/pop songwriting and record production team. Their productions have received commercial success since the 1980s with various artists, most extensively Janet Jackson. They have written 31 top ten hits in the UK and 41 in the US. In 2022, the duo were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the Musical Excellence category.
First Avenue and 7th St Entry are two historic music venues housed in the same landmark building in downtown Minneapolis. The nightclub sits on the corner of First Avenue North and 7th Street North, from which the venues get their names. The two are colloquially distinguished by locals as The Mainroom and The Entry.
"Spider" John Koerner was an American guitarist, singer, and songwriter. He was best known as a guitarist and vocalist in the blues trio Koerner, Ray & Glover, with Dave Ray and Tony Glover. He also made albums as a solo performer and with Willie Murphy, and was an important mentor to the young Bob Dylan.
William Bell is an American soul singer and songwriter. As a performer, he is probably best known for his debut single, 1961's "You Don't Miss Your Water"; 1968's top 10 hit in the UK "Private Number", a duet with Judy Clay; and his only US top 40 hit, 1976's "Tryin' to Love Two", which also hit No. 1 on the R&B chart. Upon the death of Otis Redding, Bell released the well-received memorial song "A Tribute to a King".
Volbeat are a Danish rock band formed in Copenhagen in 2001. They play a fusion of rock and roll and heavy metal. Their current line-up consists of vocalist and rhythm guitarist Michael Poulsen, drummer Jon Larsen, and bassist Kaspar Boye Larsen. The band is signed to Dutch label Mascot Records and has released eight studio albums and one DVD. Their second album Rock the Rebel/Metal the Devil received platinum status, and their 2010 release Beyond Hell/Above Heaven was subject to widespread international critical acclaim, receiving triple platinum in Denmark and Austria, double platinum in Sweden, platinum in Canada, 5x Gold in Germany, and gold in both Finland and the United States. Volbeat's most recent studio album, Servant of the Mind, was released in 2021.
Randy Resnick is an American guitarist, songwriter and saxophonist who has played with many prominent blues and jazz musicians, such as Don "Sugarcane" Harris, John Lee Hooker, John Mayall, Canned Heat and Freddie King. He was developing both one- and two-handed tapping style in the early 1970s. He published a CD of his own music in 1995, "To Love" under the name Randy Rare. There is an example of his tapping work in the recording from that CD below. In 2020, he began publishing new music, much of it on saxophone, on the streaming platforms like Spotify, Tidal (service) and iTunes under his own Each Hit label.
William "Billy Boy" Arnold is an American blues harmonica player, singer and songwriter. Arnold is a self-taught harmonica player and has worked with blues legends such as Bo Diddley, Johnny Shines, Otis Rush, Earl Hooker, Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters and others.
Cadillac Records is a 2008 American biographical drama film written and directed by Darnell Martin. The film explores the musical era from the early 1940s to the late 1960s, chronicling the life of the influential Chicago-based record-company executive Leonard Chess, and a few of the musicians who recorded for Chess Records.
Gary Lee Clark Jr. is an American guitarist and singer who fuses blues, rock and soul music with elements of hip hop. In 2011, Clark signed with Warner Bros Records and released The Bright Lights EP. It was followed by the albums Blak and Blu (2012) and The Story of Sonny Boy Slim (2015). Throughout his career, Clark has been a prolific live performer, documented by Gary Clark Jr. Live (2014) and Gary Clark Jr Live/North America (2017).
Mac Arnold, is an American blues musician from South Carolina.
Palmer's Bar is a dive bar and music venue located in the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood of Minneapolis, Minnesota. Known for its strong drinks, the bar is a live music venue at night.
Kevin Bowe is an American songwriter, record producer and musician from Minneapolis. He is best known for his work with prominent rock and blues artists including Paul Westerberg and the Replacements; writing songs for hit albums by Jonny Lang and Kenny Wayne Shepherd; as well as Etta James' Grammy-winning Let's Roll. He has contributed to dozens of albums over his career, including several of his own as a bandleader; he has appeared on many film and television soundtracks including ESPN and The Sopranos. His songs have been covered by many prominent rock and blues artists, including Joe Cocker, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Robben Ford, and John Mayall.
