American music: A river runs through it

Michael E. Ross Reporter • Profile • E-mail

Their lives reflect the painful, promising diversities of America, spanning north and south, black and white, young and old, jazz to rock and roll — and every variation on the American theme in between.

From one of Minnesota's most enduring sons, a Duluth-born singer who changed his name before he changed modern music, to Bix Beiderbecke, a ne'er-do-well trumpeter from Iowa who helped revolutionize jazz in the ’20s; from Robert Johnson, the doomed Delta blues legend whose generations-old songs still endure; to Prince, a still-maverick talent whose sound embraces everything from funk to ballads to rock.

From Lake Itasca, Minn., to the Gulf of Mexico, the regions bordering the Mississippi are saturated by a myriad of musical forms. But they've all got one thing in common: the body of water whose timeless spirit runs through the music. The regions hard by the Mississippi have for generations been incubators for musical talents whose creative range mirrors the geographic breadth of the river that is their touchstone and inspiration.

Davenport as ‘crossroads’
Memphis, Chicago and New Orleans are reliably linked to the provenance of the American sound, but you're not likely to hear the name of Davenport, Iowa, when the hothouses of American music are mentioned. What makes the town of 98,359 people such a fertile location for study of American music, though, is mostly a matter of being in the proverbial right place and time.

First, there's where it is (bordering the Mississippi) and what it is (Beiderbecke's birthplace, site of major blues and jazz festivals).

‘It's everything from New Orleans jazz and the Delta blues, Memphis with rockabilly and rock ... all the way to the Twin Cities with Prince. It covers such an incredible range.’ — CONNIE GIBBONS Executive director, River Music Experience Museum

One of the newest places to celebrate music inspired by the Mississippi is the River Music Experience Museum, which opened in Davenport in June. Connie Gibbons, the museum's executive director, says the fans are already lining up. “The first people are typically the ‘choir’ — it's the converted, consumers and fans of the music,” she said. “We're fortunate because with river music you're talking about blues and jazz, country and rock, and we cover a wide spectrum of genres. We're able to draw from supporters of all those types.

"As word spreads, you get people coming in that are curious about it,” Gibbons said. “There's a real fascination with the river's history and lore. With this particular center and the music, it's all a vital part of the American experience, and music tells that story like no other medium can.”

Davenport is a literal intersection of creative possibilities. “It's a crossroads,” said Gibbons, who moved to Davenport from Texas in early 2003. “There’s always been a large group of people here who are consumers of music. Several festivals are popular here.

“As musicians travel across the country, it's been a natural stopping point for musicians to stop and share what they're doing. As such it's a natural site for this museum. The community itself is undergoing a renasissance. There's a major art museum opening within a year. There are a lot of things going on that encompass the business element and the art, and it really represents a true renaissance.”

Gibbons said the overall impact of the river on the sound of America is profound and enduring.

“American music would be much different if not for those communities and artists going on,” she said. “It's everything from New Orleans jazz and the Delta blues, Memphis with rockabilly and rock, and other vital communities like St. Louis and Miles Davis and all the way to the Twin Cities with Prince. It covers such an incredible range.”

Northern latitudes
For years the region of the northern Mississippi — Minnesota to Illinois — has been a veritable hothouse of musical talent. Perhaps the region's most celebrated star, one Robert Allen Zimmerman, was born in Duluth, Minn., and raised in nearby Hibbing. As a boy he was fascinated with folk and blues music; according to the Hibbing Area Chamber of Commerce, Zimmerman's career started early, with some of his first public performances singing for his family at the tender age of 4.

He began playing the guitar in junior high school, forming several local bands. After high school, he moved to Minneapolis for courses at the University of Minnesota, but in 1960 Zimmerman dropped out and moved to New York, beginning a recording career with his first album in 1962, a record bearing his new name: Bob Dylan.

Minnesota's Twin Cities — Minneapolis and St. Paul — are separated by the Mississippi but joined by their status as a creative spawning ground.

Husker Du and Things Fall Down were part of the burgeoning punk scene in Minneapolis in the early ’80s; the Replacements, a band with a fidelity to rock's more dissolute traditions, also hailed from the Twin Cities area, as well as alternative-rockers Soul Asylum, which went from garage band to multiplatinum-selling artists in the early ’90s.

And then there's that Minneapolis native, one Prince Rogers Nelson, the polymath who's made a career of morphing funk, rock, soul and R&B into a musicology all his own. Prince, a Minneapolis native, has made the Twin Cities area a source of his inspiration (and income). He records at his own Paisley Park Studios, which was relocated from Minneapolis to nearby Chanhassen, about 15 miles southwest of the river.

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