Minnesota Connections, an Introduction

Well, as you can see this month’s installment deals with Minnesota music. As the title suggests all of the artists have some sort of connection with the others, most a direct connection to at least one other group or artist. These connections will be explained as I run down the list. You will not find any Prince, Dylan, or Jayhawks here. This collection represents some of my favorite local artists, and I have heard most of them live at least once, many of them repeatedly.

For each song I have included a link to a post that includes lyrics, personnel, and a weblink or two. In these posts you will also find a section detailing “connections.” I did this using Blogger’s time and date feature, to avoid clutter on the main page.

As I mentioned in response to Dan’s disappointment with the subjective nature of art, this collection runs a high risk of indifference, or even distaste from the other members. While I hope you all find the joy on these selections that I do, don’t worry about hurting my feelings. On the other hand, if you want to hear more from any or all of these artist, let me know, and I can hook you up with another sampler, or point you to places to purchase the albums (which I encourage especially for indie artists). I easily could have made this one 20 songs long.

Speaking of the number of songs, you will see that there is “bonus” eleventh song. I can already hear Hylton, “Christ, we’re three months in and already Johnson can’t keep to the ten song rule.” Not true. “Griddle Cake Joey” was included for a special reason that will be made clear when we get there.

Enjoy.