Twin Ports Art Scene: Items of Note

The other day I was reading the Hibbing paper (online) in order to learn more about the Dylan photography exhibit that is making its U.S. premiere in Hibbing in about four weeks. A little further down the page was a list of the week's crimes. 3 of the 10 involved assault, men assaulting women.

This is a serious problem and it makes a lot of us sick. If you're one of those who find this a disturbing trend in our culture (or a disturbing habit throughout history) you may be interest in tonight's Take Back The Night rally and march. Starts at five downtown. Do nothing and we get more of the same.

OK, Arts Fans, there's a busy weekend ahead. Highlights include...

Damn Yankees at the Marshall Performing Arts Center, hosted by the UMD Departments of Theater and Music. Classic. I would be there except I will be helping to get a show ready for Friday night....

Bob, by Becky Buchanan

And that show is the 2014 Goin' Postal Spring Art Show with work by AJ Atwater, Jeredt Runions, Becky Buchanan, Dusty Keliin, Eric Horn, Tara Stone, Chelsey Miller, Ed Newman, Tal Lindblad, Sharon Rogers, Jeff Peabody, Zach Kerola, John Heino and many more. After party will feature Teague Alexy, Theft by Swindle, the Tico Three and Andy Lipke Fiasco.

SPECIAL OFFER: Anyone who purchases a painting worth $100 or more at this show will receive free a signed copy of my book Unremembered Histories.

If you're in the Twin Cities and can't make it to our Goin' Postal show or the Art for Earth Day Gallery Hop on Saturday, it will be worth your while to do the St. Paul Art Crawl tomorrow evening. Erik Pearson is going.

New Adam McCauley piece.

SATURDAY is the annual Art for Earth Day Gallery Hop in the Twin Ports. Lots of galleries, and lots to see on both sides of the bridge. The hard part will be knowing where to begin and whether one should try to see it all. There will be activities at UMD from 1-6 p.m. including open studios.

On the Superior side of the bridge there's art by Brita Rekve at the North End Arts Gallery (Red Mug Building) and the new Phantom Galleries Superior will be having openings at two locations, 1404 and 1410 Tower Avenue. Among the featured artists will be Adam McCauley and Sarah Brokke, perpetual favorites amongst those who like to see painterly works on canvas. (I confess: I am one.)  Brokke's show is called Shift. The overall theme is called Whirlled. Hours are from 11 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., just in time to be in your car to catch the beginning of KUMD's Highway 61 Revisited, Dylan music hosted by John Bushey. He'll have a special guest this week talking about the upcoming Salute to the Music of Bob Dylan.

OH, speaking of music.... the Homegrown Music Festival is kicking off, featuring over 200 bands this year. But that is a much longer story.

AND FINALLY, The Shack in Superior, Wisconsin, is now featuring art on its wall. Grab a lunch there or bring a friend to dinner and check it out. The food is fabulous.

Meantime, art goes on all around you. Engage it.

EdNote: Photos will be added later to bring a little color here. My uploads were timing out.

Intersections: Dylan, Lenny Bruce and a Quiet Funeral for the Beats

"Lenny Bruce is dead but his ghost lives on and on." ~Bob Dylan

It's sometimes stated that Bob Dylan's "calling" began at the Duluth Armory where he'd gone as a seventeen-year-old to see Buddy Holly. Legend has it that Buddy Holly looked at the young Robert Zimmerman and something passed between them. It was a fortuitous moment, for less than two days later Buddy Holly was dead. Whatever else happened, the event made an impression on him.

They say timing is everything and often the moments that orchestrate or mark our lives are utterly outside our control. They happen for reasons we know not. And sometimes -- I'm speaking as a short story writer here -- these moments get re-configured  in ways that are unrecognizable to others. For example, think of the lines, "She looked at him and he felt a spark tingle to his bones..."  from Simple Twist of Fate. "The look" set in motion a train events, which a lifetime later must seem like a never ending series of dreams.

I mention all this because of a passage I stumbled across recently in Sean Wilentz's Bob Dylan in America. Wilentz begins his book with two chapters of background featuring Aaron Copland, communism and then the Beats. Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg and their ilk struck a chord with the disenfranchised and the left-leaning intellectuals attuned to those things contrary to the exuberance of pop culture.

Things shift in ways both predictable and unexpected. When prime-time television incorporated "beatnik" Maynard G. Krebs into "The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis" it became apparent that the Beat poets and writers were now characterized by a caricature. "You rang?" This caricature was now a national joke.

Wilentz writes that in 1961 the beat movement was running out of steam while the folk scene was picking up. In response, on January 26, 1961 "a group of writers gathered at the apartment of Belgian theater director Robert Cordier, on Christopher Street, to discuss (and, for some, to celebrate) the death of the Beat generation.

“James Baldwin… was there. So were Norman Mailer, Susan Sontag, William Styron and the Beats Ted Joans, Tuli Kupferberg, and the Village Voice journalist Seymour Krim.” According to Wilentz they had “gathered to bury what was left of a movement that they believed had been thoroughly co-opted by the commercial mainstream. What had begun as an iconoclastic literary style… had become… just another fad, a subject fit for television comedies.”

How interesting it is that on the very day of this "funeral" Bob Dylan arrived in New York City, and managed to get onto the stage at the Cafe Wha? The Beats may have been beaten by pop culture but, as Wilentz notes, Kerouac and Ginsberg were alive and well in Dylan's brain.

Later, Allen Ginsberg would recognize that this flame of the now deceased Beat movement was still vibrant in this young singer/songwriter who in 1964-65 represented the epitome of hipness and rebellion, a James Dean of the music scene who likewise maintained the flame from that earlier encounter at the Armory, the day before the music died.

* * * * *
According to Doug Lindner, in the late 1950's and early Sixties Lenny Bruce "was the spirit of hipness and rebellion." To say that Bruce was edgy is simply too polite. His work, which would be labelled in bad taste by some today, was being declared obscene at a time when free speech had much tighter restrictions. Because he challenged the status quo, it ultimately put him in the gunsights of the powers that be.

"The arrest of Bruce in New York sparked a firestorm of protest from the city's intellectual community. Poet Allen Ginsberg announced formation of an 'Emergency Committee against the Harassment of Lenny Bruce.'Over eighty prominent people, mostly entertainers and authors, signed a petition protesting the prosecution of Bruce: 'Whether we regard Bruce as a moral spokesman or simply as an entertainer, we believe he should be allowed to perform free from censorship or harassment.' Signers of the petition included Paul Newman, Bob Dylan, Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Norman Mailer, Susan Sontag, John Updike, James Baldwin, George Plimpton, Henry Miller, Joseph Heller, Gore Vidal, and Woody Allen." *

The Beats were declared "dead" in 1961. Lenny Bruce was dead at age 40 in 1966.

Fifteen years later Bob Dylan included a tribute song to Lenny Bruce in the third of his Gospel trilogy of albums, Shot of Love. I find it interesting that Dylan has thus far performed this song 103 times in concert, the most recent being September 2008. Is it a lament for a friend, or something more?

Lenny Bruce

Lenny Bruce is dead but his ghost lives on and on
Never did get any Golden Globe award, never made it to Synanon
He was an outlaw, that’s for sure
More of an outlaw than you ever were
Lenny Bruce is gone but his spirit’s livin’ on and on

Maybe he had some problems, maybe some things that he couldn’t work out
But he sure was funny and he sure told the truth and he knew what he was talkin’ about
Never robbed any churches nor cut off any babies’ heads
He just took the folks in high places and he shined a light in their beds
He’s on some other shore, he didn’t wanna live anymore

Lenny Bruce is dead but he didn’t commit any crime
He just had the insight to rip off the lid before its time
I rode with him in a taxi once
Only for a mile and a half, seemed like it took a couple of months
Lenny Bruce moved on and like the ones that killed him, gone

They said that he was sick ’cause he didn’t play by the rules
He just showed the wise men of his day to be nothing more than fools
They stamped him and they labeled him like they do with pants and shirts
He fought a war on a battlefield where every victory hurts
Lenny Bruce was bad, he was the brother that you never had

Copyright © 1981 by Special Rider Music

* The Trial of Lenny Bruce

Dylan portrait by Ed Newman (top right) will be on display in May at The Red Mug in Superior, Wisc. as part of a show featuring art based on or inspired by Bob Dylan.

Spotlight on Minnesota Singer/Songwriter Arne Fogel

Robert Behrens of JazzMN wrote that Arne Fogel is "arguably the best male vocalist in the region and most certainly is one of the best-informed jazz vocalists in the nation. Over several decades, Arne has earned his place as a professional singer, a sensitive mentor and a respected historian….”

May 17 Fogel will join a host of other talents for A Salute to the Music of Bob Dylan for the kickoff event of this year's North Country Dylan Celebration. It will be a night to remember.

EN: What has been your career path from teen to professional jazz vocalist and historian?

Arne Fogel: It’s been a long and winding path. My interest in the history of the things that I'm into goes all the way back to my childhood. As soon as I would become a fan of this or that childhood interest (cartoons, three stooges, etc. for instance), I would do my best to learn the history of that subject. And, I've been interested in performing all of my life. So, it was always a double-edged process: learn about the background of that with which I'm interested in, and then learn how to do it myself. All of the other things in my career, such as radio, teaching, being in the advertising business as a writer-producer, jingle-singer, etc., are or were parts of whatever I needed to do to sustain my interests. I started in RnR bands, graduated to studio work, got into teaching in college, and eventually got into radio as a presenter of the music I love - another form of "teaching", you might say.

EN: When did you first realize music was your passion?

AF: When I was about 13 years old. I always enjoyed music, heard a lot of it around my house when I was growing up (although no one in my family was a musician or performer.) But it really became my greatest interest in my early teens.

EN: What is it that sets Arne Fogel apart from other jazz singers?

AF: Oh, I don't know... I'm not sure that I am a "jazz singer" anyway... I sometimes have trouble with that term. I know too many people who don't have even a rudimentary knowledge of how to handle a jazz beat, but think they can learn a couple of Tin Pan Alley standards and call themselves "Jazz Singers." I think I am a guy who sings classic standard pop music from America's early mid-century, and I sing it in a more-or-less authentic way, which means there is an underpinning of jazz in my approach. But does that make me a "Jazz singer"? I don't know. What makes me different? Well, in the Twin Cities area, just the fact that I am male makes a big difference. This is a field almost completely dominated by women. Also, I suppose the fact that when I am singing this music, I try to keep it as true to form as possible, which means there are little or no R&B or R&R devices apparent in my style. Almost everybody else does those things, but I don't. So I guess that makes me different too.

EN: Are you also a songwriter? What do you like most, creating or performing?

AF: Yes, I'm also a songwriter. I used to write tons of songs in my R&R days, then after that, used that ability to write & produce advertising music, both free-lance and with ad agencies. I learned from the best: Barry Thomas Goldberg & Gary Paulak were band-mates of mine in The Batch, and they were the principal writers of that band and geniuses. I emulated them as well as I could. I also learned a lot from a brilliant guy named Dale Menten, writer and producer. My friends and my teachers. I love both writing and performing! I stopped writing for many years, but started again recently through my work with NYC vocalist Nancy Harms. We've written several tunes together, which she records and performs.

EN: How did you get connected to A Salute to the Music of Bob Dylan?

AF: Through my friendship with frequent contributor to the concerts, Barry Thomas Goldberg. It was while visiting him backstage at one of the concerts that a few of the folks there, whom I also know, suggested I participate. Mainly it was Steve Grossman who really convinced me that I wouldn't be out of place and that it would be great fun. Thanks Steve! Thanks, Barry!

EN: When did you first take an interest in Dylan’s music?

AF: Oh, geez, I guess when he first became popular, around "Like A Rolling Stone" time -- summer of '65. I was aware of him beforehand, and always took note of his earlier Columbia albums, but I wasn't really a folk music fan and didn't go back to them until I had come to enjoy his "electric" period in the mid-60s. After that, I went back and discovered the beauty of his earlier work.

EN: Do you have a favorite album or handful of songs?

AF: I love everything from his earliest recordings up through the 70s, and into the 80s. I can enjoy his later work too, but I'm not quite as crazy about him after the 80s. My favorites are things like Highway 61, Blonde on Blonde, Bringing It All Back Home, John Wesley Harding, and I love his stuff with the Band: Planet Waves is a big favorite of mine. I love Blood On The Tracks and Desire, of course.


EdNote: This blog entry and others like it have the aim of raising awareness for the upcoming Salute to the Music of Bob Dylan concert which will kick off the 2014 North Country Dylan Celebration in Duluth and Hibbing. Sacred Heart Music Center, May 17, 2014. For tickets to this great event visit dulutharmory.org/events.

If you wish to help, visit the Salute Facebook page and share with your friends by clicking the Invite button. 

A Salute to the Music of Bob Dylan is a presentation of the Armory Arts and Music Center and Magic Marc Productions.

PHOTO CREDITS: Top to Bottom
1.Travis Anderson   2. Ann Marsden   3.Andrea Canter   4.Travis Anderson   5.Andrea Canter

Spotlight on Multi-Media Expressionist Kathy McTavish

The haunted, dynamic quality of Kathy McTavish's cello has become fairly well-known here in the Northland. But in recent years she is an emerging artist extending the bounds of installation and collaboration. Her most recent project “the ørigin of birds” created immense excitement amongst those who gathered recently at the Prøve Gallery’s opening. What is probably less well known is how articulate she is, as you will see in this interview. Her multi-media interactive collaborations open new horizons for the imagination, and those who choose to engage are rewarded.


EN: What did you learn from this most current project, the ørigin of birds?

Kathy McTavish: I learned many things. I think one of the surprises was how engaged the writers became with the collaborative writing-to-projection aspect of the installation. There were several points of entry for writing volunteers. I thought of these as the voices of three main "characters." I was moved by the layered, poetic threads that emerged from that part of the project. I will store these the next time so that I can play the co-written, improv work back. On Friday I loved playing live with Richie Townsend. That element kept me in the moment. The joy of live improv kept me from stressing about the digital pieces of the puzzle. In the end I felt lucky that everything went smoothly and that people were so warm, kind and open to the experiment of it all. I love that about our arts community here in the Northland.

EN: How would compare and contrast installation vs. wall art?

KM: I think that everything is an installation. People that specifically call themselves installation artists perhaps have more of a relationship to particular place. They use space as one of the materials in their work. What felt different about my work on origin of birds was my relationship to time. There were many circles inside of circles that emerged while working on the project. A previously-developed store of data, text, image and sound was woven live into the multiple projections in the room and into an infinitely running online version. But also there were some elements that are ephemeral like a twitter stream, text written live to a writers' interface and live, improv sound that were tossed into the mix. These intersecting elements felt like a collage, a mobile, an evolving story.

The backbone for the project is a codebase that I have been working on for a while called the "graffiti angel." I am using that toolset to create a live, immersive score for the Zeitgeist New Music Quartet. That work is performed May 16-18 at Studio Z in Lowertown. On the 17th we will be offering both the new work called høle in the skY and origin of birds as a "double feature" of sorts. On June 14th Joellyn Rock, Rob Wittig, Cathy Podeszwa, myself and other collaborators from Duluth head down to participate in Northern Spark. We will be installing a work called Sophronia Two at the Walker as part of that event. Again, the graffiti angel will be creating live film. You can learn more about these projects on my website: kathymctavish.com

EN: I was fascinated with your Phantom Galleries Superior presentation in 2011 because of the multimedia experience and how you wove so many mediums into that space. How did that project come to be?

KM: I loved the idea of the Phantom Galleries and I respect anything that Erika Mock is involved in creating. I was drawn to the space between the old Androy Hotel and the Main Club and I wanted to interact with that vacant storefront. I had started expanding my sound work to include light and images / moving pictures and I brought this fusion work to that project. Many of the images used in the still-motion films were from the area around Tower Avenue. I collaborated with the poet Sheila Packa to embed words in the final installation. It was challenging for me to work without being able to use sound directly. Because the space is locked the viewer is left to gaze in through the window and the only sound becomes the streetscape ambient sounds. I wrote music for all of the films and included this in the online companion site for the exhibit.

EN: You also write in an evocative manner that captures imagery in a lot of dynamic ways. Have you always been a writer? What prompted you to produce your book Birdland?

KM: I'm not really a writer. Thank you for your kind words about that book. I wanted to improve my ability to talk about what I do. I also wanted to explore in words -- the dream story that lived for me while I created the “birdland” exhibit. I found that writing helped me bring to life the ghosts that were present for me while I worked. I feel that an artist needs to risk something and for me, this was a vulnerable process. I felt very emotional trying to wander the strange world of words -- quite adrift.

EN: Who have been your most significant influences as an artist?

KM: I love Patti Smith, abstract expressionist artists, beat poets. I love collaborating with Sheila Packa. I learned so much from working with Richie Townsend in the cosmic pit orchestra. I am inspired by local artists, writers and musicians. We are very lucky to live in this area. We have an openness to new ideas, experimentation and cross-media collaborations.

EN: What is it that first drew you to the cello as a vehicle for communicating the deep things stirring inside you?

KM: I first heard the cello the summer after third grade. The public schools in Minnesota used to have more arts programming. At my school in St. Paul, kids were shown different instruments and given an opportunity to learn to play in the school band or orchestra. I heard the cello and completely fell in love with its sound.

Despite the frustrations associated with learning the physical aspects of playing and the new language of wordless sound, I kept at it. I practiced for hours. The cello became an escape from a school world that I felt outside of. It was like a boat. I was taught Western classical music. It was the only path. I excelled for a time and then I felt a longing to be more engaged in the creative process in some way other than being an interpretive player. At the time I didn't know of how to do that. I studied music theory / composition but couldn't find my way. I pursued other things for a time and then I came back to the cello.

I started to explore the cello's sounds more broadly. Thanks to the generosity of local musicians, I started to explore improvisation. Free improvisation was a door that opened up a creative voice for me. It changed my relationship to my instrument.


EdNote: Most of this interview originally appeared in The Reader. 

Thoughts for the Day: Easter 2014

"Sometimes when I consider what tremendous consequences come from little things... 

 I am tempted to think there are no little things." ~ Barton Sutter

"Strong conviction of one's calling has always seemed to me 

 to be the most important element in a successful career."

~ Paul Tournier

"Many lives remain unfulfilled because of a lack of courage 

in affirming one's inner conviction in spite of all obstacles." ~ ibid.

"I will study and get ready and the opportunity will come."

~ A. Lincoln

"Self-confidence is the first requisite to great undertakings."

~ Samuel Johnson

________________________________________

"Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?'

"The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, 

whatever you did for one of the least of these my brothers 

you did for me.'" ~ Matt. 25:37-38

________________________________________ 

I was regretting the past

and fearing the future.

Suddenly, my Lord was speaking.

"My name is I Am"

He paused. I waited. He continued.

"When you live in the past,

with its mistakes and regrets,

it is hard. I am not there.

My name is not 'I was'.

When you live in the future,

with its problems and fears,

it is hard. I am not there.

My name is not 'I will be'.

When you live in this moment

it is not hard. I am here.

My name is 'I AM'.

~ Helen Mallicoat

________________________________________

"Let your eye be single and your whole body

will be filled with light." ~Matt. 6:22  

________________________________________

"Our plans miscarry because they have no aim.

When a man does not know what harbor he is making for,

no wind is the right wind." ~Seneca

________________________________________

"When you cease to make a contribution, you begin to die."

~Eleanor Roosevelt

________________________________________

I live my life in growing orbits,

which move out over the things of this world.

Perhaps I can never achieve the last,

but that will be my attempt.

I am circling around God,

around the ancient tower,

and I have been circling for a thousand years.

And I still do not know

if I am a Falcon,

or a storm,

or a great song.

~ R. M. Rilke

32 Years Ago Today: Remembering Larry Kegan

"There's always one more Sunday, and there's always more to give."~Larry Kegan

As we prepare for the May 17th Salute to the Music of Bob Dylan I’ve been sifting through a variety of interesting sources in search of items to highlight pertaining to the various musicians who will be performing here at Duluth’s Sacred Heart Music Center. In the process I discovered a very cool video of two stars of that show, Scarlet Rivera and Gene Lafond, making music with Bob Dylan’s boyhood friend Larry Kegan 32 years ago today.

Larry, Bob and their summer camp buddies, 1957.*

Larry Kegan met young Robert Zimmerman at a Herzl Camp and the two became friends for life. A diving accident left Kegan a paraplegic when he was only 15 years old, and 10 years later he became a quadriplegic in a car accident. But everyone who crossed his path had the same thing to say about him, a rare individual who was an inspiration to all.

Gene Lafond was also a friend of Larry Kegan’s in high school. When Zimmerman, now Dylan, began touring in earnest in the 70’s, a road show that has continued in various forms to this day, he invited his old friend Larry to join him several times a year. For about 15 years Geno came along to assist, and gained an inside look at the Dylan road show as it transitioned from the Rolling Thunder Revue to the beginnings of his Never Ending Tour. Dylan’s friendship with Larry was such that he dedicated his album Street Legal (one of my favorites) to this boyhood pal who once shared Bob's dream of making music for a living.

Larry did become a performer. As Lafond said when I interviewed him last year, 'We used to sing together. Larry couldn’t scratch his nose but he’d go out and sing for people."

In 1981, during Bob Dylan's concert at the Holiday Star Music Theater in Merrillville, Ind., Dylan called up wheelchair-bound Larry Kegan for the encore and let him perform Chuck Berry's 'No Money Down' while Dylan played the tenor saxophone. A snapshot of this moment in time has been shared on audio here.

32 years ago today Larry, Scarlet and Geno performed at the West Bank hotspot Cafe Extempore, a period of time captured in Cyn Collins's West Bank Boogie. The YouTube video embedded below captures their rehearsal for this event. If you don't have time for the entire segment, Larry's rendition of More to Give qualifies as a "must listen."

Larry and Bob

Everyone who knew Larry Kegan was inspired by him. His last day on earth happened to be a major changepoint in history as he died on 9-11-2001, the day the Twin Towers fell. Dylan's Love & Theft was released that day and I can imagine Larry looking forward to listening to his lifetime friend's new recording. Instead, he became immersed in making phone calls from his home in Minnesota trying to affirm that all his friends were O.K. According to StreamingGoldies, he he died of a heart attack just hours later. At Larry's funeral service, the rabbi suggested that "God called Larry to heaven to help disabled victims make their transition to eternity. He couldn’t have picked a better man for the job."

In Memoriam of The CHAMPION OF ALL CAUSES...LARRY KEGAN (April 16th, 1942 - September 11th, 2001)

Larry Kegan (Vocals) with Gene LaFond (Vocals and Guitar) and Scarlet Rivera (Violin)

Coffeehouse Extempore / Minneapolis, Minnesota / April 19th, 1982

1. Forty Years (Gene LaFond)
2. More To Give (Larry Kegan)
3. More To Give (Larry Kegan)
4. All My Rowdy Friends (Have Settled Down) (Hank Williams, Jr. 1981)
5. Ain't Got The Blues (Larry Kegan / Gene LaFond)
6. Ain't Got The Blues (Larry Kegan / Gene LaFond)
7. I Shall Be Released (Bob Dylan 1967)
8. Violin Lady (Gene LaFond)
9. Ain't Got The Blues (Larry Kegan / Gene LaFond)
10. More Than A Memory (Gene LaFond)
11. Violin Lady (Gene LaFond)
12. North Country Blues (Bob Dylan 1964)




Photo Top Left: This photo appeared on the back cover of the booklet that accompanied Dylan's Tell Tale Signs (Columbia). American Jewish World (AJW) was asked for details about the picture. Jerry Waldman, former executive director of Jewish Family and Children’s Service, identified five teenagers pictured at Herzl Camp in the summer of 1957, including himself. Shown above are (l to r): Larry Kegan (fourth from left, dark jacket and white shirt), Waldman (singing), Bobby Zimmerman (Dylan), Louie Kemp and David Unowsky. Joe Marver, a St. Paul native now living in Carmel, Calif., called to say that he thinks Leon (Aryeh) Spotts, a Herzl counselor, took the photo. He also identified the boy, second from left, as Paul Black. Larry Kegan passed away in 2001. — M.S.

EdNote: This blog entry and others like it have the aim of raising awareness for the upcoming Salute to the Music of Bob Dylan concert which will kick off the 2014 North Country Dylan Celebration in Duluth and Hibbing. For tickets to this great event visit dulutharmory.org/events.

Courtney Yasmineh Returns for A Salute to the Music of Bob Dylan (Interview)

When Courtney Yasmineh joined Scarlet Rivera and Gene Lafond last year at Weber Hall, there was a certain amount of risk as she was accustomed to performing with her own band and not Gene's backup band The Wild Unknown. On top of that, an hour before showtime Courtney and Scarlet were shaken up in a car accident on the way to getting ready for the concert. Despite the distractions, both performers never let on -- they were cool like ice, like fire -- and a stellar concert ensued.

Once on the stage Yamineh holds nothing back. You can feel the energy she projects, even from the farthest corners of the hall. It's exciting to have her here again for the upcoming kickoff event of our North Country Dylan Days Celebration which is now just a month away.

EN: You recently had to perform at SXSW. How’d it go?

Courtney Yasmineh: SXSW was such a growth experience for me and for my band. We were so pleased to be invited, first of all, for the first time in my career. We played two prime time evening shows on the main street of Austin where most of the action is for up and coming artists. We were part of the Red Gorilla Fest which is a subdivision of the scene down there that really caters to new artists. We played on rooftop stages at two different venues to enthusiastic crowds.

I felt like I really got to see how the American SXSW audience, who are mostly young people from around the country who love new music, responded to my songs and my band's presentation. I knew going in that this could be discouraging for me if it didn't go well, but honestly, I was not prepared for how well we were received! I feel so inspired and full of conviction as a result of our efforts there, and that is a great gift!

EN: Last year you told me of a book you wanted to write. How’s that going?

CY: I have written about 200 pages of the story of my adolescent experience. I ran away from Chicago to Northern Minnesota when I was seventeen mostly because my parents were getting divorced and I was extremely disillusioned with everything about my young life there. I went to live on Lake Vermilion in a cabin my Grandfather had left to our family when he died. And that winter I learned as many Bob Dylan songs as I could, and began performing with my guitar. I had already started writing songs, but that winter provided much new inspiration and I wrote many songs about my experience.

EN: What is it that so attracts you to Dylan’s music?

CY: The joy for me in singing songs that Bob Dylan has written is that he is my greatest hero and his body of work and his career are such an inspiration to me.

EN: What are your favorite Dylan songs that you like to sing?

CY: I like to sing Dylan's song "Sara"... I like when he says lines like "staying up for days in the Chelsea Hotel writing 'Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands' for you." Staying up for days!!!! Love that!!!

I also like "Times They Are A-Changin'" because it's so brilliant and I think it takes a lot to deliver it with the right tone… not too strident… not too sentimental… and especially coming from a female, those words have a lot of power and can be off-putting.

My favorite might be "Tom Thumb's Blues." A better folk rock opening line has never been written than..."When you're lost in the rain in Juarez and it's Easter time too..." When delivered right, that line can make you feel like a real bad ass on the microphone!

EN: What have you learned about yourself through your experiences performing?

CY: I've learned a lot about myself over the last few years of performing for people in other cities, other countries, and at home in Minnesota. I've learned that I am a people pleaser and I want to see people's eyes light up. I've learned that I do not have to be loud to be heard. I've learned that my most helpful attribute in performance is how much I care about the meaning of the words. I've learned that I have to really feel good about the level of quality of what I'm offering in order for me to relax and put on a fun show.

EN: What kind of thoughts are you thinking when you look at an audience at the beginning of a concert?

CY: At the beginning of a concert, I am usually already playing the first song, watching people, feeling their level of acceptance of my band, feeling how the band likes the situation… the sound quality, the circumstances of how we've been treated so far....and if all's well, about half way into the first song, I start thinking...'okay, we've got this' and then I relax and start having the time of my life.

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EdNote: This blog entry and others like it have the aim of raising awareness for the upcoming Salute to the Music of Bob Dylan concert which will kick off the 2014 North Country Dylan Celebration in Duluth and Hibbing. For tickets to this great event visit dulutharmory.org/events.

If you wish to help, visit the Salute Facebook page and share with your friends by clicking the Invite button. 

This weekend it's Easter time, and whether you're lost in the rain in Juarez, or wherever you are, remember... Meantime, life goes on all around you. Embrace it.