Music

While attending graduate school at University of Minnesota (UMN) in Minneapolis, the main bar I hung out at is a music dive bar established in the 1890s called Palmer's. The folk legend, Spider John Koerner, patronizes the bar. Spider John was a contemporary of Bob Dylan's and, in the 1960s, both used to play folk music at a coffee shop called The 10 O'Clock Scholar in the college neighborhood of Dinkytown before Dylan dropped out of UMN and moved to New York City. In the 1960s, Spider John's trio Koerner, Ray, and Glover helped lead the folk revival with their 1963 album "Blues, Rags, and Hollers." The 12-string guitar featured on this album was the first 12-string guitar that David Bowie ever heard. Spider John is especially proud of "Running, Jumping, Standing Still" (1969), an album he recorded with the late Twin Cities music legend Willie Murphy. John Lennon was a huge fan of this Koerner/Murphy album.