Music of North Dakota

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The Music of North Dakota has followed general American trends over much of its history, beginning with ragtime and folk music, moving into big band and jazz. With the development of mass media, local artists in North Dakota, as in the rest of the country, saw a rapid loss of opportunity to create, perform, and sell popular music to the regional audience that had previously provided a market.

Though perhaps unexpected from an agricultural region, country music is not a major genre in the modern youth scene of North Dakota. However, a number of country artists who appeal to older audiences have emerged from the state.

Contents

[edit] Musical organizations

[edit] Popular music

Presently, North Dakota has a number of active punk rock, metal, and indie acts.

The most active music scenes for local artists in popular styles are in Fargo, Minot, and Grand Forks, while Bismarck, Dickinson, Williston, and Devils Lake are active to a lesser extent. Most shows are booked by independent promoters who find space for shows wherever available, though occasionally groups like the AMP have held permanent venues for musical acts.

[edit] Touring acts

Smaller musical groups passing through North Dakota often play at the independently-promoted shows in the state's larger cities alongside local acts.

Medium-sized groups may be headlined in events thrown by financially interested promoters, such as Playmaker's Pavillion in Fargo or the annual Rockin' The Hills event in Bottineau.

Large touring acts crossing North Dakota often use the state's larger event venues such as the Alerus Center (Grand Forks), Fargodome (Fargo), and Bismarck Civic Center (Bismarck), to draw large arena rock crowds. National acts in a variety of styles are also often booked for the North Dakota State Fair (Minot), though the fair does tend to have more country-western groups in keeping with the fair's rural focus.

[edit] Classical music

In addition to popular music, classical music and jazz are common across the state.

Many of North Dakota's universities have excellent music programs; the choir program at Jamestown College and the instrumental music programs at the University of Mary and Minot State University are particularly notable.

Concert orchestras operate in Bismarck, Fargo, Grand Forks, and Minot. Of these, the Fargo-Moorhead Symphony Orchestra is the largest, while the Greater Grand Forks Symphony is the oldest.

Many opera groups exist in the state. Two of the larger ones include the Fargo-Moorhead Opera Company and The Western Plains Opera Company of Minot, each of which stage two performances a year.

Choral music organizations include the Grand Forks Master Chorale, the Fargo Chamber Chorale, and the Nodakords, based in Minot.

International Music Camp, a summer camp providing intensive instruction in music and fine arts, is held each summer at the International Peace Garden.

[edit] Modern history

Since the late 20th century, North Dakota has seen a number of active musical scenes.

[edit] 1970s and 1980s

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, there was a small but thriving New Wave/power pop scene based in Fargo. Groups like "The Metro Allstars", "The Newz", "Patriot", and "Fat City" were the premier bands. These bands played extensively throughout the upper Midwest, benefitting from a shortlived surge in bars that booked rock and roll bands during the early 80s. For example, in Jamestown, North Dakota, there was one bar and a "teen canteen" that booked rock and roll bands in 1978, but by 1984, there were five such venues. This pattern was briefly replicated in many similar cities in the region. This led several regional bands to write original music and even record albums, some of which sold respectably by regional standards. The scene was also lucrative enough to allow many bands from the Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota area to play in North Dakota.

As the 1980s progressed and a farm crisis hurt the state's economy, this music scene shrank and a number of bars and clubs that had booked music ceased to do so. For example, the five Jamestown bars that had booked bands back in 1984 were all closed or no longer booking in 1989. By mid-decade, most of the leading bands had disbanded. "The Metro Allstars" had decamped to Minneapolis, Minnesota and become "The Metros" and "The Newz" followed suit and became known as "The Phones". As the thriving Twin Cities music scene of the mid-1980s dissipated so to did the Fargo music scene fade.

Many homegrown bands spawned in the wake of this brief renaissance. Some bands tried to emulate bands from bigger markets by mixing originals in among the hours of cover songs. Most earned a living playing the hits of the day instead of original music.

Heavy metal bands were also popular in the 1980s. Chuck Klosterman wrote a tongue-in-cheek book on his experiences in the rock scene in North Dakota in the book Fargo Rock City.

[edit] 1990s and 2000s

Today, punk rock dominates the youth scene in North Dakota, though it is by no means exclusive, with a number of death metal and Black Metal bands on the heavier end of the spectrum, to industrial and indie on the lighter side.

Many of the acts are transient, seeking opportunity in larger cities, or breaking up as the band members grow older and move their separate ways. Though some organizations attempt to provide opportunities to local musicians, most bands are not able to obtain sufficient backing to allow them to "quit their day jobs".

[edit] Modern musical acts in North Dakota

[edit] Notable North Dakota musicians

  • Lawrence Welk - Welk, born in rural Strasburg, became one of the most popular band leaders in American history. His long-running weekly television show brought his style of "Champagne Music" into millions of homes. His low-key on-air manner and faint rural German accent mixed with a shrewd sense of business and showmanship to create a franchise that lasted over thirty years.
  • Peggy Lee - Pop torch singer Lee was born Norma Delores Edstrom in Jamestown in 1920. She left North Dakota in her late teens, and joined the Benny Goodman band. For the next two decades, she was one of the United States' most popular pop singers.
  • Bobby Vee - Vee, born Robert Velline and a native of Enderlin, North Dakota, got his break when Buddy Holly was killed in the 1959 plane crash known in popular culture as "The Day the Music Died", enroute to a concert in Moorhead, Minnesota. The 16-year-old Velline and his band, "Bobby Vee and the Shadows" replaced Holly at the concert. Vee went on to over forty years of popular music stardom.
  • Lynn Anderson - Anderson, a Grand Forks native, went on to stardom in country/western music. Her biggest hit was 1971's "Rose Garden".
  • Jonny Lang - Jonny Lang was born in Fargo and became a nationally-acclaimed breakout blues guitarist and singer in 1997.

[edit] External links

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