{"id":2171663,"date":"2025-11-22T02:22:43","date_gmt":"2025-11-22T02:22:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2171663"},"modified":"2025-11-22T02:22:43","modified_gmt":"2025-11-22T02:22:43","slug":"event-commemorates-lead-bellys-1948-minneapolis-house-show","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/event-commemorates-lead-bellys-1948-minneapolis-house-show\/","title":{"rendered":"Event commemorates Lead Belly\u2019s 1948 Minneapolis house show"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Mikkel Bee wears out washboards.\u00a0<\/p>\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"alignright size-full is-resized\"><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Lead Belly at Stuyvesant Casino, New York, NY, circa 1946 <span class=\"image-credit\"><span class=\"credit-label-wrapper\">Credit:<\/span> William P. Gottlieb collection at the Library of Congress \/ Public Domain<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p>The corrugated brass on the instrument is soft, and Bee (whose real name is Mikkel Beckman) scrubs out beats and rhythms that blend a persistent passion for the vintage songs and compassion for the attendant musicians and listeners.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe fun of it for me is organizing cultural events, even if they are in a bar,\u201d Beckman told writer Jim Walsh in <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.minnpost.com\/uncategorized\/2023\/02\/chairman-of-the-washboard-mikkel-beckman-builds-community-around-music\/\">a fantastic MinnPost profile<\/a> a couple of years ago.\u00a0At the time he was sitting beside his dear friend and more famous fellow musician Charlie Parr, who bought him his first washboard for a couple bucks from the old Steeple People thrift store on Lyndale nearly 30 years ago.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-1    \">\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p>Dozens of washboards later, Beckman is the guiding force behind thriving acoustic music scenes (folk, country, blues) at the 331 Club in Minneapolis, the Dubliner Pub in St. Paul, and other locales around the metro area. And he was the ideal person to organize <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.thecedar.org\/events\/corpse-reviver-charlie-parr-pop-wagner-mikkel-bee-play-songs-of-lead-belly\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">an event this Friday night at the Cedar Cultural Center<\/a>, commemorating a house concert that Lead Belly played in Minneapolis exactly 78 years earlier, on November 21, 1948.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>One of the many fables about how Huddie Ledbetter came to be known as Lead Belly is that he was shot in the stomach during a jailhouse dispute. Myths naturally attached to the man\u2019s biography once he became an icon of folk-blues music, initially due to recordings made from the Louisiana State Penitentiary in 1933 by Alan and John Lomax on behalf of the Library of Congress.\u00a0<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading has-secondary-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-85f086b51311212827f3382c791df0ae\"><a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.minnpost.com\/artscape\/2025\/11\/defying-labels-alune-wade-shapes-his-own-genre\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><strong><em>Related: Defying labels, Alune Wade shapes his own genre<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/h3>\n<p>Lead Belly was a prolific and versatile songwriter, adept at everything from children\u2019s songs to murder ballads to incisive social commentary. He was a forceful, distinctive stylist on his trademark Stella 12-string guitar, pioneering the use of his thumb to play a \u201cwalking\u201d bass line. And he was a strong, gregarious Black man who became a mentor to the likes of Woody Guthrie and Cisco Houston and was heard on the radio and recorded for various labels during a time of racial segregation.<\/p>\n<p>That Lead Belly found himself in Minneapolis in 1948 was not a coincidence.\u00a0<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-2    \">\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<aside>\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<aside>\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p>\u201cThe body of folk music at that time was more centered around concerts at universities and union halls, attaching itself to some of the more progressive political movements and streams throughout the country,\u201d said Beckman, setting the scene. \u201cAnd Lead Belly comes to Minneapolis in 1948 on the heels of Hubert Humphrey going to the Democratic National Convention (in July of that year) as the Mayor of Minneapolis, and giving that great speech about, \u2018It is time for the Democratic Party to come out of the shadow of States Rights and into the sunshine of Civil Rights\u2019 \u2014 saying Civil Rights will be the main theme of the 20<sup>th<\/sup> Century and the Democratic Party needs to be a leader in pushing that forward.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-4-3 wp-has-aspect-ratio\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<div class=\"perfmatters-lazy-youtube\" data-src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/5ulcxgZpAjU\" data-id=\"5ulcxgZpAjU\" data-query=\"feature=oembed\" onclick=\"perfmattersLazyLoadYouTube(this);\">\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.ytimg.com\/vi\/5ulcxgZpAjU\/hqdefault.jpg\" alt=\"YouTube video\" width=\"480\" height=\"360\" data-pin-nopin=\"true\" nopin=\"nopin\"\/><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><noscript><\/p>\n<div class=\"jeg_video_container jeg_video_content\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Lake Superior\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/5ulcxgZpAjU?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p><\/noscript>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p>\u201cAnd Lead Belly, under the management of some folks from Cambridge (Massachusetts), was on a tour singing for unions as well as students and progressives (in college towns) \u2014 I think he had gone up to the Iron Range and played a union hall \u2014 and obviously ends up at this house in Minneapolis during the midst of this tour. He plays this great show, and somebody was recording it.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>For decades, the recording was greedily copied via reel-to-reel transfers among folk-blues enthusiasts before finally being properly released on the Document label at the turn of the century. Beckman, already inspired by Lead Belly\u2019s music, a lover of live performance and living in Uptown, near where the house concert was purported to have occurred, was ecstatic.<\/p>\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"alignright size-full\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"940\" height=\"680\" src=\"https:\/\/www.minnpost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/BeckmanParrDubliner940.png\" alt=\"Mikkel Beckman and Charlie Parr get ready to rock the acoustic blues at the Dubliner Pub in St. Paul.\" class=\"wp-image-2111187\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Mikkel Beckman and Charlie Parr get ready to rock the acoustic blues at the Dubliner Pub in St. Paul in 2023. <span class=\"image-credit\"><span class=\"credit-label-wrapper\">Credit:<\/span> MinnPost photo by Jim Walsh<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p>Two years ago, he and guitarist Adam Kiesling made a relatively snap decision to showcase the Lead Belly house concert material when playing an early show at the 331 Club on its anniversary date. Last year, the lineup for a November 21 Lead Belly fete expanded to include Charlie Parr and Pop Wagner at the Dubliner. Both shows went so well that Beckman, realizing that the anniversary would be on a Friday night in 2025, contacted the Cedar last spring to see if they were interested in hosting the show.\u00a0<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-3    \">\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p>The Cedar agreed. Despite the fact that it is a larger venue, sales were brisk and the show sold out weeks ago. And the lineup was further expanded to include Corpse Reviver, a trio comprised of Beckman, Kiesling and Jillian Rae on fiddle and vocals, originally formed to pay tribute to the wealth of songs on Harry Smith\u2019s epic Anthology of American Folk Music from 1952.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Lead Belly amassed more than 500 songs over his career, many of them originals, including classics like \u201cGoodnight Irene,\u201d \u201cMidnight Special,\u201d \u201cHouse of the Rising Sun,\u201d \u201cRock Island Line,\u201d and \u201cBlack Betty.\u201d The Minneapolis house concert contains over 20 distinct songs (there are some spoken intros and a couple are done twice) comprising nearly an hour.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>There is scathing social commentary addressing race and class discrimination, such as \u201cJim Crow,\u201d \u201cThe Gallis Pole\u201d and \u201cBourgeois Blues,\u201d topical fare such as a song lamenting the death of \u201cJean Harlow,\u201d even the ode to \u201cGovernor Pat Neff,\u201d that earned Lead Belly a pardon from prison. And there is a touching, closing rendition of \u201cGoodnight Irene,\u201d sung with a child.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The Minneapolis performance was one of Lead Belly\u2019s final recordings. A year later, in 1949, he was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig\u2019s disease while on tour in Europe and passed away soon after, narrowly missing out on the song royalties for \u201cGoodnight, Irene,\u201d which was a spectacular number-one hit for the Weavers in 1950.\u00a0<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-4    \">\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p>Beckman generally prefers spontaneity \u2014 he rarely rehearses and, despite his love of vintage music, has cautioned that \u201cyou can\u2019t let anything you are doing become a prison or a church.\u201d But with so many songs up for grabs, he asked for a list of preferred Lead Belly songs from each of the acts and happily reports that there was very little overlap (although he remained tight-lipped about the specific set list).<\/p>\n<p>As often happens at shows he curates, Beckman will stay on stage providing washboard percussion for each of the 30-35-minute sets from Pop Wagner, then Corpse Reviver, and then Charlie Parr, before everyone comes together for a rousing finale.<\/p>\n<p>Reached by phone, Pop Wagner was effusive and excited to again be participating in the anniversary gig. A stalwart of the local folk scene since he arrived in the Twin Cities in 1970, he remembers his parents having an old Lead Belly 78 and his father singing him Lead Belly\u2019s \u201cDown in the Valley\u201d as a bedtime lullaby.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Given his trademark cowboy hat, it is no surprise that Wagner has volunteered to play, \u201cWhen I Was A Cowboy,\u201d which is not on the house concert recording, and at least two songs from the Minneapolis show. One is \u201cGrey Goose,\u201d and the other is a song that Lead Belly composed on the spot that night, entitled \u201cLake Superior.\u201d Wagner said he will add a few of his own verses to the impromptu composition.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-5    \">\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p>\u201cGrey Goose\u201d is significant because of the way Lead Belly marked the \u201cLord, Lord, Lord,\u201d chorus with low bass notes from his Stella 12-string, renowned for its wide neck and thick strings. It turns out that a luthier and close friend of Wagner\u2019s gifted him an exact copy of that Stella several years ago before he died.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>And that won\u2019t be the only 12-string replica prominent in the proceedings.<\/p>\n<p>Lead Belly\u2019s yeoman work on the Stella is one of Beckman\u2019s favorite things about the house concert recording. \u201cIt sounds like a southern bar-room piano the way he is playing it, the booming low notes and the way his thumb is driving the bassline,\u201d he said. He is pleased that Wagner will be toting his gift from the luthier, and that Charlie Parr also is in possession of a prized instrument.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSpider John Koerner had three (12-string) guitars,\u201d said Beckman, referencing the late, legendary member of arguably the most accomplished folk group in Twin Cities history, Koerner, Ray and Glover. \u201cWhen John was no longer able to play, one of those ended up in Cambridge or Boston, one was at (the now defunct) Palmer\u2019s Bar and is now on the wall at the Hook &amp; Ladder, and Charlie (Parr) has the other one.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-6    \">\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading has-secondary-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-d319a6e9e868a5205b08fc0005552ca4\"><a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.minnpost.com\/mnopedia\/2025\/10\/the-replacements-the-best-band-to-never-make-it\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><strong><em>Related: The Replacements: \u2018The best band to never make it\u2019<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/h3>\n<p>As someone who presides over an acoustic music scene teeming with quality performances most nights of the week, Beckman isn\u2019t surprised that the Cedar show is sold out.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe singers and performers all have their fans. It will be a different night for people who follow these musicians because obviously this is all Lead Belly\u2019s songs and not the songs they might usually perform. I hope they appreciate this is something pretty unique.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe acoustic music scene here is a lot bigger than most cities in the U.S, and there is just a tremendous amount of talent,\u201d Beckman continued. \u201cTo have this happen, where we can put it together with the Cedar, which is an absolute gem for the international music scene \u2014 the world is at our doorway with the Cedar and now people are going to enter this too, a door to something else that is really exceptional.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<aside>\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p><h3 class=\"jp-relatedposts-headline\"><em>Related<\/em><\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><em> \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em> \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.minnpost.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mikkel Bee wears out washboards.\u00a0 Lead Belly at Stuyvesant Casino, New York, NY, circa 1946 Credit: William P. Gottlieb collection at the Library of Congress \/ Public Domain The corrugated brass on the instrument is soft, and Bee (whose real name is Mikkel Beckman) scrubs out beats and rhythms that blend a persistent passion for [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2171664,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25179],"tags":[316792],"class_list":["post-2171663","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music","tag-arts-culture"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Event-commemorates-Lead-Bellys-1948-Minneapolis-house-show.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2171663","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2171663"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2171663\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2171665,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2171663\/revisions\/2171665"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2171664"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2171663"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2171663"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2171663"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}