Diverse Radio for Minnesota’s Communities
17 Unique Stations from Border to Border
17 Unique Stations from Border to Border
Johnny Burgin has earned his name as The Worldwide West Side Guitar Man by performing up to 250 shows a year in Europe, Japan and coast to coast in the US. Johnny started his career in the rough and tumble neighborhood blues joints on Chicago’s West Side with Howlin’ Wolf disciple Tail Dragger, and today is well known by all in the blues community as a modern day corner stone of the blues genre of music.
On September 29 of 2018 the Blues world lost one of it’s Iconic artists of the West-side Chicago Blues sound Otis Rush. Although he had not performed or recorded since 2003 due to a stroke that robbed him of his ability to perform, he was always considered a cornerstone of the blues development in Chicago for his almost 50 year career in performance and recording.
What makes for a vibrant music scene? In today’s Untold Story of Central Minnesota, Arts & Cultural Heritage Producer Jeff Carmack talks with a couple of folk who’ve got a pretty good idea. Dawn Yilek and Zachary Dorholt are both part of the organizing force behind the 2019 Common Roots Festival in downtown St. Cloud, and they are here to let us know where the festival came from, what is in store for this weekend, and how we can expect the future of live music in St. Cloud to continue to develop.
In today’s Untold Story of Central Minnesota, Arts & Cultural Heritage Producer Jeff Carmack sits down with St. Cloud Mayor Dave Kleis to talk about racism, xenophobia, and the perception of the city of St. Cloud on the national stage. In light of somewhat recent negative attention generated by an article in the New York Times, there is a discussion to be had about what actually goes on here in the Granite City, as it is very different from what a small, fearful group of people would have us believe. In fact, an opposing force works against racism and xenophobia. It’s called community, and as Mayor Kleis will tell us, it starts in our back yards but can grow to affect the nation.
During the summer of 1967, Plymouth Avenue in North Minneapolis went up in flames. This was during a period known as the Long, Hot Summer when frustrations about racial discrimination and a lack of opportunity for black Americans erupted on city streets across the U.S.
In Minneapolis, those tensions came to a head on Plymouth Avenue. This was the commercial heart of a racially and ethnically mixed Near North neighborhood that was home to the city’s largest concentration of African-American residents as well as many Jewish-owned businesses. For some black Minnesotans, Plymouth Avenue was a brick and mortar reminder of racial inequality that could no longer be silently tolerated.
There are people who remember July 19-21, 1967 as the Plymouth Avenue riots, while others describe these events as a revolution, uprising or rebellion.
In today’s installment of the Untold Stories of Central Minnesota, Arts & Cultural Heritage Producer Jeff Carmack visits and then revisits the Richard C. Wilson St. Cloud Community Outpost, otherwise known as the COP House, on the Southside of St. Cloud. Back in 2017, city officials and community partners held a dedication and open house for the COP House where numerous speeches promised that this innovative program would make a difference is this difficult neighborhood. Two years later, St. Cloud Mayor Dave Kleis and Officer Dan McClure discuss how those promises appear to have been kept as the city has just been awarded the Justice Anthony L. Sutin Civic Imagination Award by the U.S. Justice Department.
In today’s installment of the Untold Stories of Central Minnesota, Arts & Cultural Heritage Producer Jeff Carmack hangs out with St. Cloud State University Archivist Tom Steman.
In their eighth conversation over the years, they talk about SCSU’s Sesquicentennial, Tom’s experience writing questions for KVSC Trivia, exciting news from the Minnesota Historical Society, a re-invigoration of collecting Oral Histories from SCSU grads and faculty, and much more!
