AMPERS
Minnesota's Community Radio Stations
There was Gene Vincent. There was Chuck Berry. And there was Eddie Cochran. But Britt Aamodt reveals that only one of these '50s rockers made "Summertime Blues" and "Twenty Flight Rock" into hits—and hailed from Minnesota. [Read Transcript...]
Frances Densmore was a musician, but she spent her life recording North America's Native American musicians. Over three thousand of her recordings, made in the early part of the 20th century, now reside at the Smithsonian. [Read Transcript...]
Her name was Irene Paull but Woody Guthrie knew her as Calamity Jane. Named for the Old West frontierswoman, Duluth's Calamity Jane used a pen instead of a gun to defend the rights of Minnesota's lumbermen. And, as Britt Aamodt uncovers, she was also the subject of Guthrie's song "Calamity Jane." [Read Transcript...]
In the late 1950s, Barry Hansen was just another Minnesota kid attending Dinkytown's U High School. But he was a kid with a passion for records, which, Britt Aamodt tells us, transformed the collector into the Demento of the Dr. Demento Radio Show. [Read Transcript...]
