Mankato Music History

06/08/2022

05/24/2022

For us in Mankato, this time in May signals when there would be live music on a Saturday and Sunday in a rather large park named Sibley Park. Local organizers billed the event as the People's Fair, a music and crafts festival.

Even though this venue featured hometown bands, they booked bands from the Twin Cities, most well-known in Mankato. One of these bands was Shangoya, delivering high-energy funk, reggae, and other danceable music. As you'll see in this video, people danced.

The year is 1987.

11/28/2019

Our wish would have been to pass out to everyone Thanksgiving treats this year, but that would have been impossible. Instead, we are serving up some Lamont Cranston. The band has been a favorite in the Twin Cities and elsewhere in Minnesota since the 70s. But here the band plays their cover of Otis Rush's Homework, which always was a staple of The J Geils Band setlist for many years.

If parades, holiday football games, and family languishing time aren't your things, go this video a listen or two. The audio is incredible to hear. It's Mankato, after all. Where people party and dance in the sunlight.

11/22/2019

Here’s a great story by KEYC-TV about family, music making and how Mankato music brings people together of all ages and musical interests. A must-watch video segment!

Rod Scheitel and grandson Carter Quast formed the band Generation Gap when Carter decided to pick up a guitar.

10/09/2019

Wednesday. October 9, 2019. Today is Ron Arsenault's birthday. We believe that it is not cool, of course, to ask Ron how old he is. There's no better way to celebrate Ron's birthday than by sharing his performance of a classic song, one that we all should recognize. From a People's Fair, back in the early 1980s. Ron's birthday? Whistling required.

10/07/2019

Michael Johnson performing his version of “My Old Yellow Car.” Thom Schuyler wrote the song, who Michael mentions in the introduction. Several artists, including Dan Seals have recorded it. But Michael’s version is a gem, showcasing his marvelous singing talent and masterful guitar playing at a People’s Fair in Mankato's Sibley Park.

If you ever held a low-paying job in Mankato and labored your way through college or life in general, you probably called your car “a beater.”

Looking back at your “beater” miles, you know what this lyric line is all about: "If engines could run on desires alone, my old yellow car would be driving me home.”

10/02/2019

Soulful and Bluesy Mouse: This cover of Sam Cooke's "Bring It On Home to Me" performed by City Mouse circa the 1980s acts as our unofficial theme song that we can play during official occasions. If you were born in Mankato or live here now or lived here back then, this sort of music by City Mouse weaves into our community's musical psyche. If you are at work and stealing a few Facebook minutes, gather a few coworkers around and share this song with the volume up. If there are not enough chairs to go around, run, and find a couple of ice coolers, and a couple of folks can sit on them. So 80s in the park.

09/30/2019

Videographer Tom Deike chats briefly here about his most remembered 1980s People's Fair band or artist: Michael Johnson.

We're are lucky to have two Michael Johnson songs from the 1980s People's Fair tapes. The first here is a cover of Raffi's "All I Really Need," inspired by the UN's 1979 International Year of the Child.

Michael Johnson (1944 to 2017)

09/30/2019

Gus Dewey and Michael Johnson at a People's Fair in Mankato. By the time a photographer took this photo, both had achieved national status. The Gestures, a teenage band in which Dewey was an original member, scored a 1964 hit with "Run, Run, Run." In 1978, Johnson made it to the Billboard Hot 100 with "Bluer than Blue."

How a famed musician like Johnson from Alamosa, Colorado ended up performing in Mankato's oldest city park remains a good question.

09/29/2019

We don't have an official mission statement yet, but Joe Van Amber nudges us toward that direction. Examining our musical history helps us learn the start, growth, and potential of this city's music scene. It helps us also get a deeper understanding of the city's history itself. But what shape does the scene take presently? Will it be a force tomorrow like it once was?

Since we have been sharing the 1980s People's Fair videos, the number of Post "Shares" has exceeded our expectations. The sheer number of comments have provided insight and good-old People's Fair nostalgia. Joe's quote comes from his comment to his share of Ron Arsenault performing "Old Black Crow in the Walnut Tree."

Living in Colorado, Joe is a tattoo artist.

09/25/2019

A cover song performed at a People’s Fair, which goes out to none other than Chuck Pasek and Bozo the Clown. The 80s in Mankato for you. “California Dreaming” performed by the East Side Pharaohs is a first-class listen. The people-watching in this video is in a class of its own. There are more People’s Fair dancers. There’s one fashionable black 80s dress with a matching black headscarf, accompanied by yet another shirt-less dude. A line of bikers makes an entrance in front of the bandstand, carrying ice coolers, the required People’s Fair items of necessity.

09/21/2019

Now we are going to start to explore the topic of Mankato Dancing, something that we will see a lot more of in the weeks ahead. Mankato Dancing is more no style and less perfection and schooled ballroom. A dancer risks losing the beat quickly that he or she found in the first steps of the dance. Unless a couple "really knows what they're doing," Mankato Dancing counts on attitude and throwing caution to the wind.

Bouts of dancing have raised the question of "what would your parents think if they saw you moving around like that?"

Everyone at Mankato Music History has danced and still dances. If you see any of us on a dance floor, let you alone be the judge of the quality of our moves.

If you're in a dancing mood, get your feet moving along with the music of the East Side Pharaohs, who will be on this post and the post that follows. Old-time Rock and Roll. Back to back.