On the right note: Preserving Minnesota's musical legacy

Yahoo

29-05-2025

The Brief
The Diverse Emerging Music Organization is creating a digital repository of all recorded music with Minnesota roots.
So far, the nonprofit has digitized work from about 1,000 artists, but they need about 100,000 for their website.
Visitors will be able to search the Minnesota Music Archive by name, genre and era by the end of the year.
MINNEAPOLIS (FOX 9) - Our state is home to a vibrant music scene. Now there's a push to ensure every note created by Minnesota artists is preserved for posterity.
Music to our ears
In a small office in northeast Minneapolis, a group is taking on a big responsibility.
Their mission? To create a digital database of all released music with roots in our state.
"I fell into this and I love waking up every day and working on it," said Mitch Thompson, Executive Director of the Diverse Emerging Music Organization, or DEMO for short.
A different tune
DEMO is building the Minnesota Music Archive to collect, catalog and make the music of everyone from the Andrews Sisters to The Wallets accessible.
"We want to make sure that we are representing everybody that released music in Minnesota. From like all corners of the state and from all backgrounds and cultural heritage and so that's a heavy lift," said Thompson.
Several days a week, college students from the University of Minnesota, Hamline and St Catherine's digitize music from records, CDs and cassettes.
So far they've got about 1,000 artists in their database, but they will need about 100,000 for their website, where visitors will be able to search by name, genre, era and record label for music from the last 100 years.
"A lot of music that people put out are on formats like vinyl and cassette and 8-track and those kind of things, if they're not digitized and a lot of it isn't digitized, it will eventually cease to exist and we will no longer have a record that that music existed," said Thompson.
Falling through cracks
Thompson brings a unique perspective to this music preservation project.
He not only played the drums for the two-tone ska band Umbrella Bed in the 90s, his father was a drummer in a polka band named The Blue Banners in the 60s.
But both are in danger of being relegated to the dustbin of history.
"I understand the perspective as a musician and I understand relative obscurity. And as somebody who is likely to fall into that with my band, I appreciate the fact that my music will be in there with my dad," said Thompson.
Calling all artists
DEMO is asking artists to submit their work to be included in the archive.
Thompson says the project isn't aimed at superstars like Prince and Bob Dylan because their musical legacies are already secure.
"I'll tell you there's a lot great music that people have never probably heard that we're finding more and more. And we're trying to make sure that history has the opportunity to judge what was great music or not great music," said Thompson.
Music journalist and author Andrea Swensson donated part of her personal record collection to the archive.
"I thought what a great way to offload some of these things I've acquired and hoarded in my home, but also to support the sharing of this music that isn't really available anywhere," said Swensson.
She believes future generations deserve to be able to discover Minnesota music goes beyond just the "Minneapolis Sound".
"A lot of these local releases, especially if it's from 10, 20 years ago, 30 years ago, they're not online, they're not on Spotify. It's really important to me that somehow they're saved and able to be shared and heard and researched and found by people that didn't have this random line of work where people are sending things to them all the time," said Swensson.
Signature initiative
Thompson says the archive hopes to launch its website by the end of the year, with the promise to Minnesota artists past, present and future that their music will always matter.
"When I look at them and I tell them what I'm doing, they all look at me and go like, that's so cool. And my job is to turn cool into something real," said Thompson.
If you'd like more information about the Minnesota Music Archive, click here.