Back in the high life

Back in the 60's there were all these garage bands, as we called them. You were either a baldy or a greaser. It was related to gangs I suppose, but by my time the Beatles had become popular and sort of legitimized the hair thing, so that it no longer represented the negative connotations of a previous generation. The whole English invasion had been incredible innovation and every block had a amateur group playing electric guitars and drums with a very distinctive sound. The house directly across the street from ours was a more recent construction and on a hill. The dad was a professional drummer and he taught his oldest son to play. I just remember hearing Shaking All Over, over and over again. They were playing somewhere, probably in a bar, but I just heard them practicing endlessly, the same songs. The vibrato on Shaking All Over is typical of the sound back then. Summertime Blues was another popular number, originally by Minnesotan Eddie Cochran, but lately redone by the Blue Cheer and the Who. Our local groups that were popular had names like the Del Counts, the Castaways, the Trashmen, Gregory Dee and the Avanties, etc. These early rock bands later developed into a purer sound in groups called Crow, Gypsy and Prince. Those are the groups or people most people think of when they think of Minneapolis, but I'm not sure where they all played. It wasn't part of my experience. I just heard them on the radio.
Now I know some of the names of places where they played, such as the Hole Coffeehouse (at Coffman Union), Caboose and the Joint, The Stadium, The Blue Ox, the Union Bar, the 400 Bar, the Viking Bar, the Bel Rae Ballroom, Norma Jean's, etc., but these awarenesses came much later. These are the places where you could probably hear Leo Koettke, Willie Murphy, Bonnie Raitt, Glover and Ray, in their primal manifestations, but I wasn't really aware of them until much later.
At the Coffeehouse Extempore in the 70's, Dale was playing bass with Dakota Dave Hull, an acoustic guitar who discovered Utah Phillips and John Prine. Steve Johnson was occasionally playing harp with Sean Blackburn who didn't really want a harp player to join him. Adam Granger was there, and looking like Santa Claus with a long beard and picking up a storm. This was my baptism into a different kind of music than I had been listening to on the top 40 radio programs or the underground stations. You'd hang out with these guys, but never feel like you totally understood where they got their vibes from. It was more based on blue grass, country and jazz influences. Ralph & Jerry's was a store located at 4th and 7th streets that had a house nearby that was crowded with musicians all playing at the same time. Picking parlour was the name for it. You could learn your chops in company with the community of aspiring folk. The Middlespunk Creek Boys were the most successful of that type of instruments, dobro, steel guitar, fiddle, upright bass, and acoustic guitar. Al Jaspers is a fixture on the Minnesota scene, and can be heard jamming at all the blue grass festivals. Dedicated is his nature. That's why he has endured so long in tune with the sound of the music.