Minnesota

Minnesota does not have an official state waltz but the state has not been ignored by songwriters. Perhaps the most common waltz celebrating Minnesota is an old-time fiddle tune, probably traditional with Norwegian roots, titled Minnesota Waltz. While it has escaped discussion on Clawhammer Mike's excellent Minnesota Fiddle Tune Project blog, it is captured on his CD, a kickstarter project.  You can listen to it here played by the Mike's own Temporary String Band.  Mike told this blog that he learned the tune from a home recording made by Phil Nusbaum in the seventies while Phil was researching Norwegian Minnesotan fiddlers.  The Minnesotan fiddler he recorded was Ed Selvaag (1909-2012). The photo in the video below comes from a video made by Dave Simkins when Ed Selvaag was 100 years old. Listen to Ed Selvaag himself play Minnesota Waltz:

If you want to learn the tune, you will find a simplified score, as arranged by Tim Wankel here.  Or you could watch the video below where Anabel Njoes teaches the tune at a Jumpstart Your Fiddle workshop in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota.

Marcus Eads has created a lap dulcimer version of the same Minnesota Waltz which you can listen to here (it is worth clicking this link just to see the barn picture).

About an hour and a half's drive south of Ed Selvagg's, near the town of Sunberg, Minnesota, lived Elmo Wick. Wick was born in 1924 into a musical family and got his first fiddle at the age of eleven.  At the age of sixteen he was a professional fiddler playing for local dances.  The demands of a growing family led him to give up the fiddle and make a living driving heavy equipment for the county road crew; but, in 1970, he picked the fiddle back up and learned to read music just so he could write down all those tunes he learned as a kid.  In addition to the tunes he remembered, he wrote a few new ones including Minnesota Valsen, the title honoring his Norwegian roots. The Minnesota State Fiddlers Association (MFSA) was the recipient of Wick's tunes and $12 will buy a copy of his tunes directly from MSFA. Mary Pat Kleven, President of the MFSA indicates that they have adopted Wicks' Minnesota Valsen as the unofficial state waltz of Minnesota. The MFSA has also provided a video of member Carla Manning playing Minnesota Valsen accompanied first by Gilmore Lee on guitar and then additionally by Jeanette Ruff on the viola.

Here's Minnesota Valsen played on a traditional Norwegian Hardanger Fiddle by Inna Larsen. The Hardanger fiddle not only has the four bowed strings of other violins but also has a set of four or five additional strings which run under the bowed strings. They are tuned to vibrate sympathetically with music produced by the bowed strings producing a fuller, richer more continuous sound than that from an ordinary violin. Ms. Larsen is a resident of Wisconsin, a member of Hardanger Fiddle Association of America and of the contra dance band, Dark of the Moon.

You can also find a video featuring more than twenty fiddlers playing Minnesota Valsen in the second half of this video. If you want to enjoy playing the tune, you can find a score on The Session under the title of Minnesota Mazurka.

There is a totally different ethnic vibe in the Minnesota Waltz composed and copyrighted in 1970 by Bob Ross (you can buy a piano arrangement here.) . It is often performed by Polka Hall of Fame member, Ray Dorschner, and his band, the Rainbow Valley Dutchmen. They recorded a CD to celebrate Dorschner's induction into the Polka Hall of Fame which you can purchase here.  You can hear the Minnesota Waltz from that CD below:

YouTube also has a live performance of Ross's Minnesota Waltz performed by Mike Cielecki who plays trumpet, flugelhorn, trombone, banjo, accordion, guitar, and keyboards for the Rainbow Valley Dutchman. He just plays the accordion here:

The Pittsburgh band, The Damaged Pies, has a completely different Minnesota waltz.  The Damaged Pies have been around since 1987 under the leadership of Steve Bodner.  They have released more than a dozen albums with one of their latest being The Stars on a Summer's Night which contains The Minnesota Waltz.  The album shows the amazing breadth of Bodner's interest ranging from the grunge rock sound of Dolly Byrd to the Dylanesque sound of Two Separate Doors to the gentle acoustic, tight harmony of The Minnesota Waltz (which Bodner wrote) - sounding ever so much like it came from the pen of Paul Simon.  Listen carefully to the lyrics and ask yourself, why is the tune called The Minnesota Waltz? Bodner explained in a note to this blog, "I wrote the song about a friend of mine who has since passed away. About 20 years ago her husband passed away. She said to me every morning she makes coffee, though she never drinks a cup. I asked her why and she said it made her feel like he was still around. I held that thought forever trying to find just the right lyrics, after many false starts I got something I liked. The chorus is 'Its been so long but not at all, memories remain throughout it all, from spring to fall from hello to their last waltz.' I chose waltz because I could just picture them dancing together while this song played. The Minnesota part is that she was from Minnesota."

A faithful reader of this blog may have noticed that the "country waltz" so typical of state waltzes has not yet appeared.  That is about to change.  Thanks to record collector and creator of the blog Some Local Loser, a recording of Minnesota Waltz from about 1970 on the Recar label by Slim Anderson (Derrald Rile Anderson, Sr.) has been preserved.  "Slim" both wrote and sings the waltz. Somelocalloser shared a copy with this blog (many thanks).

If you are a Contra dance musician you no doubt know the names Jay Unger, Jerry Holland and Bob McQuillen - they have written many wonderful waltzes that are staples at Contra dance functions. There is another name that now should be added to that list - Laura Zisette.  Ms. Zisette, a former music professor at Utah State University, is "Momma Possum" in the band Toss the Possum which features her son, Rob, on fiddle and, often, her daughter Jane or Bonnie Insull on flute and whistle.  Zisette and her son have written over 100 waltzes, some of them are featured on their new CD, Waltzing the Possum 'Round the Room. Fortunately for this blog, one of her best is titled Leaving Minnesota.  Zisette explained the title in a note to this blog, "...we lived in Minnesota on Lake Minnetonka for three and a half years. I played in four different bands there. We loved it! Loved the culture, loved the traditions. We had to move unexpectedly and so that was my goodbye waltz - a bittersweet offering of how much we loved it and how much we would miss it." Highly unusual for the state waltz genre, this hauntingly beautiful tune is in a minor key. You can listen below and find a score, generously provided by Ms. Zisette, at the end of this blog.

There is also a recording of Beautiful Minnesota Waltz composed by G.O. Potter and played on the Hammond organ by Mel Kious on the K&K record label, number 1016.  An audio file is not available but at the time of writing this blog, the record was available from Amazon.com.

There are two piano sheet music versions of Minnesota waltzes:

• A set of six 19th century waltzes composed for piano by Louis F. Gehrke titled Sounds of The Minnesota.  They were published in 1870 by Whittemore, Swan & Stephens, Detroit and are available here from the Digital Music Collection of the U.S. Library of Congress.


• Happy Minnesota Waltz by Paul Lawrence, composed in 1971 and published by Paul Lawrence, N.Y., N.Y.  At the time of writing this blog a copy was available from ebay.

A search of Google Books and the Internet Archive uncovered copyrights for ten additional Minnesota waltzes which may be interesting but are not readily accessible.

• Minnesota Waltz, 1940 to Edwin Jay Bowrin
• Minnesota Waltz, 1907 to Blanche Chester
• Minnesota Prairie Fire Waltz, 1907 to ??
• Minnesota Waltz, 1951, words and music to Durward Lawrence Bailey
• The Minnesota Waltz, 1953, words and music by Olaf J. Haugland, arranged by Jean Walz
• Minnesota Waltz, 1953, words and music by Lee Bass
• The Minnesota Waltz, 1964, words and music by Sigurd A. Severtson
• The Minnesota Waltz, 1964 by Paul Sevick
• Minnesota Waltz, 1954, words and music by Ronald Alexander Pia & Jack Bernhardt
• Beautiful Minnesota, a waltz, 1945 by Goral O. Potter

In addition, there is a Minnesota Waltz in an 1853 music instruction book titled The Ladies' Pets by Ch. Grobe.

And, finally, the score for Leaving Minnesota:

Return to the Introduction and Index of Other States.