John Koerner

Koerner was born on August 31, 1938, in Rochester, New York, to Marion and Allan Koerner. His father was a Methodist minister, as had been his grandfather and great-grandfather. The family also lived briefly in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, during World War II. In 1956, he began attending the University of Minnesota, majoring in aeronautical engineering. He started playing guitar in his second year and left college to tour the United States. He lived in Los Angeles and later enlisted in the Marines. He went through boot camp in San Diego and went into training for the infantry, but changed his mind and was able to leave the military after getting into a serious car crash. While in California, he discovered folk-music clubs for the first time. ==Music career==

Koerner returned to Minnesota and became involved in the Minneapolis music scene, where he met Dave Ray and Tony Glover. They formed a loose-knit trio, releasing albums under the name Koerner, Ray & Glover. In a 1964 interview in Melody Maker, John Lennon called the record one of his personal favorites. In 2016, David Bowie told Vanity Fair that the album introduced him to the sound of a 12-string guitar, and praised it for "demolishing the puny vocalizations of 'folk' trios like the Kingston Trio and Peter, Paul and Whatsit, Koerner and company showed how it should be done." Koerner was the first musician that Dylan met in Minneapolis, at the Ten O'Clock Scholar coffeehouse. Dylan wrote in Chronicles that "Koerner was tall and thin with a look of perpetual amusement on his face. We hit it off right away." Koerner was a few years more experienced as a musician, and took Dylan under his wing to teach him folk and blues songs. "When he spoke he was soft-spoken, but when he sang he became a field holler shouter. Koerner was an exciting singer, and we began playing a lot together", Dylan wrote. They performed often as a duo, but each also played frequently on his own. Around this time, Koerner also met Tennessee bluesman Big Joe Williams, whose modified nine-string guitar inspired Koerner to try similar modifications to his own instrument, including adding a seventh string so that he had two "G" strings an octave apart. (One song, "I Ain't Blue", was later covered by Bonnie Raitt on her debut album.) The duo split up in the early 1970s. Koerner pursued an unsuccessful career in filmmaking, retiring from music and moving to Copenhagen, Denmark, where he made the black-and-white film The Secret of Sleep. After more than a decade, he released a new album, ''Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Been, on Red House Records in 1986. In 1990, Red House released a live album recorded at the World Theater in St. Paul, Legends of Folk'', featuring Koerner with Ramblin' Jack Elliott and U. Utah Phillips, which Richard Meyer of Allmusic called an "excellent concert recording." and with Glover on the concert album Live @ The 400 Bar in 2009. A retrospective album capturing a solo live performance and radio interview recorded on the same day as a studio session for Blues, Rags and Hollers, March 1963, was released in 2010. The album was released by Mark Trehus, owner of the Minneapolis record store Treehouse Records and a longtime fan of Koerner, on his label Nero's Neptune Records, along with a re-release of Music Is Just a Bunch of Notes which included a video of Koerner's experimental film The Secret of Sleep. Koerner performed at the Newport Folk Festival in Rhode Island in 2012. He played "retirement" shows at the Cedar Cultural Center in 2017 and 2019. When he officially retired in 2023, Koerner donated one of his guitars, a 12-string Epiphone, to Palmer's, where it was placed on display in a glass case. Koerner also gave his 12-string Gretsch guitar to his friend Charlie Parr, a fellow blues musician, requesting that Parr continue using it on stage. In a profile on Koerner for the magazine Record Collector in 2013, the musician discussed his relative lack of fame compared to musicians like Dylan and Raitt who came after him: "I think you have to really want that kind of success and adulation. And I'm just not like that. ... It's just not in my character to go chasing after fame." ==Legacy==

In 2013, music writer Elijah Wald said that "Koerner was in some ways the most exciting artist in the folk-blues revival. He was the only young white artist who shaped a unique, personal style rather than trying to sound like older black performers. He made up his own songs, developed not only his own guitar style but a seven-string guitar, and had an incredible sense of rhythm. I've talked with many of the other players of that period, and all thought of him as particularly innovative and talented." Music writer David Dicaire, in his book The Folk Music Revival, 1958–1970, called Koerner "a folk blues heavyweight" and said that "perhaps more than any other figure during the folk revival, he championed the bluesier side of traditional music." He also said that Koerner's time in Europe was important for the genre as a whole, writing that Koerner "made folk blues much more respectable by spreading it across many different countries." ==Personal life and death==

Koerner was married three times, to Jeannie Buranen, Lisbet Gerlach Madsen, and Laura Cavanaugh. Koerner died of bile duct cancer in Minneapolis on May 18, 2024. He was 85. ==Awards and recognition==

In 1983, the Minnesota Music Academy named Koerner, Ray and Glover "Best Folk Group", and in 1985, inducted them into the MMA Hall of Fame. Filmmaker Don McGlynn made a documentary about Koerner, Been Here... Done That, in 2005. Koerner, Ray & Glover were honored with a star on the outside mural of the Minneapolis nightclub First Avenue, recognizing performers that have played sold-out shows or have otherwise demonstrated a major contribution to the culture at the iconic venue. Receiving a star "might be the most prestigious public honor an artist can receive in Minneapolis," according to journalist Steve Marsh. ==In popular culture==

Science fiction writer Spider Robinson adopted his nickname out of admiration for Koerner and his music. ==Discography==

• with Koerner, Ray & Glover • Blues, Rags and Hollers (1963) • Good Old Koerner, Ray & Glover (1972) • One Foot in the Groove (1996) • with Ramblin' Jack Elliott and Utah Phillips • Legends of Folk (1990) • with Tony Glover • Live @ The 400 Bar (2009) • Solo • Spider Blues (1965) • ''Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Been'' (1986) • Raised by Humans (1992) • StarGeezer (1996) • March 1963 (2010) • ''What's Left of Spider John'' (2013) ==References==