I was living over in Ireland for a brief time period in 2005, 2006… I started to get sort of culturally homesick for Northern Minnesota… right when I got back home from that trip … a woman, a folk singer, came to the Twin Cities and was talking about logging songs and there being connections between Irish music and logging songs… She even had songs that were collected in Bemidji. It was that missing piece that connected where I'm from to the music that I love. So that was the beginning. – Brian Miller
Brian Milller and Randy Gosa’s band, The Lost Forty, is all about melding arts with culture and history. Together, they’ve been on a mission to revivefolk songs long dormant and nearly forgotten.This week The Lost Forty is touring northern Minnesota with a presentation that involves photographs, history, stories, and, of course, music. Brian Miller joined the morning show Wednesday to discuss his work with The Lost Forty, how they go about arranging songs from generations ago, how their presentations of music combined with history creates community connections, and much more.
We love the music part of it as much as the history…I hoped when we started going to some of these towns… the local community would relate to the songs and the history because it was speaking to their own community…It was a relief and very enjoyable once we started going to small towns and we actually met people and they did relate to it. And somehow we've even met descendants...It's just really powerful and...really meaningful... -Brian Miller
Click the green bubble above for the whole interview!
You can catch The Lost Forty at the following venues this week!
4/28 Cook, MN, 4:30pm at the Cook Community Center
4/29 Virginia, MN, 7pm at the Virginia Area Historical Society Annual Meeting
4/30 Shevlin, MN, 7pm at the Clearwater Lutheran Church presented by the Clearwater Historical Society
5/1 Bigfork, MN, 2pm at the Edge Center for the Arts
