Minnesota
Minnesota music legend Spider John Koerner dies at 85
Spider John Koerner was a fixture in Minnesota music on so many levels.
He sat at the same corner stool nearly every day at Palmer’s Bar in Minneapolis, where they kept an electric mug warmer for his coffee and brandy. He played the same style of Gretsch 12-string acoustic guitar everywhere from the Newport Folk Festival to Minneapolis’ Triangle Bar. And he sang many of the same old-school folk and blues songs at every gig for more than six decades, from Leadbelly and Memphis Minnie tunes to some of his own wry and weary originals.
Koerner’s mainstay presence goes back to Minneapolis’ West Bank folk and blues scene of the early 1960s, when he mentored a young Bob Dylan and recorded albums that influenced John Lennon, David Bowie, Bonnie Raitt and Beck.
The lanky song man’s unchanged, unflappable, old-reliable presence in the Twin Cities music scene was finally upended this weekend, when the influential guitarist and singer of “blues, rags and hollers” died of cancer at age 85. He had begun receiving hospice care several weeks earlier.
Koerner died peacefully at 2:35 a.m. Saturday at his home in Minneapolis, according to his son, Chris Kalmbach, who was there at the home along with other family members.
“The music world lost a great artist, and we lost Grandpa John,” Kalbach said.
Originally from Rochester, N.Y., Koerner made his biggest mark via the acoustic trio Koerner, Ray and Glover, one of the first white acts to help bring authentic blues music to the fore.
Even before that trio took flight in 1963, though, Koerner made another big mark on modern music by schooling a failing University of Minnesota student from the Iron Range.
“When he spoke he was soft spoken, but when he sang he became a field holler shouter,” Dylan wrote of Koerner in his autobiography, “Chronicles, Vol. 1″ ― one of many accounts of the former Robert Zimmerman’s pivotal era learning songs from pickers in Minneapolis from 1960-1961 before heading to New York.
“Koerner was an exciting singer, and we began playing a lot together,” Dylan’s book continued. “I learned a lot of songs off Koerner by singing harmony with him and he had folk records of performers I’d never heard.”
Another future rock legend who learned from Twin Cities musicians, Raitt called Koerner “the old, venerable one” in the 1986 documentary film “Blues, Rags & Hollers — The Story of Koerner, Ray & Glover.”
“The guy that influenced a lot of other musicians that would come up,” Raitt said of him. “He became the fulcrum of the whole scene. I watched his hands. I learned a lot of things from him.”
Koerner came to Minnesota in 1956 to study aeronautical engineering at the U. He never fully gave up his engineer interests — stories abound of him tinkering on self-made items like telescopes and a boat — but he diverted into the Marine Corps and then focused on music as a career once Koerner, Ray & Glover started recording in 1963, first for a small folk label and then Elektra.
The same California label that bolstered the Doors and Paul Butterfield Blues Band (each also noted admirers of the Minnesota trio), Elektra issued “Blues, Rags & Hollers” in 1963 and the follow-up LP, “Lots More Blues, Rags & Hollers,” a year later.
They were the type of records that didn’t sell too well, but seemingly every musician who was anybody at the time owned them and devoured them.
Lennon cited that first record as a personal favorite in a 1964 Melody Maker profile. Bowie also praised it in a 2016 Vanity Fair story 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. First time I had heard a 12-string guitar.”
The group gained more stature through mid-’60s appearances at the Newport Folk Festival, where they performed alongside their old blues heroes like Muddy Waters and Son House — and they witnessed their old pal Dylan’s infamous “going electric” set in 1965.
“They gave hope to white college kids everywhere,” Rolling Stone magazine senior editor David Fricke said of the first album.
“If three white kids from the Midwest could make a record that sounds that black and deep and soulful, that really was inspirational. It became a foundation for so much of what came after it.”
Koerner himself seemed OK with the fact that he never got as famous as many of his admirers.
“I wouldn’t want the kind of success that Bob Dylan has, in terms of my personal life,” he told the Star Tribune in 2005. “He’s got people picking through his garbage, for Christ’s sake.”
KR&G splintered off into solo and duo acts in the late ’60s. Koerner’s 1969 record with late Twin Cities piano plunker Willie Murphy, “Running, Jumping, Standing Still,” was the most successful LP of their post-trio era. Raitt covered one of its songs, “I Ain’t Blue,” on her debut album.
But Koerner seemingly couldn’t stand still in those days. He spent a year making a charmingly hippie-dippie black-and-white movie, “The Secret of Sleep.” He then quit music altogether in 1972, moved to Copenhagen and married a Danish woman and focused on building telescopes and other inventions instead.
His recording and touring hiatus ended in the mid-1980s, when St. Paul-based folk label Red House Records released his first in a series of solo albums, coyly titled, “Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Been.” Red House later reissued some of Koerner, Ray & Glover’s Elektra recordings. At that point, his music career was cemented.
“Dave and Tony are true musicologists,” Koerner said in a 2002 interview shortly before Ray’s death. “I’m just a guy who got into this for fun, and because to this day I don’t know what else I could do to make a living.”
Koerner and harmonica-blower Glover (who died in 2019) performed off and on as a duo after Ray’s passing, including a weekly gig back on the Minneapolis West Bank at the 400 Bar. Sporadic offers came in for Koerner to perform solo around the world, too.
In 2012, he returned to the Newport Folk Festival after a 43-year-hiatus, where his appearance was cheered on by younger fans on that year’s lineup such as Conor Oberst and fellow Minnesotans Trampled by Turtles. Oberst at the time praised Koerner for “his authenticity, his sincerity, his significance.”
Koerner performed less and less over the past decade. Among the few places to see him play were the locations he liked to visit for vacations, including Madeline Island on Lake Superior, Copenhagen and Boston.
In 2018, he unofficially declared that his performance at Palmfest outside Palmer’s would likely be his last: “My hands won’t always do what they used to,” he said then. “Sometimes I say my muscle memory has Alzheimer’s.”
The neighboring West Bank music hub Cedar Cultural Center also coaxed him into playing two different retirement-style celebrations in 2017 and 2019, each one featuring younger musicians honoring Koerner, including members of the Cactus Blossoms, David Huckfelt, Jack Klatt and the guy many see as the heir apparent of the West Bank folk and blues legacy, Charlie Parr, profiled by RollingStone.com two weeks ago.
Koerner made his retirement official over the past year, when he gave one of his 12-string guitars to Palmer’s, where it now hangs in a glass case (and where he continued to hang out in recent weeks even after starting hospice care). He gave another guitar to Parr and asked the younger picker to keep playing it. He has, and you can bet he will keep doing so.
Said Parr, “Over the years the biggest and still most important lesson I took away from watching John play and listening to his records was that I could find my own voice on the guitar, and play those old songs in my own way. That’s been worth everything to me.”
Similar words about interpreting folk and blues music traditions were said by Koerner in 2005 as he broke from his usual humble statements about his legacy.
“In the early [1960s], when we were rediscovering all these old blues guys at festivals and whatnot, it always struck me seeing one of those guys playing the same way he played 40 years earlier,” he said. “In a sense, that’s sort of what I got to be: my own version of those guys. I don’t expect a lot from that, but I’m very glad my work is appreciated and respected.”
Koerner is survived by three adult children and several grandchildren.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
Star Tribune music critic Jon Bream contributed to this report.
Minnesota
Trump makes changes on the ground in Minnesota and doctors break with the CDC: Morning Rundown
In today’s newsletter: Some Trump administration advisers and allies say the optics of the immigration operation in Minneapolis have led Trump to make some changes. An influential group of doctors has split with the CDC over shot recommendations for children. And the downfall of China’s top general could have implications for Taiwan.
Here’s what to know today.
Trump reshuffles his Minnesota operation after backlash from second fatal shooting
President Donald Trump has made significant changes of leadership in the Minnesota immigration operations after the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti, according to administration officials and allies.
“The visuals were not playing well. He understands TV. … He saw it for himself,” said a Republican lawmaker who was granted anonymity to speak candidly.
This is Morning Rundown, a weekday newsletter to start your day. Sign up here to get it in your inbox.
Saturday’s shooting has prompted a leadership shakeup, a reduction of agents in the city, a reset with key Democratic officials in the state, and an attempt to distance the president from some of the more extreme comments from some of his top advisers.
More than 3,000 federal agents have been sent to Minneapolis, and they currently outnumber the local police force nearly five-to-one. One adviser said that while immigration enforcement will not end, the shooting is forcing the administration to rethink what operations will look like going forward.
Trump said he and Gov. Tim Walz spoke by phone Monday, calling it a “very good call” in a social media post.
Walz said Trump agreed to talk to the Department of Homeland Security about allowing state officials to conduct their own independent shooting investigations and decreasing the number of federal agents in his state.
Read the full story here.
More news out of Minneapolis:
- Democrats are pushing to drastically slash funding for ICE and Border Protection, or totally gut the agencies after the shooting death of Pretti.
- Investigators are reviewing body-camera videos that captured Pretti’s fatal shooting. Analysis shows witness video contradicts the Trump administration’s description of the event.
- A growing number of Senate Republicans are calling for an investigation into the shooting.
- FBI Director Kash Patel says the agency is investigating Minnesota Signal chats that are tracking ICE.
- A Minnesota Republican dropped out of the governor’s race, citing his party’s handling of immigration enforcement in the state.
Doctors break with CDC on vaccine guidance for children
The nation’s leading group of pediatricians released its annual children’s vaccine recommendations — and for the first time in 30 years it significantly broke from the government’s proposed vaccine schedule.
The American Academy of Pediatrics’ guidance largely reflects what has previously been recommended, no longer completely aligning with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which recently reduced the number of diseases on the vaccine schedule. The AAP additionally recommends shots against Covid, RSV, the flu, rotavirus, hepatitis A and B, and meningitis.
“These recent changes to the CDC schedule are a strong departure from the medical evidence and no longer offer the optimal way to prevent illness in children,” said Dr. Sean O’Leary, chair of the AAP’s committee on infectious diseases.
Read the full story here.
The downfall of China’s top general
The investigation into China’s top general, once a close ally of President Xi Jinping, has thrown the leadership of the country’s military into turmoil and raised questions about Taiwan’s future.
The Chinese Defense Ministry said in a statement that Gen. Zhang Youxia, vice chairman of the Central Military Commission, which controls the armed forces, was under investigation and accused of serious “violations of discipline and law.”
An editorial in the Liberation Army Daily newspaper, the mouthpiece of the country’s armed forces, suggested that Zhang, 75, was accused of corruption and possibly disloyalty to Xi.
Zhang was previously considered “untouchable,” according to Alessandro Arduino, an expert in Chinese security at the Royal United Services Institute, a London-based think tank. “This is a reminder coming directly from President Xi Jinping that political loyalty stands well before combat readiness,” he said. “Political disloyalty is a cardinal sin inside the party. I think the message is extremely clear: No one is safe.”
Of the six generals the president appointed to the commission in 2022, only one is left, allowing Xi to consolidate power but also heightening the risk of a military miscalculation when it comes to Taiwan, according to Steve Tsang, the director of the SOAS China Institute at the University of London. “Removing generals like Zhang means that there will not be any general who would dare to advise Xi against a military adventure when the time comes, and this increases the risk of a miscalculation,” he said.
Read All About It
- TikTok says widespread disruptions were caused by a power outage, after users voiced concerns that they were being politically censored under the app’s new U.S. ownership.
- India and the European Union have finalized a landmark trade deal that will represent a quarter of the world’s economy, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said.
- It’s officially tax season, and there are several new deductions going into effect this year that could change how Americans file their returns.
- People are opting for the cheapest available Affordable Care Act plans, but that could lead to higher out-of-pocket costs later.
- The remains of the last hostage held in Gaza were identified by the Israeli military, paving the way for the next phase of the ceasefire.
- Alex Vindman, an Army veteran who was a key witness during Trump’s first impeachment, will run for the Florida Senate as a Democrat.
- Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, apologized for his history of “reckless” antisemitic comments in a full-page ad in The Wall Street Journal.
Staff Pick: Some prediction market traders find a lucrative niche: Betting against Elon Musk.
As a tech reporter, I’ve seen Elon Musk fall short on a lot of promises. The Tesla CEO has failed, for example, to deploy fully self-driving cars. And since entering the political world, he has made one pledge after another that haven’t come true, such as his 2024 vow to find $2 trillion in federal budget waste.
Musk is also a master at evading scrutiny. Tesla’s sky-high share price is evidence of that, and he is still the world’s wealthiest person. But now, prediction markets are providing at least a small measure of accountability. These markets are rising in popularity, as people turn to sites such as Kalshi and Polymarket to wager on current events. Recently, I spoke with some users who bet against Musk’s predictions coming true — a strategy that has worked out pretty well for them.
— David Ingram, tech reporter
NBC Select: Online Shopping, Simplified
Staying hydrated should never fall to the bottom of your to-do list. One easy way to drink more water is to invest in a water pitcher with expert-approved filtration systems. You can also carry around a reusable water bottle to help hit your hydration goals—one of our editor favorites, the Yeti Rambler, is on sale right now for a limited time only.
Sign up to The Selection newsletter for hands-on product reviews, expert shopping tips and a look at the best deals and sales each week.
Thanks for reading today’s Morning Rundown. Today’s newsletter was curated for you by Kaylah Jackson, Marissa Martinez and David Hickey. If you’re a fan, please send a link to your family and friends. They can sign-up here.
new video loaded: Border Patrol Official Gregory Bovino Is Set to Leave Minnesota
By Jackeline Luna
January 26, 2026
MINNEAPOLIS (FOX 9) – Immigration operations remain underway following a deadly weekend shooting in Minneapolis, as state and federal officials prepare for court hearings tied to immigration enforcement and evidence preservation on Monday.
Over the weekend, federal Border Patrol agents fatally shot a Minneapolis man, 37-year-old VA ICU nurse Alex Pretti. This is the third shooting involving federal agents this year, including the fatal shooting of Renee Good by an ICE agent on Jan. 7. The latest incident comes as thousands of federal agents are in Minneapolis as part of Operation Metro Surge.
Meanwhile, multiple federal court hearings are scheduled for Monday as legal battles unfold. A federal judge is slated to hear oral arguments on Minnesota’s lawsuit seeking to stop the surge of federal immigration agents, and another hearing is set on a temporary restraining order that blocks the Trump administration from “destroying or altering evidence” in the Alex Pretti shooting.
Find live updates on this shooting below. Watch FOX 9 live in the player above. Live events and other updates can be viewed below.
7:30 a.m. – Protesters target hotels
For several weeks, protesters have been targeting hotels where federal agents are believed to be staying. State officials say demonstrators damaged a hotel in Dinkytown on Sunday night, leading to a large response from law enforcement with federal agents using tear gas to disperse the crowd.
The Minnesota Department of Public Safety released a statement on the incident:
“The Minnesota State Patrol and DNR were called to assist Minneapolis police with damage to hotel property at Home2 Suites Hotel on University Avenue. While they collaboratively worked to encircle the group for arrests because the demonstration was not peaceful, federal agents arrived without communication and deployed chemical irritants, clearing the group. The State Patrol and DNR are no longer on scene.”
6:45 a.m. – Federal court hearings Monday
The legal fight over immigration enforcement in Minnesota returns to court Monday.
A federal judge is scheduled to hear oral arguments at 9 a.m. Monday in a lawsuit filed by the State of Minnesota, Minneapolis and St. Paul, which seeks to stop the surge of ICE agents in the state. The lawsuit is calling the ICE operations in Minnesota illegal, while the DOJ has called the lawsuit frivolous.
In a separate case, there is a legal battle over evidence in the shooting death of Alex Pretti. A federal judge in Minnesota blocked the Trump administration from “destroying or altering” evidence.
The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension says federal officers initially blocked their investigators from the shooting scene. Attorney General Keith Ellison filed a motion Saturday night asking the court for a restraining order to preserve evidence collected by federal officers.
The judge swiftly granted the motion and BCA agents were able to access the scene Sunday morning, roughly 24 hours after the shooting.
A hearing in the case is scheduled for 2 p.m. on Monday.
Polaris to lay off 200 Wisconsin workers, close facility in Osceola
W.Va. Senator calls for CPS reform after death of 11-year-old girl from Taylor County
Sage-grouse local working groups swiftly disbanded by Game and Fish
Crypto Crime Wave Fueled by Chinese-Language Money Laundering | PYMNTS.com
Global brand in an EFL world – Wrexham’s finances explained as club eye Premier League
Florida High School Football Rankings: Top 25 teams – Oct. 21
Cleary's 21 help Le Moyne down Central Connecticut State 69-64 in OT
How old is Bo Nix? What to know about Oregon quarterback ahead of 2024 NFL Draft
99th annual Pony Swim held in Virginia
Indiana Members Credit Union announced as new anchor tenant at Bottleworks District
Video: F.A.A. Ignored Safety Concerns Prior to Collision Over Potomac, N.T.S.B. Says
Democrats demand Kristi Noem be fired or warn impeachment will follow
EU Commissioner Virkkunen urges US to respect EU digital rules
Families of killed men file first U.S. federal lawsuit over drug boat strikes
Video: New Video Analysis Reveals Flawed and Fatal Decisions in Shooting of Pretti
-
Sports1 week agoMiami’s Carson Beck turns heads with stunning admission about attending classes as college athlete
-
Illinois5 days agoIllinois school closings tomorrow: How to check if your school is closed due to extreme cold
-
Pittsburg, PA1 week agoSean McDermott Should Be Steelers Next Head Coach
-
Lifestyle1 week agoNick Fuentes & Andrew Tate Party to Kanye’s Banned ‘Heil Hitler’
-
Pennsylvania1 day agoRare ‘avalanche’ blocks Pennsylvania road during major snowstorm
-
Sports1 week agoMiami star throws punch at Indiana player after national championship loss
-
Cleveland, OH1 week agoNortheast Ohio cities dealing with rock salt shortage during peak of winter season
-
Science1 week ago‘It is scary’: Oak-killing beetle reaches Ventura County, significantly expanding range