Godfather of Twin Cities bluegrass scene Alan Jesperson dies at 74

He organized the annual Laughing Waters Bluegrass Festival at Minnehaha Park for 22 years, booked bluegrass acts at Dulono's Pizza in Minneapolis for four decades, and led the Middle Spunk Creek Boys for 53 years.

Even though he would have blanched at the appellation, Alan Jesperson was the godfather of the Twin Cities bluegrass scene.

"He knew a ton of songs," said Bruce Jaeger, Middle Spunk's mandolinist since 1983, "and he knew more about Zenith tube radios than anybody in the world probably."

Collecting, refurbishing and selling vintage radios was Jesperson's passionate day job. He provided parts to collectors all over the world and even to Zenith itself.

Jesperson died Dec. 30 of natural causes at his home in Minneapolis. He was 74.

"Al was always the impresario," said dobro player Andy Kozak, a Middle Spunk Creek Boy from 1980 to '94 who last talked to Jesperson on Christmas Day.

Jesperson hosted jam sessions at his antique radio shop and booked performers at Dulono's, once the nation's longest-running bluegrass club, until 2017. For about 15 years, he served as a host of "Bluegrass and Company" on KFAI-FM. Beginning in 1999, he organized the free Laughing Waters festival at Minnehaha Park over Labor Day weekend.

He gave his last public performance there in 2021, though Middle Spunk Creek Boys continued to rehearse on Mondays.

"He was a facilitator. He knew everybody and everybody knew him," said Jesperson's wife, Janine Kemmer, bassist for Middle Spunk since 2010.

Growing up in Minnetonka, he became immersed in the folk-music boom of the late 1950s and got his first guitar in the early '60s, recalled his brother Peter: "He just played 'The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan' incessantly, and I remember him playing 'Don't Think Twice It's Alright' over and over again to learn it on guitar."

While attending Hopkins High School, Jesperson played in a duo and trio, gigging at Twin Cities coffeehouses.

Always horse crazy, he hoped to go to veterinary school at the University of Minnesota but dropped out to take care of his young family and work a delivery job with Happy's Potato Chips.

In 1968, the singer-guitarist cofounded the Middle Spunk Creek Boys, taking their name from a lake in Stearns County. The group was among the early performers on Garrison Keillor's "A Prairie Home Companion."

Over the years, Middle Spunk had many members, including Emmy-winning mandolinist-fiddler Peter Ostroushko, and it recorded five albums, the most recent a gospel collection "House of Gold" in 2002.

Jesperson had an "encyclopedic knowledge of bluegrass," said the band's banjoist, Joel Olson. "When I wanted to bring a new tune to the band, chances are Alan had already played it and he had the arrangement from 30 years ago cemented into his brain."

Middle Spunk was known for their pickin', harmonizing and entertaining. With a salesman's gift of gab, Jesperson had a repertoire of jokes as deep as his song list, Olson said.

Like the one about the animals playing a football game on Noah's ark. After getting walloped in the first half, one team rallied thanks to the play of its centipede. Where was it in the first half? Tying its shoes.

When folk singer-guitarist Dakota Dave Hull arrived in the Twin Cities in 1969, it was Jesperson who introduced him to bluegrass, a scene that grew from Middle Spunk to perhaps 50 working combos pre-pandemic.

"He was considered one of the best in town as a singer, as an arranger, as a rhythm guitar player. He had great taste," Hull said. "And he was a pretty selfless individual."

Jesperson was also into antiques and art deco. He operated Great Northern Vintage Radios in south Minneapolis for more than two decades and, after shuttering the physical shop during the pandemic, continued to travel to buy and sell old radios and their parts.

"Zenith started calling him when they couldn't find parts," his brother Peter said. "In the '90s, 'The X Files' contacted him for some details on a Zenith radio they were using in a program. He was very proud of that."

Neither of their parents was musical but both brothers ended up in the music business, Peter as cofounder of Twin/Tone Records and manager of the Replacements. Even though their tastes diverged, the brothers were able to connect musically in 1984 when Replacements frontman Paul Westerberg wondered out loud if a mandolin would sound good on the tune "I Will Dare." Peter rented one from Middle Spunk's mandolinist, and Westerberg quickly learned a new instrument.

In addition to his brother and wife, Jesperson is survived by his daughter, Elise Balderrama, stepchildren Bill Emery, Mike Emery and Susan Campbell, and three grandchildren. A bluegrass pickin' party to celebrate his life will be held on Memorial Day weekend.

Twitter: @JonBream 612-673-1719