Taste of Minnesota lines up Time ex-bandmates, Martina McBride, Wallflowers for 2024 concerts

The Taste of Minnesota will offer more of a taste of Minnesota music as it returns to downtown Minneapolis for the second year in a row, this time with Morris Day and his modern lineup of the Time sharing the stage with famed ex-members Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis.

The two Time configurations and other Minnesotan acts — including Sounds of Blackness — are part of the July 7 entertainment lineup announced Thursday by Taste organizers, alongside a July 6 schedule featuring country music star Martina McBride and Minnesotan-by-blood Jakob Dylan’s hitmaking ‘90s band the Wallflowers.

As was the case last year, the two-day bash will take place on Nicollet Mall with a wide array of food vendors and family activities — and it will again be free, as it was back in its 1980s-1990s heyday in St. Paul.

Taste of Minnesota operations were taken over by new investors last year and moved to Minneapolis with support from Mayor Jacob Frey and other city leaders. The event’s comeback year was deemed a success, reportedly drawing around 100,000 attendees over two days with music acts including Third Eye Blind, Uncle Kracker and rapper Big Boi.

This year’s lineup definitely seems better suited to Minnesota music fans’ tastes. Jam and Lewis will be returning to Nicollet Mall after heading up the free concerts held there during Super Bowl LII in 2018 — and after being inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2022 for their platinum-selling work as producers for Janet Jackson, Usher, Mariah Carey and many more.

It’s not clear if and how the Jam and Lewis set with “special guests” — which is listed as the final slot on Taste’s Sunday schedule — will blend into the set scheduled before it by Day and the Time.

Day remains friendly and has occasionally performed with Jam and Lewis in the decades he’s toured without them. Drummer Jellybean Johnson remains the only other original Time member still touring with Day, who was tapped by childhood pal Prince to front the group and co-star in “Purple Rain” as his nemesis. With Jam and Lewis in the Time’s early ’80s lineup, the group racked up such hits as “COOL,” “Jungle Love,” “777-9311″ and “The Bird.”

While the former Time bandmates still make regular trips home to the Twin Cities, the Taste concerts will mark something of a homecoming to Wallflowers frontman Dylan. The son of Bob Dylan spent many summer weeks in his youth with his dad and siblings out at Bob’s farm on the Crow River in western Hennepin County.

Other artists scheduled to hit Taste’s main stage in 2024 include Lizzo’s longtime DJ and hypewoman Sophia Eris, local club vets the Johnny Holm Band and kid-friendly dance-rap duo Koo Koo (fka Koo Koo Kanga Roo).

The Taste concerts are afternoon affairs that end at 8 p.m. Organizers plan to expand the layout for the event this year to allow for twice as many vendors and more breathing room. Look for more updates and info at tasteofmn.com.

Here’s the full schedule for the Taste of Minnesota 2024 main stage:

Koo Koo

Sophia Eris

The Wallflowers

SURPRISE GUEST – TO BE ANNOUNCED LATER

Martina McBride

Sounds of Blackness

Johnny Holm Band

Morris Day and the Time

Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis plus special guests