What Started in a Small Room
Remembering where Minneapolis’s musical subculture started
By Marie Ronnander with art by Natalie Williams
What I’ve come to love about the Twin Cities is the outright musical veneration pocketed throughout the community. We have a melodic melting pot here creating sounds that constantly push the labels defining a genre. Yet, within this world of harmonies, fine fractures form between the history of our city’s music and the final product on record. The roots of the cities’ music are being transplanted.
This culture loss has been the case for many sidelined or marginalized groups. History has a sneaky little tendency to be overwritten. But it’s not sneaky. It's a historical erasure. This is how bluegrass was credited to Bill Monroe, where, in reality, his Appalachian twangs were inspired by Arnold Schultz, the son of a former slave. Even here, in the Twin Cities, there’s been a mass closure of buildings hosting rich history Black American musicians and femme voices. Entire artistic hubs have been quietly shut down with only those with memories of “the good old days” left to tell the tale.
Let’s zoom into the 1950s. The Cities were pretty segregated at this time, and finding a place to perform typically came down to whether a band was Black or White. Amidst this civil battle, Minneapolis established the Nacirema Club, The Cozy Bar, and The Flame. These three clubs became the top gig locations on the short list of venues open to Black musicians and feminine voices alike. Though small, they made history by dragging in huge crowds who hummed and swung to the different versions of the “Minneapolis Funk.”
South Minneapolis’s Nacirema (so cleverly American spelled backwards) seemed to be a jack-of-all-trades type of location. By day, the club hosted your casual community meeting, maybe a Christmas party or sometimes even a fashion show. But on the weekend jazz nights, finding a place where your toes wouldn’t be stepped on was a (real) struggle. The club pulled in bands like Bobby Lyle group, Wee Willie Walker’s Solid on Down, and the legendary locals: Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis. Even Prince was slid into the scene, dropping into sets for an occasional improvisation.
Flipping the compass to the North Side, the Cozy Bar was a hot spot for R&B with the master of harmonica himself, Mojo Buford, becoming a frequent visitor by the 1960s. The Cities’ very first Black-owned record label, “Black and Proud Record Company,” developed in the booming popularity of this genre. Some of their top bands like The Blazers or The Valdons swung by the Cozy Bar regularly to perform their hits. After transforming to the Ridgeway Supper Club, famous acts like Millie Jackson and Melba Moore spent their evenings under the disco lights.
Then, on the corner of Nicollet Avenue and East 16th, The Flame was where you went if you missed your horse and cowboy boots. This supper club had a unique niche in their representation of female voices on the scene. Ardis Wells and the Rhythm Ranch gals were a nightly yodeling crew known for their dangerous trapeze acts (which ultimately had to stop because someone tattled to the city for safety concerns). The most well known acts of this bar were wild country women and Black American blues.
These three venues have another thing in common. They’re amongst the long list of historical BIPOC venues that have been shut down and shut up. Nacirema, as of 2018, stands as El Bethel Baptist Church while The Flame has devolved into a MediaXpress. The most interesting closure has to be The Cozy Bar’s violent pipeline into condominium apartments after facing parking lot murders.
These locations were epicenters for the arts where genuine legends began their climb to fame. Yet each of them closed without so much as a plaque commemorating their impact on our musical community. This erasure continued into the ‘90s hip hop scene with popular coffeehouse venues closing because the crowds were “the wrong kind.” Coffman Union’s history tab on their website doesn’t even mention that they were one of the only places that allowed Black artist hip hop music to be played.
We can’t forget the historical locations that inspired entire musical movements within our cities. We can’t forget that these places were Black, they were female, and that they let everybody through their doors for the sake of music. The rich history of Twin Cities musical subcultures should be documented and revered in more than just a handful of deep-dive articles so we don’t forget our past.