Morning Edition presents a conversation with beloved Minneapolis blues musician as he rehearses for an upcoming concert at the Hook and Ladder in Minneapolis to celebrate his 94th birthday.
Segment includes music performance clips.
Morning Edition presents a conversation with beloved Minneapolis blues musician as he rehearses for an upcoming concert at the Hook and Ladder in Minneapolis to celebrate his 94th birthday.
Segment includes music performance clips.
SPEAKER: This weekend, beloved Minneapolis bluesman "Cornbread" Harris is celebrating his 94th birthday with-- what else but a concert. He will take the stage outdoors at the Hook and Ladder right next to the old third police precinct that burned last year. Cornbread was kind enough to record an interview with us at his North Minneapolis home earlier this week, as he rehearsed some songs for that show.
JAMES SAMUEL "CORNBREAD" HARRIS: This is James Samuel "Cornbread" Harris, Sr, speaking from my music room at my home. I got a pretty near tuned piano here to play on. It shouldn't sound too bad.
[PIANO PLAYING]
Oh, I don't feel old, but old makes me feel it every once in a while. So yeah, I'm in my second childhood now, and I'm enjoying it very much. And I didn't get to play much during the pandemic, but things are starting to open up a little bit now. So 6 or 7 o'clock on Saturday, we should be headed to the place to play. And 7 or 8, we should be hitting 1, 2, you know what to do. Then that's it.
The show was on. I like to play so much and then to play for people who was going to applaud. Oh, man. I'm a blessed dude. I'm a very blessed dude. Probably at the end of the night or somewhere in the middle, yeah, I'm going to do this song. This is called "Put the World Back Together."
(SINGING) Haven't we had enough debate?
Here someone say let's wait
We better get together before it's too late
To put the world back together
Put the world back together
Put the world back together again
That's the song that I want to go all over the world. And if the people love it, then I'm going to be great. And if they don't like it, then people are going to tell me, don't come back here no more. Oh.
[PIANO PLAYING]
SPEAKER: That is Minneapolis musician, "Cornbread" Harris. He's celebrating his 94th birthday with a sold-out show Saturday in Minneapolis. If you didn't get in-person tickets, you can still stream it on the Hook and Ladder website. This piece was produced by James Napoli and Brita Green.
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