He passed away maybe 10 years ago now, but he was also a clarinet player so I took private lessons with him. It was a band program outside of the public school system and they signed me up for that as well. I began in the school music program and at the same time, friends of my parents knew of an organization called The Denver Youth Musicians. They just came around and asked if anybody wants to play an instrument, and my father liked the clarinet so he made this suggestion and I just went for it. In 4th grade, that’s when they’d start up music in the public schools. My grandfather played violin, cornet, and baritone horn in the community band in Two Harbors, and I found a picture of me playing a ukulele and my grandfather playing this miniature violin, must have been when they were visiting for Christmas or I was there in Minnesota, but I had to be maybe three at the most in that picture, and I’m holding this ukulele like a normal guitar, so that fascination was there pretty early on. I found a picture of me and my grandfather. I was like four or five at the most when I did that. I took a piece of cardboard and I drew out the shape of a guitar and I cut it out and put rubber bands on it. The guitar had Mickey Mouse ears painted on the front of it. He would take his guitar and they all gather around and he would play the guitar. At the end of the show, there was this older guy Jimmy who is the leader of all the Mouseketeers, a grown up. 1954-55.That’s the time I grew up in and so on TV I watched The Mickey Mouse Club.

I remember my father bringing this box into the house. We first got a television when I was like three or four. I feel like a guitar was not your first instrument…?īF: I actually made a guitar when I was real young. So, tell us about your first experiences getting into music. They were all like best friends.ĮI: I asked around and couldn’t find anything, but I’m just gonna assume we are related, why not? One of these sisters and her husband lived in the house just behind them. My grandmother had four other sisters, they were all spread around the town, and their husbands. It’s not an obvious town, exactly….īF: I’m still wondering if we must be some sort of relation? I had a lot of relatives in that town. We drove and left a trail of dirty diapers all the way across the country.ĮI: Maybe I should just say for the record: We were playing a gig and you’re saying to someone, “Have you been to Two Harbors?” and I break in, “Yeah, I go there all the time!” My mom and all of her family were from Two Harbors. Within a few months, my father got a job at the University of Colorado Medical Center in Denver, so we moved to Denver, they got a 1951 Plymouth, brand new.

That’s where he met my mom who had grown up just outside of Baltimore, that side of the family comes from Baltimore or West Virginia, it starts to get into little bit Southern situation there.Īnyway, I was born in Baltimore March 18th, 1951.

He was born in Two Harbors, Minnesota, he went from Two Harbors to Saint Olaf and then from there to Johns Hopkins and got a PhD in Biochemistry in Baltimore. Thanks to Paul Sanwald for the transcription.Įthan Iverson: Tell us where you’re from, Bill.īill Frisell: I was born in Baltimore, but my family moved to Denver. This interview took place over two days in January 2018.

Blue in green transcription bill evans