10 places to connect with Minnesota’s rich musical heritage

From Judy Garland and the Jets to Prince, Lizzo and Semisonic — plus acclaimed festivals, leading live venues and one of America’s best vinyl scenes — music and Minnesota have long gone hand in hand. Happily, daily Delta Air Lines flights from Heathrow to Minneapolis/St Paul make diving in a breeze. Here are 10 suggested stops on a Minnesota musical pilgrimage…

The epicentre of Minnesota’s music scene, First Avenue has hosted such A Listers as James Brown, U2, Charli XCX and Chappell Roan since renovating a Minneapolis bus depot in 1970. The recording venue for Prince’s seminal Purple Rain, it’s always been synonymous with boundary-pushing, bracket-resisting sounds; be that the Replacements’ anti-establishment punk — inside 7th St. Entry, the cosier sister room — Dua Saleh’s queer anthems or Lizzo’s defiantly positive self-love. If there’s no big-name show you fancy, make shapes during a raucous DJ night.

“I like Hollywood,” said Prince once. “I just like Minneapolis a little bit better.” Hence why this most maverick of stars spent three decades living at Paisley Park, a studio-cum-house-cum-performance venue in the southwestern suburb of Chanhassen. Choosing between three tiers of tour — pay more to see more — visitors to this 65,000-square-foot complex can now discover his basketball court, unreleased tracks, famous outfits and personalised instruments as well as, yes, finding out what it sounds like when doves cry.

Prince zealots should next visit 600 N 1st Ave, where a 100-foot painting reproduces a trio of his iconic looks. That’s one of many Prince-glorying artworks in Minneapolis, while his once-silver star outside First Avenue — neighbouring those of hundreds of other acts to have played here — went gold after his 2016 death. Another must-see, five minutes’ stroll away at N 5th Street & Hennepin Avenue, is Eduardo Kobra’s kaleidoscopic, massive mural depicting Bob Dylan during three distinct eras of his career.

Arguably Minneapolis’s coolest record store, elegant Disco Death pairs its genre-hopping selection of rare vinyl with such playful specialty coffees as a Never Fernet — espresso, Mexico-produced Cola-Cola and an amaro-inspired syrup. Close by is the women-owned Lucky Cat Records, a treasure trove for indie-lovers, while analogue worshippers could also trawl Extreme Noise for punk, Roadrunner for country or jazz and the OG, Electric Fetus, occupying an sprawling, incense-scented store, for just about everything else.

Ever since helping to enable a law letting Minnesota beer-makers to sell their wares on-site, Surly Brewing has thrived. As well as the buzzing beer hall serving craft concoctions and a New Haven-style pizza outlet upstairs, it lays on ticketed summer concerts out on its Festival Field; the likes of Lupe Fiasco, The National and Tame Impala have all played there. You can also catch local acts in the garden every Thursday night; those gigs are free, as are Sunday afternoons’ tribute bands.

Before becoming Bob Dylan, one Robert Zimmerman was born 150 miles northwest in Duluth in 1941 and resided there for six years. Lining Lake Superior, this handsome, outdoorsy city today hosts a 3km-long Bob Dylan Way whose arty manhole covers refer to the legendary singer-songwriter’s records and impact. It meanders from the Duluth Depot, a heritage train station and cultural space, to the Armory Arts & Music Center, where a 17-year-old Dylan attended the second-last rock-and-roll performances of Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens. Duluth is also home to Highway 61 which inspired the title of Dylan’s iconic album ‘Highway 61 Revisited’.

Time your visit to Duluth with one of the music festivals held on Bayfront Park (including the Duluth Dylan Festival) which offers enviable Lake Superior views as the backdrop.

When Dylan’s father developed polio, the family decamped to his mother’s hometown of Hibbing in northeast Minnesota’s iron-mining heartland. This leafy backwater is where Bob discovered music, started his earliest bands and encountered the Girl from the North Country. Begin at the Hibbing Public Library, taking in a diminutive Dylan exhibit, before following its podcast-supported walking tour to locations important in his life. A pint of the BoomTown Brewery’s Tangled Up in Blueberry wheat beer ought to conclude things nicely.

Frances Gumm — better known to you as Judy Garland — grew up in Grand Rapids, a Mississippi-straddling small city 175 miles north of Minneapolis. As proficient at singing (which she preferred) as acting, she won an Oscar for her rendition of Over The Rainbow while playing Dorothy in 1939’s The Wizard of Oz. Opera chanteuse Maria Callas later lauded her rich contralto as “the most superb voice I have ever heard”. Hear it at Garland’s childhood home, now open alongside an attached museum.

Back to the Twin Cities. Though it’s home to the Grammy-winning Minnesota Orchestra and overseen by Thomas Søndergård, a Danish conductor, classical music recitals aren’t all that Orchestra Hall offers. This glassy, modernist gem’s world-class acoustics are also utilised for film screenings where scores are performed live, pop or jazz concerts and family-focused musicals. Kids can attend for free and there are events year-round.

A glorious gamut of events take place across Minnesota each summer, spanning multiple genres. For mainstream kicks, consider mid-July’s three-day Minnesota Yacht Club on St. Paul’s Harriet Island; 2025’s bill featured Hozier, Sheryl Crow and Green Day. Alternatively, mid-June’s Winstock brings country-music legends to well-to-do Winstead, the WE Fest takes place in early August and is the largest country music and camping festival in the country, and the chilled-out Bayfront Reggae & World Music Festival runs every July in Duluth. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg; go here for a fuller list.