Construction is set to begin next month for the first phase of a long-planned Jimi Hendrix Park in the legendary guitarist’s home town of Seattle. The “Little Wing” portion of the park will feature a timeline of Hendrix’s career in the shape of a guitar and is scheduled to open this fall. The Jimi Hendrix…

Previously: Women’s History Month: Minnesota’s earliest pioneers Previously: Women’s History Month: Influential ’80s and ’90s rock bands from Minnesota For the third installment of this month’s ongoing Women’s History Month series on Local Current, I wanted to take a closer look at some of the pioneering women from Minnesota’s jazz, gospel, and soul communities. These…

As Pharrell Williams and the UN team up to raise climate-change awareness through International Happy Day, we're wondering what other songs about being happy you'd like to hear. Tell us your requests.

The first thing I had to do was find the holy grail of free Bloody Marys that I didn’t get to enjoy yesterday.  I arrived at the purported hot spot with my friends, feeling as thought I had already conquered the day, but defeat fell upon me when I realized all the Samsung promotional event offered…

There are few soul artists from the Twin Cities whose legacies have shined on quite as brightly as Wanda Davis, whose 1970 single “Save Me” has become an underground hit—and a valuable find for record collectors. Although Wanda was quite active throughout the late ’60s and early ’70s in the Twin Cities scene, she left music…

So here’s something I’ve never done before. Each week, the Friday Five is typically the space where I round up and share some of the coolest music videos to emerge from the Minnesota music scene that week. But this time around, I couldn’t resist the idea of reserving the entire five spots for an ambitious…

The Duluth Homegrown Festival is branching out to Virginia—as in Virginia, Minnesota—on March 27 for a one-night mini-festival called the “Iron Range Invasion.” The Invasion is free to the public, featuring eight bands at three different venues and “a mix from acoustic folk to punk rock.” The event will serve as a (relatively) modest precursor to…

The Ordway has been running at a fever pitch to celebrate their newly opened Concert Hall, hitting every genere for their 22 Days of Opening Nights—from opera to dance to youth symphonies, and for fans of The Current, on Wednesday there was a night with Haley Bonar. Before Bonar took the stage, she invited her…

Sinéad O’Connor has announced that she will no longer perform “Nothing Compares 2 U,” her chart-topping hit from 1990. “After 25 years of singing it, nine months or so ago I finally ran out of anything I could use in order to bring some emotion to it,” the Irish singer wrote on Facebook. (Billboard) Though O’Connor didn’t…

Checking in from the South by Southwest Music Conference in Austin, Texas, The Current's Program Director Jim McGuinn provides a first-day report, noting that female-fronted acts were the best he saw yesterday.