FARGO, N.D. (KFGO) – What do Duke Ellington, Bobby Vee, Peggy Lee, and Bob Dylan all have in common? The music icon’s all have connections to Fargo. That’s why Fargo graphic artist Jeff Knight will pay tribute to the four with a series of large, painted murals on the walls outside of buildings in downtown Fargo beginning this spring.
Knight recently received a grant from the Arts Partnership to help finance his work on the wall art. The idea was sparked by a friend who told him about jazz great Duke Ellington and his band who played in Fargo in 1940.
This concert is regarded as a classic because it was recorded by two local fans. It was so important the recording won a Grammy forty years later. Ellington’s mural will be the first to be painted. It will go on the exterior wall of the patio of Front Street Tap Room, just off Main Avenue in downtown Fargo, not far from the long gone ballroom where Ellington and his band played.
Knight says not only is the project art but history. He says he wants to prompt people to investigate who the person is that he’s painting and why are they important and relevant to Fargo or North Dakota. He finds the information facinating and hopes other people get to share it.
If time and financing allow, the Ellington mural will be followed by those of 60’s pop idol and Fargo native Bobby Vee, jazz and popular singer-songwriter, Wimbleton, North Dakota native Peggy Lee, who first made a name for herself singing on radio in Fargo, and a young Bob Dylan, known as Elston Gunnn. During his brief time in Fargo, Dylan worked as a busboy, and got his start playing local dances in Vee’s band.