About

After several visits to various festivals and events in Tennessee and Mississippi over the past few years, and seeing first-hand how that region both embraces and exports their rich musical heritage, we eventually began to recognize and appreciate our own region’s contributions to the blues genre. We decided that it was time, in fact past-time, for someone to begin collecting, documenting and exporting these unique forms of blues music originating from the upper Mid-west to the rest of the country/world.

From this notion, barely a couple of bucks and an increasing awareness of the large number of original roots, folk and blues artists calling this area home, Halfdoor Records was born in January of 2009 on a stained couch in the ‘green room’ above Palmers Bar. Where, by the good graces of Mr. Keith Berg (Palmers’ benevolent owner/operator), we eventually located offices/storage in the rooms formerly used as a palor/reception area for the bordello that previously operated in the space, circa. 20-30′s.
Palmer’s is among the oldest, continually run, bars in Minneapolis, creatively finding ways to circumvent that tedious distraction in the 30′s called prohibition. Palmers is the closest thing to a true Jukejoint north of the Mason/Dixon line, but best known locally in the Twin Cities for it’s strong drinks…and perhaps secondly for it’s consistent presentation and support of the blues.

Headwater Blues, a sampler contains (12) songs from (12) artists who have recently played Palmers and are currently playing an ongoing part in this developing upper Midwest blues scene. While there are those who have more name recognition than others, none are household names. However, with a little effort, a couple miracles and another hundred years…who knows!?