John Koerner obituary

Musician who became a folk scene celebrity with his driving guitar style and love of the blues

When Bob Dylan enrolled as a teenager at the University of Minnesota in 1959 he went to check out the Minneapolis music scene in the Dinkytown area near the campus, and there, in a “beat coffee house” called the Ten O’clock Scholar, he met a tall, gangling figure with a driving guitar style and a love of the blues, whose long legs had earned him the name “Spider” John Koerner.

Dylan was impressed. In his 2004 memoir Chronicles: Volume One he recalled that “Koerner was tall and thin with a look of perpetual amusement on his face. We hit it off right away … when he spoke he was soft-spoken but when he sang he became a field holler shouter. Koerner was an exciting singer and we began playing a lot together”.