Back Behind the Barn Boys

 In 1982 the Back Behind the Barn Boys crammed a quarter-section of Lake Agassiz bottomland and half the population of their hometown, Gatzke, MN, into a 1952 GM coach and hit the road. Long before Lake Wobegone, they blended gospel harmonies with Benny Hill on-stage antics, small-town sincerity, adolescent angst, and Tater Tots. They charted a single, recorded two LPs, a CD, opened for almost every 1980s country star, and spent that decade trying to change the coveralls of country music.
Nashville had no appetite for hot dish, and Dallas never did dance on the Strasburg-side of the beat, but for a while a whole lot of folks-from Middle River to Marietta, from Lubbock to Elko, from Valley City to Calgary, from the Rainbow Club in Strandquist to a rock club in Rochester-didn’t need to be called twice to the table when the Barn Boys’ Country-Midwestern fare was featured on the menu.
Nineteen years ago today, their bus was found abandoned in International Falls. Six separate sets of tracks led bloodhounds in seven directions, but-except for occasional, unreliable reports-the Back Behind the Barn Boys were never seen or heard again. On Sunday, September 6th, 2009, at 2:30 p.m., an electro-magnetic miracle will draw them back together from the hinterlands, and for an hour they will attempt to rediscover exactly what kind of comfort food it was that they once were.