Today I’ll be talking with Twin Cities musical icon Leslie Ball. Leslie has performed on theater stages and in music clubs around the region and the country, and her first solo recording “Loring Park” earned her a Minnesota Music Award for best female songwriter. Many musicians, including Helen Reddy and Nick Lowe, have performed and recorded Leslie’s material.
In August of 1991, she launched BALLS Cabaret, a weekly experimental stage for artists of any discipline, at any level of experience. BALLS continu...
Today I’ll be talking with Twin Cities musical icon Leslie Ball. Leslie has performed on theater stages and in music clubs around the region and the country, and her first solo recording “Loring Park” earned her a Minnesota Music Award for best female songwriter. Many musicians, including Helen Reddy and Nick Lowe, have performed and recorded Leslie’s material.
In August of 1991, she launched BALLS Cabaret, a weekly experimental stage for artists of any discipline, at any level of experience. BALLS continually wins awards as the best open stage in town, and was cited in The New York Times as a “must-see” while in the Twin Cities. The local press often refers to Leslie as “the den mother of the Twin Cities art community.” We spoke at my studio in North Minneapolis.
PART ONE: The Interview
PART TWO: A Song
PART THREE: Leslie gets to ask the Music Director!
You can find Leslie on the web at LeslieBall.com.
This episode brings us to the end of the Spring 2018 season of Ask the Music Director, and I want to thank you all so much for listening. I hope you’ve enjoyed meeting this talented group of Twin Cities music makers, and maybe you’ve even learned a thing or two from me, the music director, along the way. What have I learned? That I seem to be drawn to people engaged in work on the fringes. From Tyler Michaels’ new theater company to James Rocco’s avant garde art to Leslie Ball’s weekly experimental cabaret, I always want to hear about the new, the exciting, the cutting edge. I hope the same is true for you as well!
I will be back in the fall of 2018 with a whole new set of interviews, but in the meantime I hope you will subscribe to the podcast. There will be a bonus episode or two coming this summer, and I wouldn’t want you to miss anything! Do you have any comments? Questions? Suggestions? You can always reach me on Facebook, @askthemdpodcast, or on the web page askthemdpodcast.com. Send your friends to find us on Apple Podcasts, the iTunes Store, Google Play, or wherever you get your podcasts—and if you get a chance, leave us a review! It’ll help others find their way to us. Thank you!
EPISODE NOTES
Episode duration: 53:51
At 40:17 Leslie Ball sings “A Cappella” from Painting It Red (duration: 1:37).
Composers: Leslie Ball and Gary Rue
Publisher: Loose Canon
Used by permission.
This recording ©2018 by Dennis Curley. All Rights Reserved.
Theme music: “Let’s Start Where We’re At” — music ©2010 by Dennis Curley, lyrics ©2010 by James Arthur Robinson. All Rights Reserved.
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