Twin Cities author reunites estranged musicians Cornbread Harris and Jimmy Jam

The Minneapolis book event will feature the father-and-son duo after a 50-year separation.

By Jon Bream Star Tribune

August 15, 2024 — 6:00am

With a smile and a tote bag full of goodies, Andrea Swensson settled into her familiar spot in the dining nook once again. It was 2 p.m. and for the 140th or so Tuesday afternoon she was sitting opposite Twin Cities piano institution Cornbread Harris in his north Minneapolis home. She handed him a brand-new T-shirt emblazoned with his mantra "I'm a blessed dude."

"I know that dude somewhere," exclaimed Cornbread, his bearded, freckled face turning into a sunburst. "Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you."

At 97, James Samuel "Cornbread" Harris Jr. is a blessed dude. After a nearly 50-year estrangement, he reconnected with his famous son, Rock & Roll Hall of Fame producer/songwriter Jimmy Jam. All because of Swensson. And he discovered details of his life he never knew. All because of Swensson and her research in writing the biography "Deeper Blues: The Life, Songs and Salvation of Cornbread Harris."

Last week, she handed him a new hardcover copy of the book, which will be celebrated with an event Friday at the Cedar Cultural Center in Minneapolis. She'd already read him each chapter after she finished writing it.

"I didn't know I existed," he said with a chuckle. "I'm trying to find out who this guy is. She went meddling into the historical parts of my life."

"Deeper Blues" is a tale of hope, faith and forgiveness, the story of a musician whose parents died when he was young in Chicago, grew up in foster homes throughout the Midwest, ended up in the Twin Cities, played piano on Minnesota's first rock 'n' roll record ("Hi Ho Silver" by Augie Garcia) and became a mainstay in the Land of 10,000 Bands' nightclubs on and off for seven decades. And he's still going, playing weekly gigs at Palmer's on the West Bank and Icehouse on Eat Street, often with his band.

Blessed with a full head of salt and pepper hair, the hunched, slow-moving Cornbread might look frail of body. But give him an audience — even a crowd of one, thank you — and a piano, and he comes alive.

"He is a consummate entertainer," said Swensson, a Twin Cities author who formerly covered music at City Pages and the Current. "He's spent so much of his life in the corner of a restaurant or bar doing his thing with everyone in earshot. People may not have come to see him but they leave charmed by him."

Whether onstage or off, Cornbread is spirited, quick with a joke and often silly, especially around Swensson, who is 50-some years his junior. When he fires off a zinger, there's a twinkle in his eye. He knows how to turn on the charm in subtle ways.

"Ninety-seven years I've been around, and I've never met anything like this lady," Cornbread said in front of her. "I can't even remember her name. 'The Book Lady.' That's what I call her, and she answers to it."

Said Swensson: "My face usually hurts from smiling when I leave here. We have a lot of fun."

Skeptical of book idea

Swensson met Cornbread in 2017 when she interviewed him for a local music show on Minnesota Public Radio's 89.3 the Current, where she worked for nine years. About the same time, she sent a copy of her first book, the award-winning history "Got to Be Something Here: The Rise of the Minneapolis Sound," to Jam in Los Angeles. Swensson had a conversation with the Grammy winner when he came to Minneapolis to curate a series of Super Bowl concerts in 2018 and that prompted Jam to ask Swensson to help facilitate a father-son reunion, which in turn sparked the book.

"It was a profound moment," Swensson recalled in an interview separate from Cornbread. "I was honored [Jam] felt safe to ask me."

But when it came to the idea of writing a book, Cornbread and Sabreen Hasan, his wife of 30 years, were skeptical.

"I thought she was some nut," Cornbread said of Swensson. "I've heard this stuff before. I just shook my head. Then I found out she was serious."

Every Tuesday, Swensson kept coming to interview him. After six months or so, he became willing to take Swensson into the basement to explore his scrapbooks together.

Not only did she visit the north Minneapolis house for three years for more than 100 interview sessions, but she did extensive research. She spent countless hours at the Minnesota Historical Society, Minneapolis Central Library, University of Minnesota's Andersen Library and newspaper websites to unearth information.

"It became a bit of an obsession because I couldn't find anything about his dad," Swensson said. "It illuminates how difficult it is to trace Black history in particular because the records were not kept in the same way in the early 20th century; there weren't often death notices."

Fortunately, Jam's mother, Bertha Harris (Cornbread's second of five wives), worked for a time at the Minneapolis Spokesman-Recorder, a Black newspaper.

"That's why Jimmy's birthday parties would be mentioned in the paper when he was a child," Swensson said. "There were all these mentions of him and bands of his generation playing all these community events. That was a treasure trove of details."

Often during conversations in Cornbread's nook, Swensson shared clippings and he learned things he didn't remember: about his parents, the name of clubs where he gigged or that he played tuba in the Mechanic Arts High School band in St. Paul.

"It felt like we were excavating his life together," Swensson said. "I was discovering things for the first time that he was rediscovering."

The author asked about songs he'd written and Cornbread pivoted on his piano bench and plunked out a tune without hesitation. He always started with "Blue Blue Blue Blues," Swensson pointed out, and then proceeded to the number he meant to play. Old habits don't die. Nor does musical memory.

Shoehorned into the nook, Cornbread's well-worn white upright piano doubles as a trophy case for various awards, a Louis Armstrong sculpture, assorted Cornbread cassettes, sheet music and a new vinyl album, "Anthology," that Swensson put together to complement her book.

No relitigating estrangement

Swensson was instrumental — the facilitator — in reuniting the father and his estranged son. Dad says it was a 24-year separation, son says it was closer to 50 since Mom kicked out Cornbread for choosing music over family.

Father and son didn't revisit or relitigate the issues.

"We didn't get in much talking. I turned into a crybaby," said Cornbread, his eyes starting to well up with tears. "Oh. That was so, so, so, so wonderful."

Said Swensson: "The look of relief on both of their faces was amazing to see."

Jam, 65, aka James Samuel Harris III, knew the time had come to reconnect.

"Thank God for the Book Lady," said Jam, who wrote an afterword for the book. "The book was wonderful, totally enlightening for me to read. As he always says, 'I'm a blessed dude.' He definitely is, but he makes us all feel we're blessed dudes whether we're male or female. Everyone will see themselves in that story and he comes away from it not in a bitter way but in a thankful way, in a blessed dude way."

Swensson continues to hook up father and son (and sometimes grandkids) on Zoom via her iPad, and Jam has now visited Cornbread three times in Minneapolis.

"[Cornbread] now looks back on all his hardships and counts them as blessings," Swensson said.

Although she dubs Cornbread as her new best friend (the only person she saw face to face during COVID-19 other than her husband and children), she dotes on him with motherly instincts. She helps him to his walker, answers the house landline (it's often his piano student calling) and finishes sentences when he has a brain freeze. She took two weeks off from Tuesdays With Cornbread after the birth of her second daughter last year and then brought the baby with her on the third week.

Jam has yet to go to Cornbread's house (where bobbleheads of him and music partner Terry Lewis sit in Dad's bedroom), though he sat in with Cornbread at a Minneapolis gig in 2022 but let Dad be the featured pianist.

It turns out that father and son have lots of similarities, according to their new best friend.

"They both love to spin a yarn," said Swensson, who has heard plenty of them. "They love to tell stories that have big life lessons in them. Both love quoting things; Cornbread loves to quote Bible stories, Jimmy loves to quote Terry Lewis. They will talk to every single person that wants to talk to them."

Jam will participate in the book launch in Minneapolis. They will reprise their group Huckleberry Finn, Cornbread and Friends, in which Jam played the drums as a preteen.

Will Jam, best known as a keyboardist, do piano duets with Cornbread? Or play the drums? In any case, they're billing it, for the very first time, as Cornbread and Jam.