TONY GLOVER:

David Curtis Glover (Tony “Little Sun” Glover) was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota on October 7, 1939. Tony Glover attended the University High School in the Dinkytown neighborhood of Minneapolis. In his formative years, Glover was heavily influenced by African-American blues musicians Little Walter, Sonny Boy Williamson, and Lead Belly. As a teenager, he played in numerous local bands, where he played guitar before settling on his known specialty of the blues harp (harmonica).

In the early 1960s, Glover formed the blues and folk trio of Koerner, Ray & Glover with Rochester, New York native, guitar player, and University of Minnesota student “Spider” John Koerner, and Dave “Snaker” Ray, a guitarist and St. Paul native. In the same period, Glover and the members of the trio befriended and mentored a young Bob Dylan in the West Bank music scene. From 1963 to 1972, the trio released the albums Blues, Rags and Hollers (1963), Lots More Blues, Rags and Hollers (1964), The Return of Koerner, Ray & Glover (1965), and the live performance album Good Old Koerner, Ray & Glover (1972).

In the early 1960s, Glover also began writing articles as a music critic for Minneapolis-based fan-zine The Little Sandy Review, and subsequently published articles for magazines Sing Out!, Hit Parader, Crawdaddy, Creem, Hullabaloo/Circus, Junior Scholastic, and The Rolling Stones (1962-1973). In the late 1960s, Glover also worked as late-night disc jockey for KDWB in St. Paul, Minnesota, and conducted interviews with Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Pete Townshend, and Jim Morrison. Glover also played with the short-lived group Nine Below Zero in the mid-1970s, which combined the genres of blues, country, and rock music.

Glover also authored instructional songbooks, including: Blues harp: an instructional method for playing the blues harmonica (1965); Blues harp songbook (1975); and Rock harp (1981). Notable harp music students of Glover's included David Johansen and Mick Jagger.

In the late 1980s, Tony Glover and Dave Ray formed the duo Ray & Glover. The two released three albums: Legends in their spare time (1987); Ashes in my whiskey (1990); and Picture has faded (1993). In 1996, Koerner, Ray & Glover reunited to release the album One foot in the Groove with indie label Tim/Kerr Records, and Glover also wrote and produced the documentary Blues, Rags and Hollers: the Koerner, Ray & Glover story (re-released 2007). Glover and Ray continued to play together until Ray’s death from cancer in 2002.

Glover’s friendship with Bob Dylan led him to be a frequent commenter on the career and legacy of Dylan. This includes Glover writing the liner notes for the 1998 re-lease of The Bootleg Series Vol. 4: Bob Dylan Live 1966: The "Royal Albert Hall" Concert, and Glover’s interview appearances in Martin Scorsese’s 2005 documentary No Direction Home.

In the 2000s and 2010s, Glover remained active in his writings, performances, and album releases. In 2002, Glover authored Blues with a feeling: the Little Walter story with co-authors Scott Dirks and Ward Gaines. In the mid-2000s, Glover formed the trio V3 with musicians Galen Michaelson and Jon Rodine, releasing a self-titled album in 2004. Tony Glover and John Koerner also continued to be active, and released Live @ 400 Bar live performance albums in 2006 and 2009. Glover also joined musicians Pop Wagner and Charlie Maguire for a Woody Guthrie tribute show and released the subsequent album Woody Reflected in 2011. Glover also compiled rare tracks and performances and wrote the liner notes for three-disc album Dave Ray/Legacy in tribute to Dave Ray in 2014.

In his personal life, Tony Glover was married to Cynthia Nadler for 28 years, and they lived together in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Tony Glover died of natural causes at the age of 79 on May 29, 2019 in St. Paul.

Return to top

These papers are organized into the following sections:

Return to top

Access Restrictions:

The user files for digital audio and video recordings in copyright in this collection are not available online, but can be accessed upon request for use in the Gale Family Library reading room. Please consult reference staff for more information.

The playing of original media located in the collection is prohibited. This includes compact discs, video discs, audiocassettes, videocassettes, sound discs, and digital audio tapes. A user copy will be provided upon request. Please consult reference staff for more information.

Use Restrictions:

Quotation or publication beyond the fair use provisions of the copyright law requires written permission of Cynthia Nadler.

Preferred Citation:

[Indicate the cited item and/or series here]. Tony Glover Papers. Minnesota Historical Society.

See the Chicago Manual of Style for additional examples.

Location of Master Files:

Digital masters are maintained on the Society's secure digital collections storage servers and are managed and preserved in accordance with archival best practices.

Accession Information:

Accession number: 17,906

Processing Information:

Processed by: Leif Kopietz, January 2025

Catalog ID number: 9989874140204294

Return to top

RESTRICTED: USE OF ORIGINAL MEDIA.

Includes business records, promotion, and press materials that cover the span of Glover's career as a musician with Koerner, Ray & Glover (1960s-early 2000s), Nine Below Zero (1975), Ray & Glover (1980s-early 2000s), Koerner & Glover (2000s); V3 (2003-2004), his collaboration with musicians Pop Wagner and Charlie Maguire (2011-2015), and other miscellaneous solo and collaborative projects. The records also document Glover's writing career as a music critic (1960s-1980s), his publication of three songbooks (1960s-1980s), his work on authoring liner notes for Bob Dylan and other bands and musicians (1990s-2000s), and his book publication Blues with a feeling: the Little Walter story (2002).

More specifically, records consists of: contracts, agreements, planning documentation, and correspondence for Glover's gigs, commercial recordings productions, projects, and publications with numerous record labels, music venues, and publishers; logs, notes, audiorecordings, and scripts for session recordings; drafts and manuscripts for his songbooks, book publications, and liner notes; press kits, orders, sales and expenses information, posters, photographs, graphic design, and promotions materials for albums, concert performances, and video documentaries; copies of Glover's music reviews and magazine articles; photographs and ephemera from live performances; and newspaper clippings and other media coverage.

Return to top

Return to top

RESTRICTED: USE OF ORIGINAL MEDIA.

Commercial recordings: studio, live performance, and documentary

Demos, session recordings, live concert recordings, media, and projects

Return to top

This collection is indexed under the following headings in the catalog of the Minnesota Historical Society. Researchers desiring materials about related topics, persons or places should search the catalog using these headings.

Topics:

Harmonica -- Methods -- Self-instruction.

Harmonica music.

Popular music -- United States.

Folk music -- United States.

Blues (Music) -- United States.

Documentary films.

Concert films.

Blues musicians -- Minnesota.

Music critics.

Rock music -- Reviews.

Rock musicians -- Interviews.

Organizations:

Koerner, Ray, and Glover (Musical group), performer.

Ray and Glover (Musical group), performer.

Front Porch Swingin' Liquor Pigs (Musical group), performer.

Doors (Musical group), performer.

V3 (Musical group), performer.

Nine Below Zero (Musical group), performer.

Persons:

Koerner, John, performer.

Ray, Dave, performer.

Dylan, Bob, 1941-, performer.

Rodine, Jon, performer.

Kalmbach, Chris, performer.

Raitt, Bonnie, performer.

Wagner, Pop, 1949-, performer.

Maguire, Charlie, performer.

Michaelson, Galen, performer.

Document Types:

Audiocassettes.

Compact discs.

Photographs.

Sound recordings.

Video discs.

Video recordings.

Videocassettes.

Interviews.

Musical performances.

Songbooks.

Titles:

Rolling stone (San Francisco, Calif.)

Return to top