Minnesota Prairie Roots

Writing and photography by Audrey Kletscher Helbling

Your lucky day with music o’plenty in Faribault on Friday, March 13 March 10, 2026

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WHETHER YOU LIKE country or Celtic, you’ll find music o’plenty in Faribault on the evening of Friday, March 13.

Just days before St. Patrick’s Day, metro-based Bonnie Drunken Lad takes the stage at the Paradise Center for the Arts for a performance beginning at 7:30 pm. The five-person Irish folk band will play traditional and modern Celtic, sea shanties and pub songs. Their music is sure to get you in a dancing-with-leprechauns, Irish frame of mind.

If you can’t catch the band in Faribault, you can also hear them at Charlie’s Restaurant and Irish Pub/Water Street Inn Ballroom in Stillwater from 11 am-2 pm Saturday, March 14. They’re among a line-up of musical groups playing at a St. Practice Day event. On March 17, Bonnie Drunken Lad will be back at the Stillwater location from 2-5 pm for a music-filled St. Patrick’s Day celebration.

Another option to hear these Irish musicians is from 4-6 pm Saturday, March 14, at Kip’s Irish Pub & Restaurant in St. Louis Park.

For tickets to the Faribault performance Friday evening, March 13, click here.

BLOCKS AWAY from Bonnie Drunken Lad’s show at the Paradise, a local four-piece country band will perform a free concert at the historic Cathedral of Our Merciful Saviour from 7-9 pm Friday, March 13.

The Old Country Boys sing with an authentic twang about daily life, love and hardship. Expect to hear songs by the likes of Merle Haggard, Waylon Jennings, Johnny Cash, George Jones, Hank Williams Sr. and Jr., Charlie Daniels, and Alabama, among others.

Although the concert is free, donations are accepted for Cathedral preservation. This event is part of the Faribault Cathedral Concert Series.

Interestingly enough, last March Bonnie Drunken Lad played at the Cathedral as part of the concert series. Now that I think about it, I’m pretty certain I attended that concert.

I’ve heard the Old Country Boys/Brothers, purveyors of old (not new) country music, play many times in Faribault, at Christ Lutheran Church’s weekly summer wood-fired pizza-concert night, Holy Smoke!

Now, on a Friday evening in mid-March, both groups will be back in Faribault performing country and Celtic music o’plenty at pre-St. Patrick’s Day concerts.

© Copyright 2026 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Minnesota Faces: Country Crooner April 24, 2015

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Portrait #18: Dunnell Lenort

 

Portrait 16, Dunnell Lenort, Village of Yesteryear 2012

 

If you were to read the biography of country and oldies rock n’ roll singer Dunnell Lenort, it would read like a country song.

Heartache and hardship. Good times and bad. But through it all, he perseveres.

I knew none of this when, in July 2012, I listened to Dunnell perform “I Fought the Law” at the 26th annual Steele County Historical Society Extravaganza at the Village of Yesteryear in Owatonna. It was an afternoon of living history, activities and entertainment.

I often wonder what brings a singer onstage to perform with a passion. So when I chose Dunnell’s image for today’s portrait feature, I googled his name to learn more. After hearing Johnny Cash on a home stereo at age five, Dunnell knew he wanted to sing.

But his journey into music starts even earlier. A stroke at only eight months old paralyzed Dunnell’s right leg and arm, beginning 20 plus years of trips to Gillette Children’s Hospital for treatment and multiple surgeries. Through it all, one thing kept this young man’s spirits high—music.

His music career has ebbed and flowed. He once performed on the stage of the Grand Ole Opry and as an opening act for Roy Clark at the Surf Ballroom. (Buddy Holly performed his last show there before the February 3, 1959, fatal plane crash near this Clear Lake, Iowa, venue.)  Mostly Dunnell has entertained audiences in southern Minnesota and northern Iowa. County fairs, casinos, community events. He lives in Twin Lakes, a small town in Freeborn County.

In early 2008, Dunnell’s beloved wife, Angie, underwent surgery to remove a cancerous brain tumor. Things were going good until the couple was seriously injured in an automobile accident several months later.

Angie lost her battle with cancer on September 24, 2014.

On the home page of Dunnell’s website, you won’t find a photo of him. Rather, you will find an image of Angela and these loving words:

I love you Angie and will miss you so very much.—Dunnell

I would like to thank everyone who have expressed their condolences to myself and the family at the loss of my companion, friend and wife Angie. I will miss her tremendously. God’s blessings to you all.—Dunnell

Now that’s a country love song if ever I read one.

Dunnell has many performances booked already for this year, including an appearance again at the July 12 Steele County Historical Society Extravaganza. He’ll take the stage at the Village of Yesterday at 1 p.m.

If you happen to hear Dunnell perform anywhere, remember his inspirational story. His is a story of strength and love, holding strong to hope and a dream.

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This is part of a series, Minnesota Faces, featured every Friday on Minnesota Prairie Roots.

© Copyright 2015 Audrey Kletscher Helbling