Graduates from Hibbing High School

By his teens he was banging out Little Richard numbers on the piano and leading a string of short-lived school bands, among them the Golden Chords. At least one talent-show performance was loud enough that the school cut it short, a story classmates told for years afterwards. He also had a high school girlfriend, Echo Helstrom, often named as an inspiration for his later song "Girl from the North Country". Rock and roll, more than folk music, was his passion at this point, and he dreamed of the kind of stardom Elvis Presley had. Graduation meant leaving Hibbing. That summer he briefly played piano with Bobby Vee's band in Fargo, and in the autumn he moved south to Minneapolis, where his musical direction would change quickly.