- Our family homesteaded this in 1854 so it's over 160 years.
I'm 5th generation and my nephew,
who is back from college,
is 6th generation on the same place.
C'mon. C'mon.
Our family has been very involved
in the genetic side of the dairy cattle.
[tractor engine]
Like most kids, we were on a tractor by ten.
So been doing it for about 40 years.
My father, Howard, my brother, Brian
and I all went to UW-Madison in the Dairy Science School.
You know about my junior year I started thinking, "Ehhh.
You know I'm not quite feeling this like I should."
[wheels rolling on concrete]
- This is the fun part right here.
Three hundred pounds of organ.
[music note from organ]
So the first time I saw one of these things,
the guy had papers all in front of that speaker.
He uses the Doppler Effect to give that tone.
[sustained note]
Soon as you hit a button, it doubles the speed.
[notes played on organ]
And when that turned on, he had those papers there,
just went whooshing all over the place.
And I went, "Oh, I gotta have that."
Our whole family's always been musical.
My mom and dad met, my dad was playing in a polka band.
And we've always, all the kids,
all of us sang and took instruments in high school.
So yeah, music was always there.
So we are "The Jimmys."
We're going to play a couple new tunes.
So new we haven't even recorded them.
Here we go. [fast paced music]
I think music was always
one of the most important things in my life.
It always was.
But making a living is important too.
[upbeat music]
In high school, I wasn't doing my lessons.
I wasn't learning how to read music,
wasn't doing things properly.
Finally, we got a really good teacher in in my junior year.
Everything caught up to me
and he flunked me my junior year of high school in band.
[fast music with organ playing rhythm]
The day I remember
that I felt like I had been christened as a musician
was at a festival in Wausau.
And we're playing and I'm playing a solo.
And I get done with the solo and got a standing ovation.
It was great.
First people that stood up were my parents.
[music]
And my dad came up to me and he said, "I was so proud..."
and then choked up and just walked away.
[piano music]
That was the day that I became a musician first.
So that felt good.
He was always proud. My mom's always been proud.
My family's always been supportive.
I'm very lucky that way.
[upbeat music with piano playing rhythm]
[tractor engine]
I really enjoy the dichotomy of the two careers.
It's nice to get completely away from people 'cause, you know,
you're constantly around and it's very busy.
But the farm is very busy too.
But you have a lot of moments by yourself,
either with the driving or the mechanics.
[fast, jazzy piano music]
On good nights of playing,
your brain is not engaged at all really.
You stop being technical about it and you just kind of
let your-- let everything take you where you're going to go.
[fast, jazzy piano music]
With farming you have to be sharp-witted all the time.
There's so many things that could wrong
on these giant pieces of equipment that could break.
People get hurt if you're not paying attention.
I've broken a couple of them.
It's just horrible.
It scares me all the time 'cause you're constantly around stuff
that can be, that can crush 'em.
It's a long day.
It's a long weekend.
For instance this past weekend, worked all day,
pretty hard on Thursday.
We played our gig on Thursday night.
Had to come down here really quick for a couple hours
before we got in the van at 10 o'clock in the morning.
Up to the Twin Cities to play.
Then the next day got done at two o'clock.
We got into the hotel at two.
Got up at six, drove home.
Sunday I'm here.
We're planting corn for a couple hours.
I had to go do some other stuff.
Come back. Plant.
If I had to give up one or the other,
I don't know which one I would do.
[upbeat music]
Wow!
Good night everybody!
We'll see you in a couple weeks. Woo!
[band jamming at end of song]
Thank you everybody. [applause]
This is my Wisconsin Life. [laughing]