Biography
Mark Diedrich grew up in Minnesota and spent most of his forty-plus years in the Rochester vicinity. An accomplished pianist who relished performing show tunes, his mother kept music in constant rotation around the household and steered him toward drums by enrolling him in lessons during fourth grade. In the 1960s he joined his first group, the Nightmares, on drums. Guitar soon drew his interest as he began composing original material and sought a different instrument for the task; his earliest songs date from age fourteen. While finishing high school in St. Paul, Minnesota, he sang and played guitar in several rock-based bands. He later enrolled in art courses at the University of Minnesota, where he assembled the durable unit Coyote and its follow-up incarnation, Going to the Sun. Between 1970 and their breakup in 1973 the band appeared throughout Minnesota and western Wisconsin. He devoted those years to sharpening his songwriting, concentrating on melodies and lyrics built to last. The Byrds and Buffalo Springfield exerted strong influence, guiding him away from straight rock toward deeper roots in folk, country, and bluegrass. His subjects ranged from love and relationships to stories drawn from the Civil War and Native American Indians. Early demo submissions to record labels brought no response. Overuse eventually damaged his voice so severely that it required years to recover. In 1973, unable to perform, he turned to writing Christian music. Working with other musicians, he captured a set of energetic spiritual pieces. He abandoned plans to press records after moving briefly to Chicago with his young family. As his throat healed he kept writing and produced a dozen home recordings that circulated among friends on cassettes. He established a publishing career focused on Native American Indian history under the imprint Coyote Books. Throughout the 1980s he played solo engagements in restaurants and bars as well as duo shows with his brother Paul Diedrich in Diedrich Brothers. The mid-1990s resurgence of coffeehouse venues in southeastern Minnesota led him to resume solo work on acoustic guitar and harmonica. With more than two hundred songs at his disposal, he performed entirely original material alongside interpretations of songs by favored artists such as Neil Young. Early in 2000 he teamed with IBM engineer and musician Jim Cardinal, owner of a recording studio in Rochester, Minnesota. The partnership produced the ten-track album Something Tells Me. All selections were originals except his reading of Buddy Holly’s “True Love Ways.” Reviewers characterized the collection as an eclectic and vigorous blend of folk, country, and rock that occupies a natural spot in contemporary Americana.
Albums
