From State Fair talent contest runners-up to Grandstand headliners: Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis come home

Before the Grammys, the string of No. 1 records and a catalog of more than 500 recordings, there was the Minnesota State Fair.

For Jimmy Jam, the memories stretch back more than six decades: the Midway, Machinery Hill, the food, the music and trips to the fair with his father.

"I remember every year coming," Jam said. "I wanted to just get to the Midway and ride the rides."

His parents, however, had other plans. There were stops at the 4-H building and Machinery Hill before young Jimmy got to the rides. Years later, he would do the same thing to his own children.

"I subjected my kids to the same exact thing when they came," he laughed.

Now Jam is returning to the fair for something that would have been difficult for that little boy to imagine: He and longtime musical partner Terry Lewis will headline the Minnesota State Fair Grandstand on Aug. 29.

"To grow up in this environment and loving this and then to actually be here with the opportunity to perform some 60-some years later, it's surreal," Jam said. "That is the only word I can describe."

"We were first to lose"

Lewis has his own Minnesota State Fair memory — although his is slightly less pleasant. Their band Flyte Tyme once competed in the fair's talent contest. They finished second.

"We were first to lose," Lewis joked. "And I'm still traumatized."

Decades later, the band that couldn't win the talent contest is returning with Jam and Lewis' names on the Grandstand marquee. For Lewis, even the losses were important.

"I say you can't get good until you get booed," he said. "That's part of the seasoning."

Rejection, he said, teaches humility — and reminds an artist that no matter how talented they may be, there is always more to learn.

Love at first sound

The partnership between Jam and Lewis predates the hits, Flyte Tyme and even Prince. They met in 1973 as junior high school students participating in the University of Minnesota's Upward Bound program. Lewis remembers walking past a room filled with pianos and spotting Jam at one of them — with several girls gathered around.

"I was peeking around the corner, and I said, 'I gotta get to know this dude,'" Lewis recalled.

"Allegedly," Jam quickly interjected.

Jam remembers noticing Lewis, too. While students were checking into the dorms, he saw Lewis sitting on a bed with a red, black and green bass, playing Kool & the Gang.

"I just said, 'I got to get to know this brother,'" Jam said. "It was love at first sight when I met Terry."

Maybe it was more like love at first sound. The two teenagers discovered they could teach each other. Jam had grown up listening to artists including Chicago, America and Seals & Crofts. Lewis introduced him to another musical world — Earth, Wind & Fire, Tower of Power, New Birth and more.

"Music was the thing that brought us together," Jam said. "I taught him a little bit about pop music. He taught me a little bit about R&B music and funk music."

Music, Jam said, became "the foundation of our relationship." More than 50 years later, it still is.

How Jimmy Harris became Jimmy Jam

There was a time, however, when Jam stopped playing in bands and focused on DJing. Lewis repeatedly tried to lure him back.

"Every single day about 10 in the morning, it would be Terry Lewis: 'What you gonna do, Jam? What you gonna do, Jam?'" Jam recalled. "And he finally broke me down."

That period also gave Jimmy Harris the name the rest of the world would eventually know. While DJing at the Fox Trap nightclub in Minneapolis, a bartender asked Harris for his DJ name. He didn't have one. The bartender solved the problem.

"He said, 'I'm gonna call you Jimmy Jam. Jimmy Jam, pots and pans, shake my hand,'" Jam recalled.

The nickname stuck, but it took Prince to make it official.

Distilling 500 recordings into one night

What followed is music history. Jam and Lewis have worked with some of the biggest names in popular music, earned multiple Grammys, entered both the Songwriters Hall of Fame and Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, and created more than 500 recordings.

That creates an unusual problem when planning a three-hour concert. How do you turn 500 options into 20?

"I can guarantee you we're not boiling it down to 20," Jam said.

Maybe 30?

"It might be more than 40," Lewis laughed.

Jam and Lewis spent their early years learning their craft by playing other artists' hits in cover bands. Now, they have the opposite problem: deciding which of their own hits make the cut.

"Our musical education was learning other people's hit songs," Jam said. "So now to get an opportunity to play our own songs, our own hits, our own catalog, is an amazing opportunity for us."

And then there's the State Fair corn, Janet's favorite

Of course, you can't talk about coming home to the Minnesota State Fair without talking about food. For Jam's family, he said, that's a major part of the experience.

Apparently, the same was true for Janet Jackson.

"I'll tell you who was funny on the corn was Janet," Jam said, remembering a trip to the fair with Jackson. "Oh my God, she was taking it home with her. She was like, 'Can I take some home?'"

Jam has his own list for his return: a Pronto Pup, French fries, the Midway, Skyride, Space Tower and Ye Old Mill.

There's history behind the fries, too. As a kid, Jam spent so much time around the French fry stand that he says they eventually gave him his own French fry cap.

"I just want to hit everything," Jam said. "I just think it's so cool to be out here again."

And maybe that is what makes Aug. 29 more than another concert. Two Minnesota kids met because one heard a piano and the other heard a bass. They became friends. Then brothers. Then hitmakers. Along the way, there were losses, rejection and plenty of what Lewis calls "seasoning."

Now, more than half a century later, they're returning to a place filled with childhood memories — not as the kids in the crowd, and not as the band that finished second. This time, their names are on the Grandstand marquee.

"Fifty years later, and that opportunity comes up, man," Lewis said. "You can't even write that."

"I couldn't, in my wildest imagination, dream this up."