Jeanne Arland Peterson

GIG: Matriarch of the Peterson Family, also known as Minnesota’s “first family” of music, which spans three generations. All of her children (many of them pictured) are now professional musicians working with such artists as Kenny Loggins, Stevie Nicks, and Steve Miller.

AGE: Eighty-five years young.

GREW UP: North Minneapolis.

LIVES: In Minneapolis, in a house with piano decorations on the front door and a piano quilt visible from the street through a large picture window.

BLAST FROM THE PAST: “I worked for WCCO as a singer for more than twenty-two years. That was before canned [recorded] music. I played on Breakfast with Bob and As You Like It.

ON CREATING A MUSICAL FAMILY DYNASTY: “I had no idea this would happen. I  graduated from North High. I started playing the piano when I was three years old. Both my parents were musicians. My mother played for silent movies and my father performed with acts around town. My brother was also a musician, and he’s the one who got me started. I was fifteen and my brother set up an audition for me at a nightclub performing popular songs and show tunes. I sang a few tunes, but what got me the job was when the pianist didn’t know a song and I sat and played and sang it.”

ON BUILDING A MUSIC-LOVING FAMILY: “We let the kids choose their own instruments.  In our home, we had a piano, two organs, a bass, drums, sax, and an accordion. Most of them gravitated to the piano. For my son Billy, though, his father put a bass under the piano and told him not to touch it. He went right for it! Today, Billy is performing bass with the Steve Miller Band.”

TOP MUSICAL INFLUENCE: “My number one influence is Ella Fitzgerald, but I also listen to singers like Shirley Horn.”

CATCH HER ACT: July 29. Benefit concert for the Minneapolis Heart Institute Foundation at Abbott Northwestern Hospital. Jeanne’s daughter, Patty, will be performing for the first time since undergoing emergency open-heart surgery last year. Fitzgerald Theater, 10 E. Exchange St., St. Paul, 651-290-1200