Flathead favorite John Dunnigan never gets tired of playing his hometown

Flathead Valley music legend John Dunnigan has played venues in the area for over 40 years. But, when Thursday night comes around and he’s preparing to play another set at Whitefish’s Great Northern Bar and Grill, he’s just as excited as he’s ever been to see what the crowd will bring. 

Dunnigan was born and raised in northern California, where he started his first band after watching the Beatles perform on “The Ed Sullivan Show.” 

“Me and two other buddies immediately formed a band, called the Unbeatables, but none of us played instruments. I got my dad's guitar and did the air guitar thing and a buddy of mine got my mom's old sewing kit top and he was the drummer — I don't think we knew what a bass guitar was. And we just dreamed of being chased around by girls,” Dunnigan said. 

When he got older, he started a band with a friend doing the “folky, Simon and Garfunkel thing.” But, soon he’d leave California for Northwest Montana, where his parents moved to open a sporting goods store in Bigfork in the 1970s. 

“(The band) was genuinely pretty mediocre at the time, but it was really fun. I sure didn't know that 40 years later I would still be doing this,” Dunnigan said. 

Dunnigan will be performing for the Daily Inter Lake’s next Press Play lunchtime concert on Jan. 5. 

Being a musician is essentially all he’s done since moving to Montana. He worked as a server at the Buffalo Cafe for a time, but some of his earliest consistent jobs were house gigs for local venues. These gigs, like his tenure playing on Big Mountain, allowed him to leave most of his equipment at the resort, so it was easy come, easy go.

“You took your guitars home at night, of course. It's all different now,” Dunnigan said. 

But Dunnigan doesn’t fret about not being able to play his favorite venues consistently. He’s enjoyed playing at the Great Northern on Thursday nights for many years, it’s the “place he gets to do almost anything,” playing whatever music interests him. 

“When I go to the more restaurant-oriented kind of venues, you gotta kind of mind your P's and Q's a little more. Not that I ever get really raunchy, I got a couple of adult songs that I would probably do here … And you know, 12 o'clock at night on a Thursday, snowy night and in the Great Northern anything pretty much goes you know, within reason,” Dunnigan said. 

It’s quiet and peaceful Thursday morning at the Northern, as regulars straggled in to watch sports and grab lunch while Dunnigan talks about his storied career and sets up his equipment for a show later that night. The place has an entirely different energy come nightfall, he points out. Dunnigan doesn’t prepare a setlist, per say, he plays a few of his usual songs and waits to see what the audience is hungry to hear. 

“I kind of get caught up in that energy. I'm not sure I create the energy or they create it. But, it takes me on the ride where it's a kind of a 50-50 deal, I just see where I go. I never know what's going to happen here, so it’s fun,” Dunnigan said. 

In the new year, Dunnigan is looking forward to more normalcy, referring back to the start of the pandemic, which shook up the lives of performing musicians everywhere. 

“Covid was just horrendous for musicians. I remember playing here and playing at the Whitefish Lake Lodge on a Saturday night. When the guy handed me my check, we kind of made some jokes about, you know, Corona beer. I remember nobody was thinking it's serious,” Dunnigan said. “Then the next morning, Sunday morning, I heard they closed the Big Mountain ski resort down and they canceled the Final Four … I didn't realize until that maybe later that day that ‘oh my gosh, all my gigs just stopped.’”

With no income, it was a really intense time for Dunnigan and other local musicians — along with the venues that previously employed them. 

“I'm really happy that that's behind us. And the crowds came back and it was really really fun to have people dancing and enjoying themselves again. It was a long time that nobody wanted to go out and I don't blame them,” Dunnigan said.

He enjoys not having to travel far for his gigs anymore, mostly playing in Whitefish and Kalispell. In the summer, he used to leave his usual shows to play county and state fairs throughout Montana.

“I don't do many of those anymore. The jobs are so nice here, and I got an old dog and I got my wife. Hey, my dog, Archie, he's out in the truck waiting for me right now. So, I just want to stay around here,” Dunnigan said. “And who wants to leave the Flathead Valley in July, right? Nobody. I think I'm the luckiest musician on planet Earth, and I just get to stay right here.” 

Dunnigan performs on Jan. 5  for the Daily Inter Lake’s Press Play concert series. The concert begins at noon and tickets are available by donating to the Inter Lake’s Newspapers in Education initiative. Concertgoers can bring lunch or purchase one of three lunch options from The House of S&M.

Tickets and lunch are available at https://flatheadtickets.com/ or by calling 406-758-4436.

Reporter Taylor Inman can be reached at 406-758-4433 or by emailing tinman@dailyinterlake.com.