Polka King Read online

  The Melody Makers’ auspicious debut took place at one of our school’s monthly Parent Teacher Association meetings, a job that came to me the way many jobs in the music industry come about—connections. In this case my connection was my mother, who was the PTA president. (My father, it should be noted, was the president of the school board, which I’m sure didn’t hurt our cause either.) I don’t remember our set list, and, as was the case with our rehearsals, the performance wasn’t documented on tape. I’m certain, however, that the PTA gave the Melody Makers a wonderful reception. The only downside to the job was that we didn’t get paid!

  Ninth grade classmates at Seward High School. From left to right (back row): Eddie Szulewski, Conrad Matuszewski, Tommy Regelski, Jimmy Sturr, and Frankie Shanley. (Front row) Barbara (Sobkowiak) Matuszewski, Rose (Hink) Weslowki, Pat (Sullivan) Jessup, Pat Stzendor, and Rita (Gailie) Rich.

  By the time I hit junior high school, I changed the name of the band from the Melody Makers to Jimmy Sturr and the Golden Bells Orchestra. Why? Well, because back then, it seemed like almost every polka band in the great Northeast had a “Bell” in its name. For instance, the great Gene Wisniewski’s band was called the Harmony Bells Orchestra, Bernie Witkowski’s terrific unit was known as the Silver Bells Orchestra, and good ol’ Joe Resetar led the Liberty Bell Orchestra. Why all the bells? No clue. And I never asked. But I figured if bells were good enough for Gene Wisniewski, Bernie Witkowski, and Joe Resetar, then bells were good enough for Jimmy Sturr.

  I don’t know whether it was because we were that good or that cheap, but for whatever reason, the Golden Bells were hired to play a bunch of the well-attended local street festivals, as well as the occasional Polish wedding. We didn’t work as much as we would’ve liked, however, not because we weren’t professional sounding, or because of our ages, but because the Golden Bells Orchestra wasn’t the only polka band in the area. As I learned over the next several years, Florida and the surrounding towns and villages comprised one of the great polka music hotbeds in the Northeast.

  The most popular group in our area was called the Gay Musicians, which played the majority of the high school dances and seemingly all of the weddings, with an orchestra led by a man named Joe Zack a close second. Joe was so obsessed with music (almost as obsessed as me) that he eventually opened a record shop in which almost 90 percent of the albums were polka, most of which were on Dana Records.

  Right now you’re probably asking yourself, “Why were there so many polka bands in the Florida, New York, area? And who the heck is Gene Wisniewski? And what the heck is Dana Records?” Well, take a seat, my friends, because I’m about to give you a brief history of polka.

  2

  Jimmy Sturr’s Brief History of Polka

  Jimmy Sturr’s brief history of polka can’t officially begin without Jimmy Sturr’s brief history of Florida.

  Founded in 1760 by some intrepid, forward-thinking Anglo-European colonists and incorporated in 1946, Florida, New York, is the undisputed “Onion Capital of the World,” despite what those big talkers in Vidalia, Georgia, or Oneida Lake, New York, have to say about it. Florida is covered with onion farms, many of which are heavy with what’s called black dirt, a type of dirt whose properties make it the perfect birthing place for perfect onions. Even today, it seems like you can’t drive a country block without running into an enormous onion farm . . . or two . . . or three.

  When all those colonists came from Europe to work in the black dirt, they brought their lives and traditions with them, and by that I mean their traditional recipes, their favored styles of clothing, and, most important for the sake of our story, their music. For the majority of these newcomers, that music was polka. (Believe it or not, you can hear the roots of polka in compositions from eighteenth-century classical composers like Frederic Chopin and Sergei Rachmaninoff.) All of which is why polka has been a major part of my life since I was a kid—it was always there. I guess you could say it was my first love.

  But I wasn’t alone. If you lived in Florida, you had polka in your blood because the music was everywhere you turned. On the radio: polka. At the high school dances: polka. At weddings: polka. At all the town celebrations: polka. It was all polka all the time, and it was glorious. The bubbly, effervescent melodies . . . the party-inducing beats . . . the lyrics that made you smile, even if they were in Polish and you didn’t understand them. I believe that polka was (and is) the reason that Florida was (and is) one heck of a happy town. This isn’t to say that there wasn’t any other music floating around—I enjoyed Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, the Everly Brothers, Gene Vincent, and the like, certainly—but polka was my rock and roll. Why? Because of how it felt.

  Polka is unlike any other style of music for a variety of reasons, the most notable being its time signature. For you nonmusicians out there, a time signature denotes how many beats there are in a single measure. (To break it down even further, a measure, when you’re reading music, is the way a song is subdivided. If that’s confusing, it’s probably time to go visit your elementary school music teacher.) Most songs sport a 4/4 time signature, meaning there are four beats in a measure subdivided by four. A waltz, on the other hand, is 3/4, meaning three beats in a measure subdivided by four. In rock, soul, classical, and country, 4/4 is the most common time signature, but musicians can use any kind of signature they desire. However, if you’re writing or arranging something for a polka band—a real polka band—the majority of the time, it’ll be in 2/4, although my Orchestra has been known to play a waltz or three. Not only that but the vast majority of polka tunes are formatted in four-measure increments. In other words, all the sections of the song are either four measures long, or eight, or sixteen, or thirty-two, etc. Why all the fours? Because they offer the perfect blueprint for dancing the perfect polka. (You didn’t think you’d be getting a musicology lesson from me, did ya?)

  When the polka first came to America, its scene, such as it was, became splintered because like all the other European transplants, the practitioners from the different countries in Europe settled all throughout the states. Some planted roots in the New York City area, some around Chicago, and some around Detroit. For example, there were heavy pockets of Slovenians in Pittsburgh and Cleveland, while a good number of Germans settled in Minnesota and Iowa. A huge Polish contingent settled in Buffalo, New York, and they all brought their distinct, individualistic brand of polka to their new homes.

  The Slovenian bands, for instance, were mostly small, intimate ensembles, with only an accordion, a bass, drums, sometimes a banjo, and a tenor saxophone. Polish bands, on the other hand, featured two trumpets, three saxophonists, an accordion, and a traditional piano/bass/drums rhythm section. The energetic, driving Polish sound dominated the East Coast, and that was what I grew up listening to; naturally, when it came time to put my band together, that was where I gravitated.

  Some of my biggest influences came from the New England area, and the majority of them were of Polish descent. Frank Wojnarowski, for instance, was a native of Sanok, Poland. The Connecticut-based violinist/vocalist had a couple of notable hits, the biggest ones being “Matka (Mother’s Waltz),” “Goral,” “Jasiu, Jasiu,” “Rozmaria,” and a cover of “Oh, Suzanna.” Gene Wisniewski, whom we’ll be discussing in more detail later in this book, was a first-generation American, also based in Connecticut, best known for a nice little ditty called “Open the Door Polka.” Walt Solek, another East Coaster, liberally sprinkled comedy into his recordings and was known as “The Polish Spike Jones.” Like the aforementioned Mr. Wisniewski, I’ll have much more to say about Walt. There was also Bernie Witkowski, a terrific clarinetist from New York City who eventually shared concert bills with the likes of Frank Sinatra, Sophie Tucker, Milton Berle, Jackie Gleason, Xavier Cugat, Benny Goodman, Sammy Kaye, and Harry James. Al Soyka, who went on to play a key role in my development as a professional musician, had a huge hit with the tune “Trip to Poland.” Finally, there was Ray Henry, another Connecticut musician, who
was almost as prolific as yours truly, cutting more than eighty records. And, of course, there were the Connecticut Twins, the brothers Stash and Jas, all the way from Bristol, Connecticut.

  But that was just the Northeastern polka contingency. In Cleveland, you had Ray Budzilek; in Pennsylvania, you had Joe Resetar and Joe Timmer; and in Massachusetts, you had Larry Chesky, and so on and so on and so on. (If you were to ask me my favorite band, I’d be hard-pressed to give you an answer, because I like them all, but there was one artist who always stood out to me, a man from Waterbury, Connecticut, named Joe Rock. Joe fronted one of those Polish-style bands I loved so much, a ten-piece orchestra that, unlike every other polka band I’d seen, included a trombone player; if you ever want to make people smile, hire a trombone player. Watching someone move his arms like that always gets people laughing.)

  These are the men I heard on the radio while I was growing up in Florida, and I listened to the radio constantly. My usual system for listening was to press my ear right up against the speaker because oftentimes there was more static than music, as the radio stations were so far away. On Sunday mornings, for example, I’d listen to a station from Connecticut; then in the afternoon, it would be a station from New Jersey. My mother always scolded me when she caught me pressed against the speaker. I can still hear her yelling, “James Sturr Jr., you’re gonna go deaf if you keep doing that!” When the static finally drowned out the music, I’d imagine the beats were actually thumping through our radio, filling our living room with those European-tinged, accordion-drenched melodies. I also never missed our local Saturday night polka show.

  Since the radio wasn’t as consistent as I would’ve liked, I saved up my allowance and bought every polka record I could get my hands on, a habit that continues to this day; as of this writing, I have more than twelve thousand polka LPs, and close to thirty-five hundred polka CDs down in my basement. And believe it or not, I still have room down there for a radio studio.

  At that point, most of my favorite polka artists recorded for a label out of New York City called Dana Records. Dana was founded in 1946 by Walter Dana (his birth name was Wladyslaw Dan Danilowski), and, within a couple of years, it became the polka label. If you played a mean polka, you were on Dana. It had 120 or so albums in its catalog, all of which sold and sold and sold. In 1952, Billboard noted that Dana was the third-best-selling label in the country, just behind majors like Columbia and RCA Victor, and ahead of Decca, Capitol, and Mercury.

  (While polka was an important part of Florida life, some of my friends and family found my rabid interest in the music a bit odd, mostly because the music is associated with Poland, and I’m Irish. When my band began touring and recording regularly, one of the constant refrains from polka purists was, “Don’t record Jimmy Sturr, don’t produce Jimmy Sturr, don’t promote Jimmy Sturr, and don’t book Jimmy Sturr. He’s not Polish. He’s not one of us.” One of the area Polish newspapers even ran multiple articles about how I was killing polka. I’ve never understood that; I would’ve thought their reaction would have been one of ecstasy. First of all, the polka community, while large and fanatical, could always use another warm body out there, keeping the music alive, so it was silly to alienate somebody who was performing and recording the music the right way. Second of all, shouldn’t they have been excited that a non-Pole should devote his life to Polish music? It baffled me then and it baffles me now.)

  Now don’t get me wrong—I didn’t obsess about polka all day, every day, though up to this point it may sound like it. I listened to my fair share of rock and roll, and, as noted, I had other interests, the main one being baseball. I played in the Babe Ruth and American Legion Leagues and was primarily a pitcher, though I sometimes covered first base. After a rainout one Sunday, one of my friends grabbed me by my elbow, pulled me toward his car, and said, “Come on. We’re going to a picnic.”

  I pointed to the gray, waterlogged sky. “But it’s raining and it doesn’t look like it’ll be stopping anytime soon.”

  “Nah, it’ll stop,” he said. “Besides, we’re going to New Jersey. It never rains in New Jersey.”

  “What’s in New Jersey?” I wondered.

  “The guys at the Polish meat market in the center of Florida are having their employee picnic,” he explained, “in a town called Oak Ridge.”

  There wasn’t anything else going on, so I said, “Sounds good,” and off we went.

  I didn’t have any expectations, but if I did, this picnic would’ve exceeded them, no matter how lofty they might have been. I was in awe of the colorful people, the diverse, plentiful food, and, most important, the music. It was the real deal, the Polish brand of polka I’d been hearing for years on the radio, brought to life by local polka heavyweights like Johnny Bud and Frankie Gutowski. Best of all, I didn’t have to strain to hear the music over any radio static!

  The next week, after our baseball game, my friend told me that there was another one of those picnics out in Jersey, so I hopped into his car and we drove over the border for more food and fun. The following week, and the week after that, same thing. This went on for a while, and it got to the point where I skipped the game and went right to the picnic. For the first time in my life, polka completely trumped sports.

  3

  A Yankees Interlude

  And while we’re on the subject of sports . . .

  When he was a young boy, my father worked for a pheasant hunting club. How, you may ask, does a pheasant hunting club work? Well, it’s pretty simple: The staff of the club would stock the large wooded area across the valley from our house with pheasants, and the club’s clientele would come by with their guns, pay their entry fee, then load up their weapons and shoot themselves a few birds.

  My father was a teenager, and they weren’t about to let him near any guns, so his primary job was to let the pheasants out of their cages. (In retrospect, one has to wonder if it was such a good idea to have a child in charge of wild birds, but times were different then.) One gray, rainy afternoon, one of the pheasants left his cage, spun around, and headed right toward my father. And that bird was apparently moving fast.

  In what had to be an instinctual move, one of the adults shot the pheasant right in its side, in an attempt to save my father from a bird attack. That was the good news. The bad news was that this portly man wasn’t the best shot in the world. He wasn’t even the best shot in Florida. In fact, he also managed to clip my father in the hand.

  This portly man’s name was George Herman “Babe” Ruth. You’d think that the guy would have better aim, since he could hit and pitch a baseball like nobody’s business. Being that it was Babe Ruth, there was always the possibility he was schnockered. At any rate, I still have the pellet that the doctors removed from my dad’s palm. I have to think that’s worth something to a collector out there.

  This is part of the reason why, as a child, I was a rabid New York Yankees fan and worshipped the likes of such pitchers as Eddie Lopat, Allie Reynolds, and Vic Raschi. (That was one hell of a pitching staff they had back then, believe me. Between 1949 and 1953, they anchored what I’d argue was one of the great starting rotations in Major League Baseball history.) Lopat was a particular favorite, because, like me, he was a lefty; we lefties always have to stick together.

  Many, many decades later, my band was playing a show at Carnegie Hall. Before we took the stage, one of my roadies jogged over and breathlessly said, “There’s a guy in the audience who used to play for the Yankees!”

  I was always up for meeting a professional athlete, especially one who played for my favorite team. “Find out what his name is,” I said.

  A few minutes later, the roadie jogged on back and huffed, “Eddie Lopat. He says his name is Eddie Lopat.”

  I put down my sax, looked that roadie dead in the eye, and told him, “Some way, somehow, you make sure that guy gets backstage after the show. He’s my idol.”

  When we finished up the show, I walked toward the stage wings, and standing there, right by
the side of the curtain, sure enough, it’s Eddie Lopat himself. He was hale and hearty, and looked like he could throw a five-hit shutout against any Major League team right then and there.

  Eddie and I got to talking, and it turned out that he was a big hunting and fishing guy. Not only that but thanks to some invites from yours truly, he went to the very same pheasant club where Babe Ruth shot my father. (I should mention that my dad was the club’s president. He stayed with them all those years; I suspect that not too many people would have hung around after they got plugged in the hand, but that was my father for you.) Eddie lived in New Jersey, and since that wasn’t too far from us, he started making regular trips to the club. He eventually became great friends with my father, which if you look at it a certain way, is kind of poetic justice: a Yankee great befriending a guy who was shot by a great Yankee.