The polka career of Chet Schafer began in 1950, when, together with Li’l Wally Jagiello, their voices were heard on a half-hour polka program on radio station WCRW in Chicago. But things didn’t roll for Chet until he started his own “Polka Hit Parade” program on station WTAQ, LaGrange, Illinois, in 1952. On this program he spun the best selling polka records according to the surveys, getting the idea from the then popular…
The Dick Rodgers International TV Recording Orchestra was organized in 1945 when Dick formed a band comprised of high school students. Within a few years the band was doing live radio broadcasts and made their first recording in Chicago. From recordings and radio the next step in promoting the band was TV. In 1955 the first live telecast was made over Station WLUK, Green Bay, Wisconsin. The program was later expanded from a half…
John Anthony Wilfahrt, better known as “Whoopee John” Wilfahrt, was born in 1893 on a farm near New Ulm, Minnesota. His grandparents, Joseph Wilfahrt and Franzeska Hauser, migrated to America in March, 1867, with three of their children and settled on a farm in Sigel Township, a few miles from New Ulm. The family came from the small village of Swarzach located in the Bohemian Forest of western Bohemia., then part of Austria.…