Lou Trebar authored one of the Cleveland-Style Polka’s most impressive careers. A true dean of Cleveland-Style music, Lou’s credits included over sixty quality years of professional performances beginning at age 13; over forty years as a composer/arranger and adapter of Cleveland-Style music; leading his own orchestras from 1936-1950; co-owning the Metropole Cafe, Cleveland’s first significant Polka establishment; twenty-five years as the co-leader, featured accordionist, and business manager of the Johnny Pecon-Lou Trebar Orchestra;…
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Adolph Lesser’s colorful career as a musician and entertainer spanned some sixty-five years before his stroke in 1996. Adolph remains one of the most prominent musical figures in the Rocky Mountain region and is affectionately known as the “Old Master”. Born in Loveland, Colorado in 1915, Adolph was the second youngest of eight sons and one daughter. The family always had music in their house and Adolph’s parents were Germans who immigrated…
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Henry “Will” Wilczynski has dedicated 53 years to music as an arranger, composer, teacher and musician. He has written and arranged for some of the greatest polka bands and shows of all time including: Jimmy Sturr (Jimmy’s 10 Grammy award recordings and Christmas shows), Myron Floren, Walt Solek, Dick Pillar, Ray Budzilek, Eddie Skinger, Ray Henry, Connecticut Twins, Rich Bobinski, Johnny Dyno, Mike Piorek, Polonaise Dancers, John Przasnyski and more. He has also…
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*Deceased in 2017* It all started when Jerry Goetsch was a small child, his dad played in a band in the area and his sister and brother also played musical instruments. At 12 or 13 years of age, he began to fall in love with the top polka bands at that time, listening to idol Romy Gosz, Lawrence Duchow, The Six Fat Dutchmen, and Whoopie John. Listening to them was a dream for him.…
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Few can equal the contributions made by Eddie Korosa in popularizing polka music. Eddie has left his mark across the entertainment spectrum, inspiring new generations of polka lovers along the way. Eddie Korosa was born in the Southwest side of Chicago in 1918; a first generation American of Polish and Slovenian heritage, and 1 of 7 children. He attended St. Blaze’s grade school in Summit, and Argo High School. His father, Joseph, an…
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Vi Johantgen was born on September 24, 1915 in Chicago, Illinois. Her parents, Stanley and Marie Patla were born in Rzesow, Poland. Her father was a violinist and her mother was a singer of Polish Folk Songs. At the age of five, Vi started to sing and at the age of 11 joined the choir at St. Casimir’s Church on the Southwest side of Chicago, Illinois. Vi was the only “alto’ with 22…
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Adam Nowicki, born on February 6, 1921 in Conshohocken, PA was the oldest of five children. During the Depression the family moved to Trenton, NJ in 1926 with the hopes of finding work. As a student and parishioner of Holy Cross Church, he developed an early love for polish music and Polish radio programs. His father was the first clarinet player in the International Concert Band in Conshohocken, so there was always a…
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“Still going strong after 47 years,” best describes Chet Zablocki. His “Polish Festival” radio program is still in the same time slot on WTOD – 8:30 a.m. until 12:00 noon. In the late ’50s and early ’60s the show was heard seven days a week, and later changed to Sunday mornings. Chet was born in 1920, and at an early age he showed a love for music. At age 15 he started…
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At the age of 12 Chet had a couple of neighbors that were musicians one played the clarinet, the other the accordion. Chet knew that if he purchased a trumpet he would be asked to join them. Chet’s family couldn’t afford to just purchase one for him outright, so he worked on a farm for two weeks which netted him $10 which was just enough to purchase that trumpet. Now he needed to…
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With the unique sound of an accordion and the oom pah pah of the tuba, “Abie”, Nebraska’s Ernie Kucera and his band has been entertaining people with polka music for the past fifty years. Kucera first started playing drums in his brother’s band, The Kucera Accordion Band in 1938. When war broke out many of the musicians were drafted, and Kucera reorganized the band in 1942. “Since the war took most of the…
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John Check was born near Rosholt, Wisconsin. When he was 14, he had saved a total of $15 from picking cucumbers on his father’s farm and used this money to purchase his first single reed concertina. Within several days he had learned to play several simple melodies. Buying additional concertina music from the Vitak-Elsnic Company, he learned to play these new selections with the usual pattern of reading numbers instead of notes. Within…
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Rock ‘N’ Roll may be here to stay, but so is polka music, according to Norman Marggraff. Marggraff should know: For over 40 years he has made a living spinning “oompah”-type records on the radio. If the name Marggraff doesn’t ring a bell, perhaps his other name, Fritz the Plumber, will. “Fritz the Plumber, they don’t come any dumber,” Marggraff joked one recent Saturday morning as he broadcast from WYLO in Jackson,…
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Joseph F. Czerniak of Duluth, Minnesota, was elected to the polka Music Hall of Fame in the Pioneer category. Joe was inducted along with other inductees, on Saturday, August 5, during the annual International Polka Association Convention and Festival, at the Ramada O’Hare Hotel, in Chicago. Joe Czerniak has been long acknowledged as a Pioneer in many aspects of the polka industry. Joe, 65 years young at the time of his induction,…
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It was a long hard haul for Al Grebnick, Nebraska Polka King, (1978), who grew up in the “dirty thirties,” on a farm. With only an eighth grade education behind him, because the family could neither afford to board him out or buy him a car so that he could gain a high school education, Grebnick turned to music. His first instrument, a Stradivarius given to him by an uncle when he…
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Johnny Menko was born in Windsor Locks, Connecticut on June 13, 1915, and lived in Warehouse Point, Connecticut, during his earlier years. At the age of nine, Johnny was already paying the violin with Polish records on a phonograph. Johnny graduated from Enfield High School in Thompsonville, CT, studied music at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, and graduated from Bay Path Institute in Springfield, Massachusetts, where he majored in Business. …
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Born in Jaslo, Poland in 1911, Bruno Z. Zielinski came to this country with his mother, Anna, as a one- year-old boy. They joined his father Zygmunt, who had earlier settled in Chicago’s neighborhood of Bridgeport. After elementary education at St. Barbara Parish Catholic School, he attended Harrison High School graduating in 1926. Tremendously fascinated by the radio as a new media of communication and entertainment, in 1930 Bruno started spinning polka records…
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Stanley J. Jasinski, one of Buffalo’s most outstanding public figures in the field of broadcasting, was born August 25, 1915 in Detroit, Michigan. While still in high school as an amateur actor and script writer, Stanley began his broadcasting career. As opportunity would have it, one day in 1934, he sat behind a microphone at Radio Station WEXL in Royal Oak, to fill in unexpectedly for an ailing colleague who was program…
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Charlie Hicks is a pioneer in the polka field from the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania area. At eighteen years of age, he already displayed his musical talent by playing accordion. In 1930 he formed a small dance band. In 1937 he made his first recording for RCA Victor. He then joined the staff of radio station WREN in Philadelphia and provided music for their Polish, Italian, Jewish and American radio shows. When the Major Bowes Hour was…
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There can be little doubt about Eddie Oskierko being a pioneer in radio and in the early formative years of polka music. The history of his career can be summarized in one word: “determination.” When Ed started his radio career in October 1930, at station WJKS, he found that the Depression had set in and his efforts in obtaining sponsors at that time were not very productive. For some time after that uncertain beginning, Eddie…
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