Accordions are a family of box-shaped musical instruments of the bellows-driven free reed aerophone type. The essential characteristic of the accordion is to combine in one instrument a melody section, also called the diskant, usually on the right-hand manual, with an accompaniment or Basso continuo functionality on the left-hand. The musician normally plays the melody on buttons or keys on the right-hand side, and the accompaniment on bass or pre-set chord buttons on the left-hand side. A person who plays the accordion is called an accordionist.
Frank John Yankovic was an American accordion player and polka musician. Known as "America's Polka King", Yankovic was considered the premier artist to play in the Slovenian style during his long career. He was not related to fellow accordionist "Weird Al" Yankovic, although the two collaborated.
Lawrence Welk was an American accordionist, bandleader, and television impresario, who hosted The Lawrence Welk Show from 1951 to 1982. His style came to be known as "champagne music" to his radio, television, and live-performance audiences.
The Lawrence Welk Show is an American televised musical variety show hosted by big band leader Lawrence Welk. The series aired locally in Los Angeles for four years, from 1951 to 1955, then nationally for another 16 years on ABC from 1955 to 1971, followed by 11 years in first-run syndication from 1971 to 1982. Repeat episodes are broadcast in the United States by Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) stations. These airings incorporate an original program—usually, a color broadcast from 1965 to 1982—in its entirety. In place of the commercials, newer performance and interview clips from the original stars and/or a family member of the performers are included; these clips are occasionally updated.
The Music of North Dakota has followed general American trends over much of its history, beginning with ragtime and folk music, moving into big band and jazz. With the development of mass media, local artists in North Dakota, as in the rest of the country, saw a rapid loss of opportunity to create, perform, and sell popular music to the regional audience that had previously provided a market. Punk Music is a major genre in the modern youth scene of North Dakota.
Ladislav John "Walter" Ostanek, CM is a Canadian musician. He is known as "Canada's Polka King." He has received twenty-one nominations for Grammy Awards and won three.
Norsk Høstfest is an annual festival held each fall in Minot, North Dakota, US. It is North America's largest Scandinavian festival.
John Serry Sr. was an American concert accordionist, arranger, composer, organist, and educator. He performed on the CBS Radio and Television networks and contributed to Voice of America's cultural diplomacy initiatives during the Golden Age of Radio. He also concertized on the accordion as a member of several orchestras and jazz ensembles for nearly forty years between the 1930s and 1960s.
Those Darn Accordions, commonly abbreviated as TDA, are an American accordion band from San Francisco, California, originally formed in 1989 by Linda "Big Lou" Seekins.
Robert Wilkie Burgess is an American dancer and singer. He was one of the original Mouseketeers. Later, he was a regular on The Lawrence Welk Show.
KXRB is an AM radio station in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, airing a classic country format. The station is owned by Townsquare Media.
Jerry Burke was a musician who played the organ and piano for the Lawrence Welk orchestra from 1934 to 1965.
Cory Pesaturo is an American musician from Cumberland, Rhode Island. Pesaturo is an accordion player, who also plays the piano, clarinet, and saxophone. He began playing at the age of nine, and in 2002, became the youngest person to win the National Accordion Championship. In 2009, he won the Coupe Mondiale World Digital Accordion Championship in Auckland, New Zealand, and became the first American to win a World Accordion Championship since Peter Soave 25 years earlier. In 2011, Pesaturo who had previously stopped playing acoustic accordion, won the Primus Ikaalinen World Acoustic Accordion Championship, while additionally being its first ever American contestant. Furthermore on the world titles, Pesaturo used his own arrangements for the band, improvised most of the performances, and played on borrowed accordions; all of which were unheard of in world accordion championships. In 2017, he broke the Guinness World Record for the longest continuous playing of the accordion, which was sponsored by Red Bull from his relationship with the Red Bull F1 Team. In 2009, Cory won the Leavenworth International Championship, and International Jazz Championship, along with performing in 5 different continents which included the countries of Canada, Italy, New Zealand, Tunisia and Japan. Pesaturo is one of only four accordionists in history to win a World Championship on both acoustic and electronic accordion, and is the only person to also win a world championship in jazz.
Polka is a music and dance style that originated in Europe in the 1830s and came to American society when people immigrated from Eastern Europe. A fast style in 2/4 time, and often associated with the pre–World War II era, polka remains a dynamic "niche" music in America.
The accordion is in a wide variety of musical genres, mainly in traditional and popular music. In some regions, such as in Europe and North America, it has become mainly restricted to traditional, folk and ethnic music. Nonetheless, the button accordion (melodeon) and the piano accordion are widely taught and played in Ireland, and have remained a steady fixture within Irish traditional music, both in Ireland and abroad, particularly in the United States and Great Britain. Numerous virtuoso Irish accordion players have recorded many albums over the past century or so; the earliest Irish music records were made in the 1920s, in New York City, by fiddler and Sligo immigrant Michael Coleman, widely considered to have paved the way for other traditional musicians to record themselves. Accordions are also played within the music of Scotland, as well as other Celtic styles, such as the musical traditions of Northumberland, Galicia, Cornwall and Brittany.
Louis Bashell was an American polka musician from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He was known for playing the Slovenian-style polka. He was nicknamed "Milwaukee's polka king".
The Scandinavian-American Hall of Fame (SAHF) was established in 1984 in Minot, North Dakota, by the Norsk Høstfest Association. The Scandinavian-American Hall of Fame is "an enduring means of honoring the persons of Scandinavian descent in North America who have achieved greatness in their fields of endeavor and/or whose efforts have contributed significantly to the betterment of humankind. Each year a handful of noteworthy individuals of Danish, Icelandic, Finnish, Norwegian or Swedish descent are inducted into the Scandinavian-American Hall of Fame, which is held in conjunction with Norsk Høstfest, the annual 5-day fall festival celebrating Scandinavian heritage located in Minot, North Dakota.
Don Peachey is an American band leader, accordionist, musician and recording artist who has been performing and recording since the 1950s with The Don Peachey Band, aka Don Peachey and His Orchestra. Peachey was elected to the International Polka Hall of Fame in 2011 by the International Polka Association.
Lawrence Welk and His Sparkling Strings is an album by Lawrence Welk and His Sparkling Strings. It was released in 1955 on the Coral label. On January 28, 1956, the album reached No. 5 on Billboard magazine's "Popular Albums (Over-All)" chart, trailing only the Oklahoma soundtrack and popular albums by Frank Sinatra, Harry Belafonte, and Julie London. Lawrence Welk and His Sparkling Strings remained on that chart for 11 weeks
