Thriftex #4 - Frankie Yankovic and His Yanks - Hoop-Dee-Doo And Other Polka Favorites

Not the weird yankovic

When American folk music is discussed, it’s usually about a crusty hippie with an acoustic guitar pretending to be a wily mountain man or maybe something to do with slavery. But, if you were to look for the local music scene in my neck of the woods at the turn of the 20th century, you’d see that everyone in town was oom-pah’ing to POLKA. Of course, it would be wrong to say polka is from America. Like so much of American midwestern culture, polka was imported from Germany and other central European countries alongside all of the people who made this place home. After arrival, both the people and the music flourished and the polka traditions continue to this day.

I was chatting with a friend recently about family histories. As these conversations go in the midwest, we both had great-great-grandparents who came to America from Germany in the mid 19th century. Surprisingly, we both mentioned we had extended family in Fond-du-Lac, Wisconsin, a town over 400 miles away. When we looked into it, both of our families showed up there around the same time in the 1850s when the population of Fond-du-Lac was around 5,000. It’s possible our great-great-grandparents had met each other, and if they did, it’s entirely likely that they met at a polka hall.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4s-TT35NdkU

[Note: This vinyl rip played side B before side A and the timestamps in the description are wrong. Start at 12:06 to listen to side A first if you feel that’s important.]

Frankie Yankovic and His Yanks don’t play the big tuba OOM PAH style that was more popular further north. I don’t claim to be an expert in regional polka styles, but Frankie employs a jazzier, poppier sound in his Slovenian / Cleveland style polka compared to the degenerate bass-boosted brainrot German / Dutchman polka that I’m more familiar with. You’ll hear all sorts of instrumentation across Hoop-Dee-Doo, with plenty of accordion shred, and quite a lot of electric jazz guitar. Some of the layered melodies between the lead accordion and the clarinet(?) are impressively complex.

Polka doesn’t always feature vocals, but Frankie and his Yanks have everything you’d want to sing along to after 12-19 beers at the polka tavern. Whether you want to sing along to the fun polka songs about how much fun polka is: This is just another polka! Oh Holy Smoke-a! A polka! A polka! I wanna hear a polka! Played by a real wild band! Or maybe you prefer to drunkenly belt out the verse about how your girl is laughing at another man’s jokes and now you want to die (There is a Tavern In The Town). Either way, the important thing is that you should be drunk and loud while listening to the honest sounds of the American midwest.

I didn’t know anything about “America’s Polka King” Frankie Yankovic and his famous Slovenian-style polka before picking this up at Goodwill, but I’ll be happy to spin this again during family visits.

Addendum - Failed Thriftex Candidates:

Allan Sherman - Peter and the Commissar + Variations on “How Dry I Am”

A “comedy” retelling of a russian folk story where the villains are middle managers and corporate executives, interspersed with symphonic stings. Not as funny as it sounds.

Paul Weston - Music for Dreaming

The blurb on the back claims that Paul Weston invented the concept of “Mood Music” on this record. Maybe that’s true, but it’s just the most inoffensive, easy-listening jazz you can imagine.