Polka King

by Jimmy Sturr

  As you can see, I’ll happily welcome all comers who want to dabble in polka: soul crooners, jazz instrumentalists, rock shouters—anyone. If you want to give it a shot, the doors to my recording studio are always open. And if you join us, all you have to do is show up on time, sing in tune, give it your all, and have a great time.

  Jimmy taking a break with Burt Reynolds, who is a huge fan of Jimmy’s music.

  19

  The Music City

  For a variety of reasons, Nashville is one of my favorite places on Earth. To explain why, I’ll need to tell you about a Kentucky native by the name of Billy Vaughn. You’re probably wondering why I’m starting a conversation about Tennessee with a mention of Kentucky. Well, as always, there’s a method to my madness.

  Billy Vaughn was one of the greatest arrangers of pop music that this country has ever seen. He had countless hits, including renditions of “Hawaiian War Chant,” “Sail Along Silvery Moon,” and “A Swingin’ Safari.” Vaughn’s arrangements had a distinct sound, the most notable quality of which was his use of lead alto saxophones. While most arrangers of his day—or any day, for that matter—tended to highlight their brass section, Billy used the saxophones like no one else—especially the altos—so when you heard a Billy Vaughn tune, you knew it was a Billy Vaughn tune.

  Naturally, as a saxophonist I always liked that sound, so I asked my pal Danny Davis if he’d be upset if I did an album called Jimmy Sturr and the Nashville Saxes, which was a riff on the name of his famous band, the Nashville Brass.

  He said, “Upset? Are you kidding? Hell, I’ll even produce the damn thing for you! You can record it down by us, here in Nashville. And if you supply the saxophonists, I’ll supply the rhythm section.”

  So I called up Vern Whitlock, the other alto saxophonist in our band, and a couple of the other guys in our group, and we made the trip down to Nashville, where we cut the record at Porter Wagoner’s Fireside Studio, a record that turned out to be one of my all-time favorites. It turned out to be one of Porter’s favorites, too; he liked what he heard so much that he contributed a wonderful vocal turn on an old Hank Williams song called “I’m So Lonesome, I Could Cry,” and then, after we finished recording, he kept Vern and me awake until four in the morning, adding sax riffs to some of his old arrangements. Over the ensuing years, Porter became one of my closest Nashville pals, yet another reason why the Music City holds a special place in my heart. (My apologies if it seems like I’m dropping names, but interacting with these country music legends is something that I’ll proudly trumpet to the world from now until the end of time.) I felt so comfortable at Fireside that a couple of years later, I hauled the entire group down to Nashville, and over a four-day span, we recorded enough material for three albums.

  This wasn’t the first time that Danny helped me bring one of my musical visions to life. Several years before, I’d casually mentioned to him how much I enjoy the background vocalists who seem to show up on all the Nashville-based records of the era; all those perfectly harmonized oohs and aahs were always the cherries and whipped cream on top of the country music sundaes I so enjoyed indulging in.

  Danny said, “You like that stuff? You know what? That gives me an idea. Let’s get you into to RCA Studios.” Sure enough, he set me up with a quartet of background vocalists who recorded with the likes of Elvis Presley and Hank Snow, and not only that, but the engineers for those sessions were legends in their own rights: Tom Pick and Roy Shockley.

  Roy Shockley was Chet Atkins’s brother-in-law—Chet was one of the great producers and even greater guitarists in country music history. He oversaw sessions by everybody from Elvis to Waylon Jennings and Dolly Parton and won fourteen Grammys of his own. Roy himself had twiddled the knobs for Willie Nelson, among many others. Tom Pick is no slouch either—he’d worked with many of the same artists as Roy and Chet, in addition to Perry Como, Guy Clark, and “Skeeter” Davis. From the second I met them, I could tell that these guys were the best of the best, and I knew that they’d make me sound better than I’d ever sounded. And I was right. Better yet, as was the case with Porter, Tom became one of my dearest friends and musical partners in crime. When I’m in the studio, I don’t want anybody but him behind the mixing board. He’s that good.

  And speaking of Elvis, when some people think about the “King of Rock and Roll,” they think about his Vegas days and that white sequined jumpsuit. Others remember all his movies, like Blue Hawaii, or King Creole, or Girls! Girls! Girls!, while some recall his early-career material, where he was more of a blues shouter than a rock-and-roll singer.

  I, however, have a special place in my heart for his recordings with The Jordanaires.

  The Jordanaires were a vocal group that originated way back in 1948. Elvis recruited them in 1955, after seeing them perform with another country music giant, Eddy Arnold. The group (whose lineup was always a revolving door and, at various times over its five-plus-decade career, featured, among many others, Hugh Jarrett, Culley Holt, Ray Walker, Hoyt Hawkins, Bill Matthews, Gordon Stoker, Duane West, and Louis Nunley) joined Elvis in the studio, where they backed him up on “Heartbreak Hotel,” “I Got a Woman,” and “Money Honey.” Over the next decade or so, The Jordanaires helped turn many of Elvis’s good songs into great songs.

  Tom Pick knew how much I loved the band’s sound, so using one of his many connections, he tracked down The Jordanaires and hired the band to back me up. The Jordanaires graced thirty or so of my albums, and I think those guys enjoyed having me as much as I enjoyed having them.

  So now you know why Nashville is one of my favorite places on Earth.

  20

  Boots, Myron, & Whispering Bill

  Of all the musicians I’ve toured with, three stand out: “Boots” Randolph, Myron Floren, and “Whispering” Bill Anderson. They come from very different musical walks of life, so it stands to reason that I hooked up with them in very different ways.

  First, meet Boots.

  Reaching back to my roots as a concert booker, for the longest time I organized polka weekends at what was then the Playboy Resort in McAfee, New Jersey, where I’d hire a nationally recognized artist to play at the main theater while I’d do a show in one of the smaller rooms. I set the stipulation that whichever group was playing in the main theater would have to come by after their 8 p.m. performance and sit in during our 10:30 show. (Actually, our show wasn’t a show so much as it was a huge dance party that sold out each and every night.) Danny Davis and Brenda Lee were among my favorite guests, but my favorite among the favorites was Boots Randolph.

  Boots, whose birth name was Homer Louis Randolph III, was a native of Kentucky who, from the early 1960s until his death in 2007, was one of the main go-to studio saxophonists in Nashville. He recorded with Elvis Presley, Roy Orbison, Al Hirt, Brenda Lee, and REO Speedwagon, but he was best known for his classic single “Yakety Sax,” a song that eventually reached iconic status when it was used as the theme to The Benny Hill Show.

  In a lucky turn of events, several Northeastern promoters booked Boots’s and my bands on a number of double bills, and we became great friends. I got comfortable enough with him to ask if he’d be interested in playing with us at our annual Christmas show in New York City. Now, nailing down musicians to play during the holidays is a hit-or-miss proposition—they either have a high-paying gig on the books or want to spend time with their families—but Boots, without the slightest hesitation, said yes. I was thrilled to have him aboard and wanted him to be as comfortable as possible, both musically and personally, so I wrangled copies of the arrangements he performed with his own band. All Boots had to do was show up and play the tunes he’d played hundreds of times. He enjoyed himself so much that over the ensuing years, he joined us at four more holiday shows.

  Boots eventually toured with us for a while. (Whenever we had him in tow, we were always billed as Jimmy Sturr and His Orchestra, with special guest Boots Randolph). But the highlight of my association with the affable Mr. Randolph
was our polka-ized recording of “Yakety Sax” on Let’s Polka ’Round. As we listened to the playback, Boots turned to me, gave me a huge smile, and said, “I’ve recorded this song at least a hundred times, and this is by far the best version I’ve ever heard.”

  Second, meet Myron.

  From my first concert at that infamous PTA meeting back in Florida, I never had any illusions about my place in the music pantheon. I knew I’d never have a number-one hit. I was certain I wouldn’t headline a sold-out show at Madison Square Garden. I seriously doubted I’d be flown to England by private jet for a royal command performance. But the one thing I always believed was within my grasp was hosting a television show. I figured, if Lawrence Welk could do it, so could I.

  My parents loved The Lawrence Welk Show, and every Saturday night, we’d park ourselves in front of the TV and watch Welk lead his orchestra through the “Great American Songbook.” I generally only watched until the show’s halfway point, because once I saw Myron Floren, I was set.

  Myron, who, thanks to Lawrence, was known to his fans as “The Happy Norwegian,” was arguably the best-known accordion player of his generation. In 1950 Welk stole Myron away from a band called the Buckeye Four, and for the next thirty-two years, Myron was both his main soloist and assistant conductor, and his feature in the middle of every show was, for many, its highlight. Eventually, he went on to lead his own ensemble, the Myron Floren Orchestra, with which he brought polka to the masses.

  I first met Myron in the late 1970s, when my band backed him up at one of his concerts (he didn’t always tour with his full orchestra), and we bonded right off the bat, both personally and musically. Not only could he play the heck out of that accordion of his but he was a good guy. A joy to perform with, Myron could always read an audience and pick the exact right song for the exact right moment, a feat that’s not nearly as easy as you might think. Myron and I got on so well that I invited him to join us on stage at Carnegie Hall; the show went so well that we took the Carnegie stage together more times than I can remember. Our personal and professional relationship was so good that it got to the point that whenever Myron toured the Northeast, he hired us to back him. On more than one occasion, he told our audience, “Playing with Lawrence Welk was the most important thing I’ve ever done in my life, but let me tell you, this band behind me today, led by my friend Jimmy Sturr, is the second-best band I’ve ever performed with.” We were lucky enough to make music with him until he passed away in 2005.

  Country singer Bill Anderson and Jimmy clowning around at Soundshop Recording Studio in Nashville.

  Before Myron passed, he gave me almost all of his arrangements, and almost all of them are still part of our repertoire. And whenever we play a Myron-ized tune, I always give him credit, because without Myron Floren, I might not be doing what I’m doing.

  Third, meet Whispering Bill.

  James William Anderson III, better known to his millions of fans as Whispering Bill, was a hit-making machine. Between 1962 and 2011, Bill released approximately fifty albums, thirty-two of which found their way onto Billboard’s country music chart. (That’s such a staggering statistic, I feel it’s necessary to repeat it: fifty albums, and thirty-two of them charted. Wow!) Those albums produced sixty-eight singles, all of which similarly charted. As amazing as the numbers for his albums are, those singles figures are mind-blowing. To break it down, each and every one of Whispering Bill’s singles made it into the top one hundred, and of those sixty-eight, twenty-seven of them hit the top ten. And of those twenty-seven, five hit number one, those being “Mama Sang a Song,” “Still,” “I Get the Fever,” “My Life,” and “World of Make Believe.” Even if you’ve never heard a note the man sang (or whispered), you have to be impressed.

  I remember in the late 1970s, at a show in Middletown, New York, he performed “How Married Are You, Mary Ann,” which was one of my favorite of his tunes and a nice little ditty that I thought would make for a wonderful polka. A few months after the Middletown show, I called him up and said, “You know, one of my favorite songs of yours is ‘How Married Are You,’ and I was wondering if—”

  Before I could get the question out of my mouth, he said, “If you like it that much, record it.”

  I told him, “I’ll record it if you sing it.”

  “Okay. Done deal.”

  That’s Bill in a nutshell: easygoing, affable, talented, and willing to help. Little wonder he’s another one of those guys who I’ll be pals with until the end of time.

  21

  Don’t Look for the Union Label

  In theory, the American Federation of Musicians is a wonderful thing. In exchange for a member’s yearly dues, it makes sure that the musician is treated well on his jobs, that he gets paid on time, that he’s given the best possible deals, and that he’s protected when a record label tries to screw him out of his royalties. This is why I joined the union the second I was old enough; for decades I was a member in good standing. I paid my dues on time, I regularly filed my paperwork, and I never spoke an ill word about the organization.

  Unfortunately, the union wasn’t nearly as good to me as I was to it.

  I wasn’t your normal union member, mind you, because I was more than a musician—I was also a bandleader and a promoter. This became problematic during one of those gigs at the Playboy Resort in McAfee, New Jersey. We’d been contracted to play there twice a year—once in March and once in November—a contract that had been renewed time and again because we sold out almost every show. But since Playboy treated us quite well, I was happy to be locked in.

  About ten years into our tenure, Playboy sold the resort to Americana Hotels. When my union rep called me with the news, he said, “Look, we don’t know what the hell Americana is going to do about your contracts now. They probably won’t honor them.”

  I looked at my calendar and asked, “What about the show on Saturday, March 15?” It was only two weeks away.

  “That one’s fine.”

  “And the November date?”

  “Don’t know. Probably canceled.”

  There was a lot riding on those gigs, both financially and professionally, and the last thing I wanted was for them to dry up. “Is there anything you can do about it?” I asked.

  “Maybe. Don’t know. We’ll see.”

  “Well, could you—” But before I could ask him my next question, he hung up.

  The next morning, there was a rude knock on my office door. “Open up, Mr. Sturr! It’s the police! We need to speak with you!”

  As far as I knew, I hadn’t done anything outside of the law, but when the law comes knocking, you can’t help but get nervous. I opened the door and stammered to the four uniformed officers, “C-c-c-c-c-can I help you, gentlemen?”

  One of them pulled out his badge and said, “Officer Kirk Upton, Philadelphia P.D. We’d like to book you and your band for a show up in the Catskills. We’re having a departmental party, and a lot of the boys down there like the polka.”

  After my heart started beating properly again, I said, “Sounds great, officer. What date are you thinking?”

  “Saturday, November 15.”

  I smiled and said, “Well, sir, it so happens that that day just freed up. We’re in.” I wrote up a contract, which he signed on the dotted line and then he headed back to Philly.

  The following week, the phone rang; it was my contact from Playboy. “Well, Jimmy,” he said, “it looks like the Americana people want you for those November shows.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “I’m not.”

  “I thought they weren’t going to rehire us. I took on another job.”

  “I guess you’ll have to get out of it.”

  I sighed, said, “I guess you’re right,” then, after I hung up with Playboy, I called my uniformed friend in Philadelphia and told him, “Listen, something came up, and I can’t play on that Saturday night. I can play anytime on Friday, or on Saturday afternoon, or anytime on Sunday, but just not Satu
rday night at nine.”

  “We need you on Saturday night.” All of a sudden, his tone was very police-like.

  I tried to explain the situation with the Americana people, but he hung up on me in midsentence. A couple weeks later, he sued me . . . through the union. And the union—an organization to which I’d given thousands of dollars, an organization about which I’d always said nothing but good things—took the side of the policemen. Eventually, it was determined that I had to pay the cops what I considered to be an unfair sum out of my pocket. I’d always been led to believe that the union was there to protect its members in situations such as this, especially since the union told me the Playboy contract was probably going to be null and void in the first place!

  But the union wasn’t done with me yet. The union folks had so much fun messing around with Jimmy Sturr, the bandleader, that they decided they should mess around with Jimmy Sturr, the promoter.

  One of the bands I used to book regularly for those Playboy/ Americana gigs was a locally popular unit called Stanky and His Pennsylvania Coal Miner Polka Band. (Now that’s a name.) Right before one of the November weekends, I found out that Americana sold the resort to another company; I lost track of who bought what from whom and when. I was told that the company would honor our contract for that November show, as well as the following March performances, but after that, it was up in the air.

  When I broke the news to Stanky, he nodded and didn’t say a word about it. He played the November show and didn’t say a word about it. He played the March show and didn’t say a word about it. The following November, I received a letter from the union, ordering me to pay Stanky for the canceled job.