by Jimmy Sturr
I shouldn’t have been surprised that the union took Stanky’s side, but I was.
But that’s not all.
Even though the union had hung me out to dry twice, whenever I performed at a union venue, I still filed a contract with them. Why? Because that’s what you do, no matter how shabbily you’d been treated in the past. But one time—one time, mind you—before a show in Las Vegas, I forgot. (What can I say? When you’re a bandleader and a musician and a promoter, once in a while things fall through the cracks.) The week after the gig, somebody from the Vegas union called my house—not my office, my house—and my mother picked up the phone.
“Who’s this?!” the rep demanded. “Where’s the polka guy? Where’s Sturr?!”
“This is Jimmy’s mother, and he’s not here right now. He’s at his office. Can I help you?”
“YOU BET YOU CAN HELP ME, JIMMY’S MOTHER! HE DIDN’T DO WHAT HE WAS SUPPOSED TO DO AND HE KNOWS HE WAS SUPPOSED TO DO IT, AND WE WON’T STAND FOR IT! YOU TELL YOUR SON THAT HE’S IN A HELLUVA LOT OF TROUBLE! HE’S GONNA BE BROUGHT UP ON CHARGES! YOU’D BETTER RELAY THAT MESSAGE, JIMMY’S MOTHER, AS SOON AS HUMANLY POSSIBLE!”
When she called me up at the office, her voice was trembling. “He was awful, Jimmy, just awful. And I gave him your number at the office. I’m sorry if you didn’t want me to do that, but . . .”
“Don’t worry, Mom,” I said. “I’ll take care of it.”
The union rep reached me a few minutes later. “Mr. Sturr,” he said, “I just got off the phone with your mother, and I’ve gotta tell you, she was quite rude.”
“Let me tell you something, pal,” I said, trying and failing to maintain my cool. “I don’t care what you say to me and I don’t care how you do your job, and I don’t care how many people you’ve buried in the desert, but you do not speak to my mother that way. Now you call her and you apologize. Then we can discuss this contract business.” I slammed the phone down.
A few minutes later, my mother rang me up. “So I got a call from that gentleman in Vegas,” she said, “and he apologized for about ten minutes. He was quite nice about it.”
A few minutes after that, the union rep called me back. “Listen, Mr. Sturr, I’m sorry about the way this all went down. We’re all embarrassed about it, so as an apology, how about we consider the matter closed?”
The next day, I tore my union card into thousands of tiny pieces.
22
Teammates
Question: what do a dumpling company and a satellite television network from Tennessee have in common? Answer: They’ve seen fit to welcome Jimmy Sturr and His Orchestra into their respective families. But before I elaborate on that tenuous, although legitimate, connection, let us consider the pierogi, a delicious dumpling made from unleavened dough and filled with potato or sauerkraut or ground meat or cheese or fruit most associated with Poland . . . just like polka. So it would stand to reason that an internationally recognized pierogi company would be quite interested in partnering with an internationally recognized polka band. All of which is why, in the mid-1990s, Mrs. T’s asked me to be its national spokesman. Because it has been so good to me, I’m going to present Mrs. T’s version of its company history. It’s the least I can do . . .
From a Twardzik family staple to your family’s table, Mrs. T has been Serving Up Smiles long before there was a blue box with her name on it. Yes, there really is a Mrs. T behind all those boxes of delicious Pierogies. In fact, it’s Mary Twardzik’s original recipe that started this successful business back in 1952.
Mary’s son, Ted, spent his childhood watching, learning, and of course, tasting, as his mother and her friends made Pierogies for church suppers. After college, he spent a year working for an accounting firm before realizing this Polish specialty might have wider appeal. After all, if they did so well at church dinners, why wouldn’t they be a family favorite everywhere?
Sticking to his Schuylkill (pronounced Skoo-kil) County roots, Ted returned home to Shenandoah, PA and started making Pierogies in the very same kitchen where he had grown up watching his mother cook. Six weeks later, Mom asked him to move the mess elsewhere, and the rest is history. Ted set up shop in his father’s former tavern and began churning out those potato-filled pasta shells by the dozen!
The company has expanded to many of the surrounding buildings over the years, but that tavern still remains a part of the Ateeco (“A ‘T’ [for Twardzik] Company”) headquarters. Today, Ted’s sons, Ted Jr. and Tom, look over the operation, which proudly employs nearly 230 people in its Pennsylvania plant. This makes Ateeco the largest employer in Shenandoah. With only 6,000 residents, this small town in Schuylkill County has made Ateeco the smiling success it is today!
Over 13 million Pierogies in 14 different varieties leave Ateeco’s kitchens every week. That’s over half a billion Pierogies a year! Whether it’s feeding a small family dinner or large U.S. Military Commissaries overseas, Mrs. T’s® has a size and a taste for everyone! For the family table, we sell our delicious Pierogies in package sizes of 12 and 24 in retail, convenience stores, and supermarkets. Larger counts of 48 and 72 are available for club and food service establishments, and Mini Pierogies come in 28 counts. From Shenandoah, Pennsylvania to Seattle, Washington, Mrs. T’s® Pierogies are distributed coast to coast, Serving Up Smiles all across America.
Since we joined forces, the Mrs. T’s crew has supplied us with our outfits, put me in a bunch of its television commercials, and supported us in every way the company can think of. In exchange, whenever our band is introduced, it’s prefaced with “Mrs. T’s Pierogies presents . . . ,” and at some of our gigs, Mrs. T’s sends a chef to give a pierogi-cooking demonstration. If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years, there’s a whole lot you can do with a pierogi.
Believe it or not, after all these years, I still enjoy eating those little dumplings. And that’s the absolute truth.
Now about that television station.
If you have DirecTV or the Dish Network, you might’ve seen my mug on your television screen because each and every Friday night, RFD-TV airs an episode of The Jimmy Sturr Show. For those of you who are strictly network television types, let me fill you in on what RFD-TV is all about.
Billing itself as “Rural America’s Most Important Network,” all of RFD-TV’s shows fall into one of six categories: Agricultural, Equine, Rural Lifestyle, Music & Entertainment, Rural Youth, and Auctions. Of its Music & Entertainment selections, the network says:
Music has always been a part of rural America’s heritage. It has long been a tie, binding family, friends and community together. Staying true to tradition, Music & Entertainment on RFD-TV focuses on the customs of rural lifestyle, showcasing its time-honored music, and classic pursuits.
RFD-TV programs are sure to bring back fond memories from the past while continuing to bring in and create new, family-oriented entertainment that appeals to all generations.
Now that’s an attitude I can get behind.
Here’s a confession about the show: I film them in batches of twenty over a five-day period. So if you do the math, that means I end up shooting four shows a day, and that . . . is . . . grueling! Yes, it’s unbelievably fun to perform with my band in front of the camera. Yes, it’s a blast to have the opportunity to ham it up for the entire country. But making a television show—especially one right after the other—is about the hardest thing on my docket.
But it’s worth it. It may not be The Lawrence Welk Show (Lawrence’s act would be hard to top; plus, he was the pioneer in the music-television field, so to say I’m in his league is heresy), but it’s a solid thirty minutes of entertainment. I’ll talk for a bit, we’ll have some guest singers and dancers, and, naturally, we’ll play a lot of polkas. I like to mix things up, so one week we might focus on the trumpet, and the next, it’ll be the accordion. The one constant is that it’s always energetic, certainly more up-tempo than Welk. But additional speed is kind of a necessity; you see, we have to pop a bit h
arder than they did in the old days because today’s viewers have a lot more options. Back then you had a choice between Welk, three other television shows, the radio, or a walk around the block. Today, there are about two million channels, the Internet, Netflix, and your latest iPad app. We need to grab your attention and hold on tight.
Musically speaking, I plan each show to the hilt, but in terms of my patter, I wing it, because if I scripted it, we might lose the spontaneity and energy that I believe puts us over the edge. That said, I still have a pretty good idea of what information needs to be conveyed and how I can convey it in the most entertaining, informative manner possible. Like Welk, I make sure that I regularly introduce the band, because one of the things I liked best about Lawrence’s orchestra is that you knew everybody—you knew Myron Floren, you knew the Lemon Sisters—and that gave it the kind of communal feel that made viewers come back.
(A brief aside, still in the television world: In 2011 we recorded a TV special called PBS Presents: Jimmy Sturr and His Orchestra. It was filmed at a hotel in Canada and was ultimately shown nationwide. The boost in our visibility was astounding.)
The band and I never get tired of doing our RFD-TV show, and hopefully the fine folks at RFD-TV will never get tired of us.
And speaking of the band . . .
23
Meet the Orchestra
I must be doing something right because some of the guys in my band have been with me for years. They’re magnificent musicians; I’m sure they’ve had plenty of other opportunities to perform and/or record with other bandleaders, but they’ve stuck with me, and I’m the better for it.
For example, there’s our drummer, Dennis Coyman. As of this writing, Dennis has been with me for almost forty years. It’s possible there’s a better polka drummer out there, and it’s possible there’s a better rock drummer or big-band drummer or country drummer, but I’ve never heard anybody who is able to do everything. Dennis can do it all.
Our lead trumpeter, Eric Parks, is another guy who’s been with me for almost four decades. Eric was so dedicated to the band and our music that he managed to make our shows even when he was at West Point directing its band the Jazz Knights. That sometimes led to a bit of drama, because since he was in the army, he couldn’t join the American Federation of Musicians. The union is pretty vigilant about making sure there aren’t any nonunion musicians on any given stage. If we knew that there was going to be a union official in the area, Eric would wear some sort of disguise—a hat, for instance, or maybe some big sunglasses—so he wouldn’t get himself (or us) in any kind of trouble. And as you know by now, you never want to mess around with the union.
Most of my orchestra members are from the Florida, New York, area; once in a while, however, I welcomed an import into the club. Tenor saxophonist/vocalist John Karas, for example, was in a polka band in his hometown of Buffalo, New York, and used to make it a point to see us whenever we rolled through, which, considering that Buffalo was a polka hotbed, was fairly often. After one show he told me, “Jimmy, I love Buffalo, but I really love your band. If I moved to your area, would you consider hiring me?”
I’d seen John play and sing in his own band, and the guy was terrific. I told him, “Yes. In a heartbeat. Move tomorrow.” That was more than thirty years ago. He’s been with us ever since. There’s no better tenor sax player in the polka field, and possibly in the country.
Nick DeVito is an outstanding alto saxophonist/clarinetist; while he’s a great polka player, he’s one of the best jazz musicians to ever grace our bandstand. He’s a wonderful improviser, too. If you give him a set of chord changes, he’ll eat them up, regardless of the key or the complexity. Not every polka band in the world can say it has a guy like Nick.
And then there’s our fiddler, Frankie Urbanovitch, who’s been with the band for more than three decades. He’s one of the more popular members of the crew, as witnessed by the enthusiastic fan emails we get for him after all of our television appearances.
Then there are the relative newcomers like trumpeter Kenny Harbus, who’s been with us for a mere twenty-one years. Before joining the Orchestra, he sat in the first trumpet chair for the house band at the Concord Resort Hotel in the Catskills, which at the time was one of the largest hotels in the world. And there’s our bassist, Richie Pavasaris, who’s held down the bottom for just twelve years, and our piano player—the best keyboardist I’ve ever had—Keith Slattery, who has been tickling the ivories with us for fifteen years. (Keith’s father grew up just down the street from me, and even though Keith and I played all kinds of sports together as kids, we didn’t start making music together until we were all grown up.) Our Rhode Island–bred accordion player, Steve Swiader, has been part of the gang for a mere fifteen years or so; our Connecticut-bred trumpeter/singer, Kevin Krauth, has been with us for only nine years. Those newcomers might just stick. Without Steve and Kevin, the band would not be what it is today.
Our newest member is alto/clarinet player Jim Perry. What a great addition Jim has been. He, too, came from the Jazz Knights at West Point. Not only did he come from the Jazz Knights—he was the band’s leader!
Now excuse me for a moment if I sound like a doting father, but do you want to know how good the guys in my band are? These days, we never rehearse. Never, ever, ever.
Whenever we have new material, I plop it on their music stands the night of the job. When they sight-read it, it sounds as if they’d been playing the tune for weeks. The second time through, they’ll sound like they’ve been playing it for months; then, come the third pass, it sounds like they’ve been playing it for years. I really appreciate that, and they really appreciate that I really appreciate that, which is why the core of Jimmy Sturr and His Orchestra has remained intact for dozens and dozens of recording sessions, hundreds and hundreds of concerts, and will continue to do so until I can’t pick up my clarinet.
AFTERWORD
Polka Today and Tomorrow
Something I’ve always appreciated about polka is that it never goes out of style. If you liked polka a million years ago when you were a kid, or if you like polka right now, chances are you’re always going to enjoy our music, because no matter how you slice it or dice it, it’s always going to be polka.
This isn’t to say that polka music will remain stagnant, at least if I have anything to do with it. I’ll always try to incorporate different styles and techniques into my band’s book because I want to keep it fresh for my listeners and me. Yes, I love performing (looking at my tour schedule for the past few decades should make that obvious), but I still want to make it as exciting as possible. If that means bringing special guests into the studio or polka-izing a rock-and-roll hit from the seventies or standing on my head and playing my clarinet through my nose, I’ll do it.
I’ve noticed over the last couple of years that our audiences are getting younger and younger. That doesn’t surprise me because today’s music listeners are more open-minded than people give them credit for. Some of today’s most popular bands aren’t exactly what they seem to be on the surface; if you dig a little deeper, you’ll see some surprising influences. Let’s take Adele, the terrific singer who took home all those Grammys in 2011. A casual listen tells us that she’s a poppish soul singer, but if you go a bit deeper, you can hear traces of Aretha Franklin, Anita Baker, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, and Janis Joplin. If you go up to a teenager who loves Adele, hand her a copy of Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Cole Porter Songbook, and explain that Ella is one of Adele’s favorite singers, she would likely give it a listen. That kind of all-embracing attitude explains why, when you go to a performance by Jimmy Sturr and His Orchestra, it won’t just be a roomful of old folks. We play to children of all ages. We further transcend generations when Chris Caffery, lead guitarist from the Trans-Siberian Orchestra, tours with us. He always brings the house down with his rock-like energy. When you add horns to that guitar, that adds up to one exciting sound, and those children of all ages, well, they go crazy.
One of the questions I’m most often asked is, “Do you want to win any more Grammys?” The answer is, of course, yes—if anybody answers no to a query like that, he’s fibbing to both the questioner and himself—but awards aren’t what drives me. All I’m concerned about is putting together good records, and if NARAS sees fit to honor me, that’s wonderful. If not, I’ll just do another record.
And another.
And another.
And another.
APPENDIX
Jimmy Sturr Selected Discography
1966
Polka Festival
1967
Jimmy Sturr and His Orchestra Stir Up a Musical Mix
1968
The Big Band Polka Sound
Polka Holiday
1976
Million Dollar Polkas
Ray Budzilek Meets Jimmy Sturr at a Polka Hop (with Ray Soyka)
Polka Fever
Happy Snappy Polkas (with Gene Wisniewski)
1977
Polka Saturday Night (with Gene Wisniewski)
All-American Polka Festival
Pure Polka (with Gene Wisniewski)
1978
Polkas (with Gene Wisniewski)
Jimmy Sturr and His Orchestra Play a Tribute to Ray Budzilek (with Gene Wisniewski)
Let’s Have a Polka Party
A Polka Ride
Make Mine Polkas! (with Gene Wisniewski)
Polka Medley #6: Unita/Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain/Peanuts/Green Grass/Hosa Dyna/Down Yonder
1979
The Best of Jimmy Sturr
Polka Disco
This Is Polka Country! (with Gene Wisniewski)
1980
Country Polka
Legendary Golden Polka Favorites (with Myron Floren)
1981