Lost Classics! – Frankie Yankovic

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As a part time DJ, I will periodically have to play what’s called the “Grand March” at Polish weddings. It’s a fun group dance set to polka music where people weave in and out all around the dance floor with the happy couple ending up in the middle and enjoying their first dance as husband and wife with friends and family gathered around them.

Over the years, I’ve come to enjoy polkas very much. How can you not like songs that celebrate women, sausage, beer, obesity and having fun? It’s not possible. There have been many great polka artists over the years, Myron Floren and Jimmy Sturr to name a few, but the man who stood head and shoulders above the rest was “America’s Polka King,” Frankie Yankovic.

Yankovic hailed from Cleveland and broke onto the scene with his accordion in 1947 with the hit “Just Because.” He followed that up two years later with “Blue Skirt Polka.” He’s probably best known for the classics “In Heaven There Is No Beer,” “Too Fat Polka” (I don’t want her, you can have her, she’s too fat for me. Genius) and, of course, “Beer Barrel Polka,” which since the 1970s has been played during the seventh inning stretch at Milwaukee Brewers games.

During his heyday, Yankovic played more than 325 dates a year, sold over 30 million records, had a street named after him in Cleveland and won the first polka Grammy Award in 1986 for Best Polka Album.

Yankovic, who is no relation to “Weird Al” Yankovic, died in 1998. I hope, for his sake, he was kidding about that “no beer in Heaven” thing.

MP3: “In Heaven There Is No Beer” – Frankie Yankovic

MP3: “Too Fat Polka” – Frankie Yankovic

MP3: “Beer Barrel Polka” – Frankie Yankovic

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