Polka music lives on, thanks to the musicians of tomorrow

Sep. 30—Joe Grkman Jr. can recall his father playing the accordion as far back as he can remember.

"He'd have a friend come over to play guitar along with him," said Grkman, 70, a Westmoreland County native living in Venetia.

Joe Sr. and his friend would play polka tunes, and, in 1967, his son and two cousins joined him and formed a polka band, starting with gigs at the former Slovenian ballroom in Herminie.

Today, Joe Jr. and his son Mike are both part of the house band at Hofbrauhaus in Pittsburgh's South Side, playing old and new polka music for crowds of all ages with several groups housed at the "Grkmania" website. It's a far cry from the small gigs polka bands used to play at ethnic social clubs across Western Pennsylvania, but it is keeping the tradition of polka music alive.

"You had your ethnic clubs, Moose clubs, firemen's halls — it was all over," Grkman Jr. said. "If you traveled within 10 miles of my house in Yukon when I was growing up, you could find about 30 places with live music, and a lot of it was polka."

Jack Tady, 84, of Cheswick is about as close to polka royalty as it gets in the region, having been nicknamed "Western Pennsylvania Polka King" by none other than America's Polka King himself, Frankie Yankovic.

"I was contacted by Frankie to come to Nashville and record with him," said Tady, who also was a longtime music teacher in the Deer Lakes School District before retiring in 1999. "My inspiration came from Frank and a lot of the Cleveland bands. My mom had Frankie's records and albums from a whole lot of other bands."

Tady has been nominated for four Grammy Awards, was given the National Cleveland-Style Polka Hall of Fame's Lifetime Achievement Award in 2000 and has appeared in several movies, including the recent Showtime series "American Rust," where his band portrayed a polka group at a wedding.

"I've been playing polka music since I was 14 years old," he said.

And like any niche genre of music, getting the next generation interested is a key part of keeping the music alive.

"We're always trying to encourage younger musicians to get involved with it," said Mike Grkman, 45, of Canonsburg. "That was me at one time, and I have great memories of other bands letting me fill in along the way, sit in and play a few songs."

Performing at Hofbrauhaus is a step in that direction, he said.

"We've been there now for 13 and a half years," he said. "And the average age of the crowd is a lot different from the people at your average polka festival. It's really great seeing younger people get excited and dance to polka music."

Part of that effort involves spreading the music far and wide.

Tady does that by way of his "Polka Place Radio Show," from 12:30-2 p.m. Saturdays on 620 KHB-AM, and Moose Rosana, aka "The Big Moose," has been doing it since the mid-1980s as the host of the "Polka Party" radio show on Bigfoot 102.1-101.3 FM.

"When I was a kid, we'd go to church on Sundays, and when we'd come home and my mother started Sunday dinner, they'd push the dinner table out of the way and we'd polka while she was cooking," said Rosana, who works as the market manager for Seven Mountains Media in Dubois in addition to hosting the radio show.

One of Rosana's uncles knew the previous "Polka Party" hosts. When Rosana had a chance to tour the station, he said he was immediately bitten by the radio bug.

"In the mid-'80s, the management changed, they offered the 'Polka Party' to me, and I've been doing it ever since."

The Grkmans have appeared on "Polka Party."

"We were blessed to be able to do a whole series of concerts in partnership with the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, and for one of them at the Reitz Theater on Dubois, they got Big Moose to emcee our show," Grkman Jr. said.

And while many of the ethnic clubs that hosted polka dances in the past have closed their doors, Grkman Jr. said the music is not dying out.

"What has changed is the venues where you can play it," he said.

Whereas old-school polka dances took place more often at private ethnic social clubs, the venues today are typically much more public and provide an opportunity to spread the music beyond the ethnic groups that brought it to the U.S. in the first place.

"We play at Slovenefest, three days of polka up in Enon Valley," Mike Grkman said. "And the past few years, we've seen a good deal of people come out who haven't been there before."

Younger musicians also are keeping the polka tradition alive.

Garrett Tatano, 24, of Canonsburg was born and raised on polka music, with Polish and Italian parents who both played accordion as he was growing up.

"My grandfather used to run polka dances on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays," Tatano said. "I took piano lessons when I was younger, but I was always fascinated by the accordion."

Tatano was voted "2021 Polka Star of Tomorrow" by the National Cleveland-Style Polka Hall of Fame and Museum. And while polka is a hobby for him — he works as an electrical engineer for Duquesne Light — he's no less passionate about playing it.

"It's happy, catchy music that gets stuck in your head," he said.

For Tady, whether he's performing at the International Polka Association convention, held earlier this month in Cranberry, or working with younger musicians through the United Musicians Polka Association of PA (with the genre-appropriate acronym UMPAPA), his goal has always been the same.

"I enjoy making people happy with the music," Tady said.

Mike Grkman agreed.

"It was a family event growing up, and we all enjoy it so much," he said. "It's happy music and great people."

Patrick Varine is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Patrick by email at pvarine@triblive.com or via Twitter .