Frcmkie & the Yanks

In Slavic and German communities along the U.S. "polka circuit," nobody has to be told about Frankie Yankovic and his five-man polka band. In a year they play as many as 275 one-night stands in theaters, clubs and dance halls from Scranton, Pa. to Girard, Kans., and from Calumet, Mich, to the Ohio River. In big towns on the circuit, they have been known to outdraw such name bands as Guy Lombardo and Vaughn Monroe 2 to i. In small mining and farming communities a Yankovic appearance can bring out a crowd that is twice the size of the local population.

Chubby, slick-haired Frank John Yankovic, 34, has had a way with old-fashioned polkas ever since he got his first accordion from his Slovenia-born parents at the age of nine. But he has also had some ideas of his own. Since he organized his own outfit more than ten years ago, he has turned out polka versions of popular tunes and folk songs, besides playing such polka-circuit standards as My Wife Is Happy and Hurray Slovenes.

By combining two accordions, a banjo, bass fiddle and piano with two solovoxes, he made music that sounded good to a lot of people who would not have listened twice to old-style polka bands with their hard-blowing brass and woodwinds and their um-pa-pa .beat. Frankie also managed to please polka experts. In 1948, when his polka version of the hillbilly ballad Just Because became a national bestseller (more than 1,000,000 records), Frankie's popularity began spreading outside his old beat.

Last week it looked as though Frankie Yankovic and his Yanks were breaking, out of the circuit for good. Columbia Records, beaming at their sales in the limited-distribution "international series" last year, decided to move them into the "popular" division, give them nationwide promotion. Meanwhile, the Yanks were also scheduled to leave the Middle West for a six-weeks' date at Los Angeles' Aragon Ballroom and a movie short in Hollywood.

Says Frankie: "I want to see how far the polka really can go. There's no reason why polkas shouldn't be just as popular as rumbas."

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