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The Wiley Burkhalter Orchestra 1952 – 1995 Polkas · Waltzes · Schottisches · Ländlers Green County, Wisconsin |
| The Band + The Gig Book + How to Dance + Write Leon |
Grüezi and welcome! That's hello in Swiss German, which is about all the Swiss German I've
got, but Dad could do a whole wedding toast in it.
I'm Leon Burkhalter. I'm 41, I do maintenance at a cheese plant here in Green County, and for twenty-three years I sat behind the drums in my dad's band. Wiley Burkhalter led his orchestra from the accordion from 1952 to 1995, forty-three years of Saturday nights, and he passed away in October 1997, at 67. My wife says I talk about the band too much, so she suggested I put it on the computer, where people can turn it off. If you ever danced at a wedding, a church picnic, a firemen's dance or a Legion hall anywhere within forty miles of Monroe between Eisenhower and Clinton, there's a good chance you danced to us. If you did, I'd love to hear about it.
Wiley Burkhalter was born in March 1930 on a dairy farm south of Monroe. His grandparents came over from the canton of Glarus, like half the county did, and the family still spoke Swiss German at the supper table when Dad was a boy. When he was nine his uncle gave him a little used button accordion, and by the time he was fifteen he was playing for barn dances for a dollar and all the cake he could eat. He milked forty Brown Swiss cows every morning and every night of his life until he sold the herd in 1979, and he still never missed a Saturday. People used to ask him how he did it. He said the cows didn't care how late he got home, and neither did the music. In 1952 he got four friends together, bought a set of matching red vests from a catalog, and painted "Wiley Burkhalter Orchestra" on the bass drum head himself. It was crooked. He used that drum head until 1960 and wouldn't let anybody fix it. He married my mother, Georgia, in 1954. She'll tell you she married the band. She took the phone calls, kept the vests pressed, and stood at the back of every hall with her arms folded making sure the bride's father paid before the last waltz.
For most of his career Dad played a big red piano accordion, 120 bass buttons, heavy as a sack of feed. He had the bellows re-done three times. In 1977 a cousin brought him back a Schwyzerörgeli from Switzerland, a small Swiss button accordion with a sound like a church organ that's had a couple of beers, and after that he played it for the old Swiss tunes and the Ländlers and the big one for everything else. And he yodeled. Not the cowboy kind. The real Swiss kind, from the chest, the voice flipping up and down so fast you can't follow it. He did it on two or three songs a night, usually in the middle of a waltz, and the old Swiss ladies would put down their coffee and close their eyes. The young people thought it was a riot. Then they'd get married and hire us, and ask for the yodel. I can't yodel. I tried once at Christmas in 1983 and the dog left the room.
Forty-three years is a lot of musicians. These are the regulars. There were dozens of fill-ins over the years, and I apologize to every one of them I'm leaving out.
My sister Gloria played second accordion with us for one summer in 1975, decided she liked boys more than polkas, and went to college. She's a pharmacist in Madison now. She still knows the "Clarinet Polka" on the piano.
Everywhere. Mostly:
Dad's rule was that nobody sits out. If you've never tried, here's how, the way Mom taught every shy cousin at every wedding we ever played. Hold on to your partner, count out loud, and don't worry about it. Nobody at a Green County wedding dance is watching your feet. They're watching the bar. The Polka (2/4 time, fast, ONE-and-TWO-and) The basic step is step, close, step, hop. Step forward on your left foot, bring your right foot up next to it, step forward on your left again, then give a little hop on the left. Now do the same thing starting on the right. Left-close-left-hop, right-close-right-hop. Once you've got it, turn with your partner as you go, and go around the floor counterclockwise with everybody else. It's supposed to bounce. If you're not out of breath after the "Beer Barrel Polka," you did it wrong. The Waltz (3/4 time, ONE-two-three) Step on ONE, a little bigger, and two smaller steps on two and three. At our dances it was the turning waltz, the couples spinning slowly and moving around the room. Dad always closed the night with the "Blue Skirt Waltz" so the couples who'd been fighting all night had one more chance to make up. If you want to learn the waltz properly, step by step, Marion and Frank Castellano have written out the box step at Ballroom at Sixty, right here in our neighborhood, better than I ever could. They learned at sixty, so you've got no excuse. The Schottische (4/4 time, a little slower than a polka) Step, step, step, hop. Step, step, step, hop. Step-hop, step-hop, step-hop, step-hop. The first two parts go forward side by side with your partner, and the four step-hops you turn together. Then start over. Little kids love this one. So do grandpas. The Ländler (3/4 time, slower than the waltz) The old country cousin of the waltz, from the Alps. It's in three, but easy and rolling, not as smooth as a waltz, with a heavier step on ONE. Partners turn under each other's arms, let go and come back together, and in the old way the men stamp and clap on the beat. Dad played Ländlers on the little Swiss accordion, and the old couples who came over from Switzerland or whose parents did would get up for those and nothing else. Watch them first. Then try it.
Dad's last job was a wedding dance on Saturday, October 14, 1995, at a town hall west of Monroe. He was 65. He played every set, yodeled twice, and closed with the "Blue Skirt Waltz" like always. A month later he had a small stroke that took the strength out of his left hand, which on an accordion is the hand that does the bass and the bellows, and that was that. He never said a word about it. He sold the big accordion to a young fellow from Iowa who was starting a band, and kept the little Swiss one on the piano, and played it with one hand on Sunday afternoons. His heart gave out in October 1997, at home, in his chair, with the Packers game on. At the funeral lunch in the church basement, the band set up one last time. Jeff, Eddie, Joy, Glenn, and me, and old James Mack, who was 71, hadn't played a job in thirty years, and came with his bass horn anyway. We put Dad's little accordion on a folding chair at the front with his red vest over the back. We played his polkas, and nobody danced at first, because it was a funeral. Then my mother got up from the head table, walked over to old Burton Rarick, and asked him to waltz. And then everybody did, between the tables, in the church basement, in their good shoes, with the ham sandwiches going cold. We closed with the "Blue Skirt Waltz." I don't know how I kept time. I just did. Twenty-three years of habit. That's the best gig I ever played.
The band is done, but I still play. Eddie, Glenn and I fill in with a couple of other old-time bands around the county when they need a drummer, and every New Year's Eve I still end up somewhere with a polka going at midnight. Mom is 68 and still dances every one she can. If you have pictures of the Wiley Burkhalter Orchestra, or you hired us for your wedding, or your grandma danced to Dad at a picnic in 1958, please write. I'm putting together a scrapbook for Mom. |
Dancers since Cheese Days 1998:   
Next: The Gig Book >> [email protected] Leon Burkhalter, Green County, Wisconsin Last updated September 6, 1999 (Labor Day, and I'm not playing anywhere, which feels wrong) |