[78-L] fwd: Art van Damme

[Michael Biel]

fnarf at comcast.net wrote:
> The thing that I find most remarkable about accordions is how freakishly expensive good ones are. We live not far from Petosa, in Seattle, one of the top makers, and their instruments start at maybe $6,000 and go on up to $18,000 or $20,000. That's not as much as a 50s Gibson Les Paul or anything, but it's enough to buy a good car with. Obviously, you don't have to pay that much to get one, just as you don't have to play a vintage guitar, but jeez.
>
>
>   
All that to play "Lady of Spain"?!  And why did EVERY kid play that song 
on their accordion?  I know it is a cliche, but my friend Harris 
Reinstein DID play that at out 5th grade talent show!  It's not an urban 
legend.  I was there.  I heard it.  I've named person and place.

Mike (harris is gonna beat me to a pulp) Biel  mbiel at mbiel.com 

> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Steven C. Barr" <stevenc at interlinks.net>
> To: "78-L Mail List" <78-l at klickitat.78online.com>
> Sent: Saturday, February 20, 2010 7:06:13 PM GMT -08:00 US/Canada Pacific
> Subject: Re: [78-L] fwd: Art van Damme
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Jeff Sultanof" <jeffsultanof at gmail.com>
>   
>> What is interesting about the accordion, the instrument that many children
>> studied when I was a boy, was that it was (and may still be) available as 
>> a
>> synthesizer/electronic keyboard back in the eighties. I once went to a
>> wedding where the musician hired played one of these things, and I was 
>> most
>> impressed. The instrument samples were rather good (he could sound like a
>> string or woodwind section), and he also had a drum sampler as I recall.
>> Talk about one-man band.
>>
>>     
> Back in my youth (fifties), there was an operation that sold accordions
> and lessons thereon to unsuspecting parents who apparently visualized
> their offspring as "accordion STARS"...?! I have NO idea how many
> seldom-played accordions now languish in attics/basements/outbuildings
> ...eh?!
>
> Steven C. Barr 
>