Flatonia - Once you get George Koudelka started, its hard to turn him off..., but who'd want to. George, the drummer for the Round Top Brass Band, has an encyclopedic knowledge of the history of the music in this part of Texas. He probably knows more about the various polka, brass, western and swing bands in the central part of the Lone Star State than anyone alive.

The co-founder of the Brass Band and his good friend, Ronnie Sacks, warned me that George was a master at "storytelling" and he was right. George is just fun to listen to.

He is a full-time band director and music teacher in the Moulton public schools. He's been there since 1982. Prior to that he taught 13 years here in Flatonia, where he lives. He also taught two years as a graduate instructor at Southwest Texas State University.

He had a lot to say, and I found all of it interesting.

Register - How did you get into music?

George - I started in 1955 here in Flatonia with a band by the name of the Shuck Bros. It was a country-western band, basically. The man who started that, his name was Louis Nieman. At that time, he was playing drums for an orchestra by the name of Joe Fajkus, and Joe Fajkus was quitting his band to organize the Lone Star Brass Band with the late Herbert Kloesel from Schulenburg and his brother, the drummer Arthur Kloesel, from Hallettsville.

That band played quite a few of the Round Top July Fourth festivals until finally they disbanded around 1969. But I played with the Shuck Bros. until I finished high school, and then when I went to college. I quit for awhile because I was in the band there, and we had football games on Saturday nights, which interfered with Saturday playing, so I quit for about a year and then joined Johnny Holub's orchestra from Schulenburg and played with Johnny Holub from ê64 to 1972. It was in those years that Ronnie (Sacks) played with us... with Johnny also.

You might recall a band from the late '60s and early '70s by the name of the Velvets. That was a popular country rock band from this area. The two men who started that band originally started playing with us in the Shuck Bros. in 1955. Those were Donnie Florus and James Farek. They played in the Shuck Bros. until 1960, when they split and formed the Velvets, which was in existence over twenty years.

Register - But how did you get into music at the very beginning? When did you first start playing?

George - When I was ten years old, with the Shuck Brothers, when I wanted to play drums.

Register - You didn't even know how before you started playing with them?

George - Oh, no. I started playing... before the school had a band. Flatonia School did not have a band until 1957. I started playing in this dance band that Mr. Niemann organized in 1955. I was ten. I was born in '45. I took lessons from him on Friday nights. I'd go to his house with my dad, and he would give me drum lessons and he would play trumpet and sax, and I'd play drums until I got good enough.

Then I played a couple of jobs in '55, and I went full time in '56. Then when the band organized here at school, I joined the school band here. Also, I joined the Shiner Hobo Band in 1958. During that time, I also helped out bands such as Adolph Migl's Orchestra from Moulton, which was a popular polka band in this area at that time. So that's how I got started.

Now, when I went to Southwest Texas, those were very good years, because President Lyndon Johnson was a graduate of Southwest Texas, and he became president in the fall of '63 after John F. Kennedy's assassination, and we were able to play for him on numerous occasions during the next six years, until he went out of office.

One of my best recollections for playing for President Johnson is the inauguration in Washington in January of 1965. We went up to D.C. to play for his inaugural. We also played for him at the dedication of the Gary Job Corps Center, which was in San Marcos. It was around that time also. We played for that, and he was the guest speaker. I met him and talked to him quite a bit on several occasions during those years. That was with the Southwest Texas Band. Ronnie joined that band after he graduated from high school. My last year there was Ronnie's first year as a freshman, as a member of the Southwest Texas Band, '68-'69 school year.

I've accumulated a large collection of recordings over the last 35 years. I started my record collection in the early '60's around 1961. I've accumulated a large collection of photo graphs and recordings on polka bands, both in Texas and especially Minnesota, because so many of the big polka bands came from there. I was able to just collect these records from estate sales and auctions and different places. Sometimes people would just bring a box to the house and give me records. Now I'm doing quite a few presentations especially like for the Czech Heritage Society. Iíve done several programs or workshops on the history of polka music in Texas. Also, I wrote a writeup for Dougherty Center in Austin, for their special production of a Czech music exhibit called "Muziky, Muziky," which is "Music, Music" in Czech. I wrote a discography, which was a list of Czech recordings, and also a brief history of polka music. I was asked several years ago to write the liner notes for a CD for Rounder Records (Rounder Records is a highly regarded label that specializes in folk artists, for instance, nationally known mandolinist David Grisman) and the president called me and asked if I would write the liner notes for a CD which included a variety of Texas polka bands. The gentleman wanted a history of Texas polka music along with a background on each of the bands that would be playing on that CD. I have one or two copies of that CD.

The northern bands that I have been fortunate to play with have included the Six Fat Dutchmen from New Ulm, Minnesota, which are regarded as the nation's number one polka band. They were selected by the Minnesota Ballroom Association.

They have appeared on the Lawrence Welk Show and the Dave Garroway Show. I have played with the Six Fat Dutchmen on and off since about 1967 when I played with them here in New Braunfels. In 1980, the Whoopee John Wilfahrt Band had a reunion of some of its band members and the bass player invited me to play drums with them so I also played with the Whoopee John Band. Later I played a little with the Elmer Shied band. These are three of the better bands from New Ulm, Minnesota.

From Nebraska, there used to be a band coming down here on tour by the name of Al Grebnick. He made an annual tour here in January. When he first came down here, he came down in July and later he shifted his schedule because of the bad weather up there...I do remember Grebnick playing in Schulenburg at the KC Hall one year and it was sleet so he did run into some bad weather.

Grebnick recorded almost thirty albums. His last album was a fiftieth anniversary album and I wrote a waltz for him called Fisherman's Love Waltz which he recorded.

After they were back home in Nebraska, he asked me if he could record it and if it would cost him anything.

I told him "No, I'm not going to charge you. I would just like you to give me credit on the album." Because if he would pay me something, the money is gone but if your name is on an album where it's written down, that's something for posterity. So, he did. I also repaired horns for him when he came down here on tour.

Another band I wrote some music for was Don Peachy. They come out of Wisconsin. He wanted an arrangement of a folk song called the Seven Step Polka. But when they played it, his men recognized it as a song called the Flying Dutchmen which is what they call it up there. It's one of the folk dances.

Folk dances include songs such as the schottische, the garden waltz, the mazurka and the herr schmidt. I also teach units in school on the history of jazz, history of rock and roll, history of country music and the last two years, I've done the history of polka music.

I traced the dance band music back to jazz. There are several things that contribute to the dance band music as we know it today. The modern side of the dance band comes from jazz.

The polka and waltz side comes from Europe. That includes folk songs that bands have borrowed from their ancestors who played or sang these songs in the old country such as Czechoslovakia, Moravia, Bohemia, Poland, Austria. Some of the Bohemian and Moravian people here are descendants of the Austrio-Hungarian empire. These songs came from Europe. Many of the European bands have recorded the songs that are played over here.

George shares a few funny stories about his experiences in the Round Top Brass Band and other bands.

Now on July 4th we play on that gazebo at Round Top. Before we played on that gazebo, we played on a circle in the ground and one year we were playing some polka or waltz and people started dancing and as they started dancing, the dirt and dust started flying that some of the men couldn't finish the song.

They were so covered up with dust it looked one of these dust bowl storms of the 1930's. They were so covered with dirt and dust that you couldn't see each other in the circle. It was coming from those people dancing.

When he played with Johnny Holub's Orchestra.

We played at a picnic in a little town called Lincoln, the other side of Giddings. That afternoon we played there, they had an auction and the lady was behind on tagging the items for the auction and she tagged my drums as an auction item, because we were set up next to the auction.

So when the auction was over, the six of us in the band went back up and I told Johnny "The drums are gone!"

"What?"

"Johnny, There are no drums here."

So the drums were sold. What we did, we found the man who had 'em on the back of the pickup and we got him together with the lady who was in charge of the auction. We made him understand that it was a misunderstanding.

Ronnie Sacks, the leader of the Round Top Brass Band, has implied that his friend George has been known to aggrandize the truth on occasion. Here at the Register, we appreciate a man with a respect for mythology. When I told George about Ronnie's accusations, he began to impersonate Jack Webb from Dragnet.

Only the facts...only the facts!

Here's a little story about the Inauguration of President Lyndon Johnson that George swears is true.

When we went to play for President Johnson, the Southwest Texas Band stayed in the Navy Barracks in Arlington, Virginia. At that time, I was Assistant Band Director.

Anyway, the morning before the parade, the University of Texas band came to that parade also because President Johnson's wife Lady Bird was a graduate of the University of Texas and that band was also to be in that parade. They did not know where they were supposed to stay and they came into our barracks...as they came in, they shoved all of our coat hangars and our clothing to the side and they put up the big orange jackets from U.T. The band members were coming up to me and saying 'What should we do? They're taking over our barracks.' So as I went outside. Mr. Calahan (the band director) was being interviewed by a reporter from the New York Times. I interrupted. I just flat interrupted.

I said, "Mr. Calahan, we have a problem. The U. T. Band has moved into our barracks and they're moving our clothes out. What should I do?"

He thought and he said. "Get them out of there. Remove them out any way you can!" and he went back to his interview.

"Jesus," I thought. "Now I've got a job to take 275 band members from the University of Texas out of our Navy barracks." So I went back over there.

We had eight inches of snow on the ground so I had an overcoat on and a Stetson hat, so I put it on and I walked inside and told my band members, 'Now what you see me do, don't say anything and don't interrupt.'

So I went up there and I said "Who is in charge of this band?"

One of the students said "Dr. Vincent R. De Nino."

I said I needed to speak to him immediately. This is an emergency."

So Dr. De Nino came over to talk to me and he said, "I'm Dr. De Nino, who are you." and I said I'm Dr. George Kudelka. I'm the Dean of Graduate School Music at Southwest Texas State College." I said "Your band, sir, is in the wrong building. Your band is supposed to be located in the barracks that have the letters E & F on the outside. Each of the barracks have a letter and a number and you are assigned to those barracks."

He said "How do you know?"

I said "I have State Department proof of that" and I took a letter out of my pocket but I didn't show him the letter. The letter had a roster of all the band members...that's all it had. I said. "This is State Department proof sir, badge number 1806D. You are in the wrong building."

He said "Are you absolutely sure?"

I said, "The Vice-President gave me this an hour ago."

He turned around and he took his megaphone and he shouted to all of them "U.T. Band, we're in the wrong building. Let's move out now." He collected everyone and they marched out. I don't know if they went to the barracks E & F or what happened...We all got a big kick out of it.

When we were getting ready to line up for the parade, we did not

know where we were going to be. As we stood on Pennsylvania Avenue, President Johnson drove up and motioned for Mr. Calahan to come over there and talk to him. Well, I went over there to see what was going on and Mr. Calahan introduced me to the President.

President Johnson's words were "You will lead the parade."

Mr. Calahan said "But sir, doesn't a military unit such as the army and or U.S. Navy band lead the parade?"

He said "I know but I'm changing precedence now. You will lead the parade because this is my band.

So Dr. McCrocklin, who was college president at that time was sitting in their reviewing stand with President and Mrs. Johnson and after we marched by...by the way we were the first civilian band in U.S. history to lead a Presidential inaugural, January 20, 1965...and as we marched by, Lady Bird said "Well Lyndon, where's my band?" and Dr. MrCrocklin said Johnson told her. "Your band's about half way back."

She said "Why so far back?" and he said "Because you're the President's wife and I'm the President."

Register - Why don't you give me a synopsis of the early history of the Polka recording industry in Texas?

George - Basically, the first band to record in Texas, as far as we know is the Baca Band of Fayetteville. The date of the band goes back to 1892, when the band started. But the earliest recordings were on the Brunswick and Vocalion Label around 1929 and 1930. The Bacas recorded also on Columbia label and on Okeh. There was an album released in the '60s of Baca's 78s, and whoever wrote the liner notes on the back of that album misspelled the record label. It's not Okay, it's Okeh. That's a record label that later was bought out by RCA Victor. They bought out a lot of the Okeh recordings.

Columbia recorded the Bacas on 10-inch and 12-inch 78s. These were the recordings that had only one song on each side. The Bacas recorded as far down as the late '40s, but the Baca Band split in the '30s, and there became a separate band known as Baca's New Deal and also the Ray Baca Orchestra, which split away from the John Baca Band. So the Bacas recorded, as far as we know, first.

Now in the '30s, another band that recorded was Adolph and the Gold Chain Bohemians. They were sponsored by Gold Chain flour. This was a 10-piece band from Schulenburg. They were broadcast live on a daily 15-minute program from the Cozy Theater stage at the Von Minden Hotel in Schulenburg in 1936 and 1937. They cut approximately 17 discs, which had one song on each side. The Gold Chain Band was a nice 10-piece orchestra which had players who could double on strings as well. They even played Strauss waltzes.

They recorded up to the middle of about '37 to '38, right in there. Then the band broke up, and it became the Lee Prause Orchestra. Lee Prause had played in this band, and when the band broke up, he took a large number of the guys and made two 78s under the Lee Prause Orchestra. So the Gold Chain Band recorded in the '30s, and Lee Prause recorded in the '30s, and the Bacas. Then we come down to the '40s, which became sort of the peak of polka band records. Most of the polka bands in this area, say Fayette, Lavaca counties and this area, pretty well made many of their recordings in the span of about two years, from 1947 to 1949.

That's when bands such as Joe Patek, Rudy Kurtz, Rhine Winkler, Worthing Old-time Brass Band, Ray Krenek, Lee Ilse, and a number of those bands recorded... in that era. Lee Ilse recorded also in the early '50s.

These were recorded on the Hummingbird label out of Waco and the FBC label out of Rosenburg. FBC stood for Fort Bend County. These were also 78s.

Also, Ray Baca recorded a number of the 78s during this time. Joe Patek recorded a large number. Joe recorded as early as the late '30s on the Decca label, recorded two songs. And then in the late '40s when so many of these other bands began recording. Adolph Hofner was a popular band at this time because Adolph Hofner could cross over into the polka music. He recorded several polkas and waltzes singing Czech, doubling with his brother Bash on vocals, and he also recorded Western swing, such as the Bob Wills style or Spade Cooley. (Later George would tell me that during World War II, the band changed its name to Besh Hofner Band because Adolph's name was too much like Hitlerís.) So Adolph was very popular in San Antonio in this area of Central Texas in the late '30s and early '40s.

Then, in the '50s, the 78s were sort of replaced, or should we say at first they were supplemented by the new type of record called the 45. The 45 was developed so that the juke boxes could play single records instead of a whole bunch of records at one time. And also the 45s were not breakable like the 78s. You could stack more of the 45s in a jukebox and they could drop down without breaking and ruining the mechanism or ruining the needle.

So many of the bands then began recording on 45s. Some of these 78 labels continued on 45s until the album industry began around the late '50s. I can remember playing dances around 1957-58 with that first band, the Shuck Bros, and Donnie Florus saying, "Well, I heard a news article on the radio that the 78 is going to go out." So around the late '50s, the 78 was replaced by the LP, which made it possible for the bands to record seven, or even eight songs on each side of a disc.

Then the polka bands began recording on what was known as the TNT label. That was out of San Antonio. That was Tanner and Texas. The man's name was "Papa" Tanner, who had that company. TNT was very popular in the late '50s and into the '60s. There was also a label called Pleasant Pheasant that recorded some of the polka bands in Texas such as the High Toppers. The German bands from New Braunfels were led at that time mainly by the High Topper's Orcyhestra on TNT Records. The also recorded an album where the High Toppers had one side and Joe Patek had the other.

Rhine Winkler recorded on TNT. His band changed a bit into the late fifties. Then into the early sixties, there was a company out of Houston called All Star that recorded a lot of the polka bands.

Then in the late sixties and early seventies, a fella by the name of Ray Doggett had a company called Guide. Guide Records recorded a large percentage of the polka bands in the early middle seventies.

Also during this time, the 8-track developed and some of the polka bands recorded on the old 8-track. 8-tracks were popular until the cassettes came in and slowly, but little at a time, the records disappeared and the polka industry went entirely to cassettes and now the newest thing, which is the CD. Some of them are recording on CD now.

That's sort of a thumbnail sketch of the polka history.

Of course, all of the polka bands in Texas are not just in this area. For example, you have bands up around Ennis and West, a band named Eric Honza, a band by the name of Harold Strand, and Gilbert House and south of here the Majeks, south of Corpus are regarded as one of the oldest family bands in Texas that are still playing. They began playing in the late 1800's and they are still going.

To the best of our knowledge, no polka bands recorded on the cylinders. The lateral disk 78 rpm recordings of the Baca's are the first known polka recordings we can find.

The polka industry began to change in the fifties as more people began requesting what we call "ballroom" music and so, many of the polka bands had to pick up arrangements of the big band style such as In the Mood by Glenn Miller and Room Full of Roses and Harbor Lights and My Happiness. Those were early modern band recordings. The polka bands changed to mixed music.

You had what we called "modern band," bands that played only ballroom music. You had some bands who could go either direction such as the Jurecka Orchestra from Weimar. They were basically a modern band but the 45's that they recorded are polkas and waltzes.

Later in the fifties and early sixties, the tuba was replaced by the guitar and the string base or electric base in a lot of the polka bands which made it possible for them to play country music.

Some of the polka bands, such as the Vrazels from Buckholtz and the Red Ravens from Schulenburg...these bands also played country music where the guys switch from horns to say steel guitar or ...something like that.

The polka music has changed a whole lot in the last twenty years because the polka bands as polka bands per se, are non-existent. It's more a mixed band now, a band that can play a variety. Even the bigger polka bands still in existence, like the Little Fishermen of New Braunfels. They have to play modern and country music, too. But they're still basically a horn band.

By horn band I mean a combination of two or three trumpets, a trombone, two or three saxes and the sax players all have to switch to clarinet. Your rhythm section normally consists of a tuba, accordion, banjo or piano and drums.

You have three and four-piece bands, too. Some bands in the area, Bobby Jones is down to about four-piece. Leroy Matocha is about six.

George Kudelka is a regional treasure. Next time you see the Round Top Brass Band playing in the Round Top Fourth of July Parade, check out the drummer with the big smile and the booming voice. That'll be George. Ask him a few questions if you like. You'll get an earful.