More Beer! Frankie Yankovic Pushes Akron's Finest

The Burkhardt Brewing Co. of Akron is, alas, no more, otherwise I'd offer a free six-pack for every comment to this post.

But the brewhouse was going strong back in 1952, with a new marketing push including television spots brandishing its new slogan "B-B-G-G... Burkhardt's Beer for Golden Goodness." And its ad agency, Fuller & Smith & Ross of nearby Cleveland, had enlisted the local Polka King, Frankie Yankovic, to record vocal and instrumental versions of (what else) "The Burkhardt Polka."

It's an enjoyable if routine polka record, with Frankie reminding us that it's "B-B-G-G... Burkhardt's Beer for Golden Goodness" any number of times on the vocal side.

The singing is in the usual polka manner - choppy phrasing, no legato, no vibrato. It's designed to give the impression that anyone could do it, probably because most anyone could.

The musicians on this record are possibly the group that Yankovic recorded with at the time - Tops Cardone, accordion, Carl Paradiso, banjo, Buddy Griebel, keyboards, and Al Leslie, bass.

Beer and polkas go way back - at least as far as 1927, when the Czech Jaromír Vejvoda wrote the tune that would eventually become a giant hit as the "Beer Barrel Polka" in the 1939 recording by German accordionist Will Glahé. Yankovic's take on the tune is included both in the download to this post and in this earlier Yankovic collection.

Frank hoists a beer and an accordion

Yankovic was of Slovenian descent. That land is relatively near to Austria and Bavaria, and their musics have some similarities. One of the most familiar polka songs, "In Heaven There Is No Beer," comes from the 1956 German film, Die Fischerin vom Bodensee (if Wikipedia is to be believed), and was written by Ernst Neubach and Ralph Maria Siegel. I've included Yankovic's 1965 recording in the download, which attributes the song to the accordionist and his arranger, Joe Trolli.

Burkhardt Beer lasted from 1877 to 1956, when it sold out to the Burger Brewing Co. of Cincinnati.

Beer-related music has been an occasional topic of interest on these blogs. To date we have featured promotional records honoring Budweiser, Carling's Black Label, Schlitz, Hamm's, Duquesne, and most recently Heileman's. This 78 comes to us from Internet Archive.

Chop Suey from Frankie Yankovic

The is a spin-off from the post on my main blog of Malcolm Arnold's score for the 1958 war drama The Key. Included in the music was a theme confoundingly called the "Chop Suey Polka." The Columbia honchos decided it made sense for their prize polkateer, Frankie Yankovic, to take up the tune, and he dutifully etched it for this single release.

Arnold was a fine composer, but polkas were perhaps not his main line of interest, so this one, while insistently memorable, did not result in one of Yankovic's best records.

Fortunately, the flip side is a superb number called the "Roseann Polka," which shows off the bandleader's crack musicians to great effect. Unfortunately I don't know who plays on these particular cuts.

I enjoyed this so much that I plan to feature some of Yankovic's early Columbia LPs on my main blog in the near future.