Milw100 (November 30, 1999 at 12:00 am)

Its a great piece, but it is kinda obvious that its dubbed. I have no doubt that JoAnn was capible of playing it. However, I do think the comment LW made after about hiding her pregnancy was a bit out of line- but I guess those were the times!

81641 (November 30, 1999 at 12:00 am)

I once knew of a lady accordion player who played in a topless bar in Bemidgi. She did great until she got caught up in her work. JoAnn rocks!

zeppy13131 (November 30, 1999 at 12:00 am)

Well, JoAnn's a fine musician---so it's entirely possible she pre-recorded the music and was pretending to play it on-camera. (It'd be easy to forget exactly which run came when, and so on.) Welk had high standards, so he may have insisted some of his intrumentalists record their tunes in advance to avoid flubs.

romeman01 (November 30, 1999 at 12:00 am)

For those interested in JoAnn's accordion style, she has put the original clips of almost every song from her accordion LP on her home page. That record was made before she went to work for Welk and has a night clubish sound to it; there is some amazing skill demonstrated in the pieces featured.

romeman01 (November 30, 1999 at 12:00 am)

Very observant, zeppy. I have a polka LP somewhere which is billed as LW-MF and has both of them on the cover wearing accordions. I begin to suspect that it was made by Myron and JoAnn rather than LW and MF. In any case, Welk did a lot of playback on TV of LP studio recordings, with the band and/or singers faking it, and I think this is one of those. He wanted the best quality sound possible whenever possible. The Lennon sisters say they ALWAYS sang to playback on TV ("lipped it").

VinDcator (November 30, 1999 at 12:00 am)

As a kid, I had a real crush on her. I knew she was a great ragtime pianist, but never saw her play the accordion. Thanks for the post!

zeppy13131 (November 30, 1999 at 12:00 am)

This is very odd... When JoAnn "plays" those arpeggiated chords, her hand does NOT follow the notes. Watch the video closely: Notice that her right hand keeps moving down when the notes start moving up. Was Lawrence (or another accordionist) actually playing off-camera? Was JoAnn even playing at all---or did they just put there there to look good?

kyrah23 (November 30, 1999 at 12:00 am)

Bravo nice vid! 5*****

VanHoorelbeke (November 30, 1999 at 12:00 am)

Much better than the Chicago push, drag, pull, honkey polkas of today. They dont even know the proper tempo, this is how polkas were meant to be played! I think the musicians today are just to lazy to play at 130 beats per minute!

speeda18 (November 30, 1999 at 12:00 am)

Its fantastic, not only the music, but the showmanship. I realy dig the way Jo Ann strong arms Myron's hand shake at the end. she had to have some muscle to pound keys and toss an accordion around like she did.