POLONIA MUSIC
Bob Johnson has created a new website, Polonia Music. Polonia Music’s mission is to provide an online collection of the most cherished Polish songs enjoyed by people of Polish heritage. It is hoped that the collection will serve as a resource for anyone interested in traditional Polish music, Poland, and Polonia. Whenever possible, video, audio, links, lyrics and chords are provided to enhance your visit.
PAUL WENDINGER PASSES (1951 – 2010)
[Editor's Note: This story is an excerpt from an article published in The Journal (New Ulm, Minnesota) on November 23, 2010.]
Together, the Wendinger Brothers were a musical force, the leaders of a band that continued the tradition of the Old Tyme music made popular by their New Ulm predecessors.
Like the “Whoopee John” band and the “Six Fat Dutchmen,” Peter and Paul Wendinger traveled the upper Midwest, and beyond, with their band, playing the polka music that made New Ulm famous.
The brothers farmed together on adjoining farms near St. George, led travel groups, and together were inducted into the Minnesota Music Hall of Fame.
The partnership ended on Saturday (November 20) when Paul, the younger of the two brothers, died of the cancer he had been battling for several years. He was 59.
The Wendinger Brothers band will continue to play in the future, said Peter.
“I suppose in a few months we’ll change the name from ‘Peter and Paul Wendinger Band’ to ‘The Wendinger Band.’ Paul’s son, Jon, is heavily involved with the band as the drummer. I want to play in about 85 or 90 percent of the shows, but it will have some authenticity (to have John on stage) when someone else is playing the concertina.”
In 2003, the Wendinger brothers told The Journal how they started playing together for the “Hometown Harmony” edition. Peter and Paul’s father, Herbert, bought a concertina from Christy Hengel during Polka Days one year. Paul was 9 and Peter was 11, and for a few months the concertina sat untouched.
The brothers’ mother, Eleanora, finally signed them up for concertina lessons with Merlin Zeil in Hutchinson. They later studied with Jeanette Weber and then with Johnny Helget.
“Eleanora, their mother, said they didn’t have the Johnny Helget style, and that’s what she wanted,” Helget recalled on Monday. “They were a couple of kids who didn’t know what the concertina was about.”
Helget said the brothers were great entertainers. “They knew how to talk to people, how to entertain them. Paul, he was the people person. He could talk to a piece of wood,” Helget said.
The brothers played their first public performance for a wedding in 1963, and in their heyday played 160 to 180 shows a year.
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