MINNESOTA POLKA: Elmer Scheid / Sweet Violets Waltz / Pleasant Peasant 73-62 / 1962

Elmer Scheid (1921-2012) of New Ulm, MN, was a concertina player whose first professional job came in the 1930s at age 13 with the John Fritsche Band (Fezz’s father). He also played with the Six Fat Dutchmen and the Babe Wagner Band, managing the latter for two years after Babe’s death in 1949. Scheid founded his own Hoolerie Band in 1951 and became one of the most popular groups in New Ulm (the “Polka Capital of the Nation”), performing for the next 50 years. The band recorded fifteen albums on the Epic, Decca, Polka City, Pleasant Peasant, Czech Records, Oxboro, and Soma labels. As the demand for “old-time” music declined in the 50s and 60s, Scheid worked as a custodian at 3M in New Ulm and later tended bar at Turner Hall, but traveled with the band on weekends. Fellow musician and concertina player Donnie Klossner said, “The Elmer Scheid band was so popular around here, we usually didn’t have to travel far. When we were younger, many polka band leaders like Johnny Gag and Jerry Schuft wanted to play the concertina like Elmer Scheid because he had such a nice, clean style.” Elmer Scheid was inducted into the Minnesota Music Hall of Fame in 1995. Pleasant Peasant was a 1950s - 1960s polka label from Minneapolis, MN, founded by C. B. Brown, who also ran the Lodestar label. Many of the recording artists were descendants of German and Czech immigrants living in the area to the west and southwest of Minneapolis/St. Paul, which included the town of New Ulm, “Polka Capital of the Nation.” [Note: Robert Schumann’s 1848 work, “Fröhlicher Landmann,” is often translated as “Pleasant Peasant.”] [Sweet Violets Waltz, Elmer Scheid, Pleasant Peasant 73-62, recorded 1962, matrix KB 3100-B] The flip side of this disk is Grain Belt Polka:    • MINNESOTA POLKA: Elmer Scheid / Grain Belt...   Polka Playlist:    • Polka Time   https://www.ipapolkas.com/2016-hall-o...