Accordions making a comeback

The Beatles killed the accordion.

That’s the generally accepted theory of why guys from the late 1960s through the early 1990s picked up guitars and gathered groupies around them.

Meanwhile, nerds on accordions played at old-folks homes.

Put another way, Henry Laurito of Nazareth, Pa., who’s been squeezing an accordion for more than 50 years, says: “One generation went with (Elvis) Presley, the other one went with (Lawrence) Welk.”

It’s a history worth noting as we begin June, which is National Accordion Month.

Laurito, 57 an accordionist with the band Alpine Express, says the Beatles arrived on America’s shores with a three-guitar-and-one-drum-kit structure. That became the standard rock ‘n’ roll band.

“But the accordion industry did it to themselves,” Laurito says of the instrument’s downward spiral.

“They wanted to be accepted as ‘serious’ musicians. They thought this rock music was corny.

“And rock’s response was, ‘Accordions are square.’ “

That left fans of the accordion – which is not a keyboard instrument at all, but a reed instrument, in the same family with clarinets – with few local places to buy accordions and even fewer places to get them repaired or take lessons.

“You had to travel for that,” Laurito says.

Of course, there always has been a strong backing for the accordion among ethnic groups, clubs and other polka-strong communities.

Jolly Joe Timmer has a popular polka radio show out of Bethlehem, Pa.

Does he listen to some of the more rock-oriented accordion music?

“Oh sure,” he says. “I’m not going to listen to it every day, but they use the accordion, particularly the button box – the diatonic accordion where you have buttons on one side and you pull it in and out – in Zydeco and Cajun music.”

Of course, polka is his first love.

Still, two of his favorite songs to play on the accordion are the traditional “Danny Boy,” and “Sultans of Swing” by Dire Straits.

Laurito says the accordion is making a comeback among young people. He’s seeing it in more rock bands.

Nils Lofgren’s first instrument was an accordion, and he often used it on his albums.

Bob Dylan, Sheryl Crow, Barenaked Ladies, Counting Crows, Arcade Fire and many others use the “squeeze box,” and Laurito agrees with Timmer that its popularity is fueled by a resurgence in Zydeco and Cajun influences.

As Laurito says, “It’s not the instrument” that should be the focus.

“It’s the music.”