I wrote Accordion Crimes during two years of disruption and uprooting that included the deaths of my mother and several relatives and friends, a move in stages from Vermont to Wyoming with books incarcerated in boxes for eight months, constant travel, a broken wrist, a publisher takeover. I never would have finished this book without the help of many interested and kindhearted people who aided with accordion source material, lore, lists of books, clippings, photographs, postcards, tapes and CDs, introductions to accordion-music scholars and accordion musicians. To all listed below my truly grateful thanks, but especially to Liz Darhansoff, coolheaded, who many times calmed my anxiety that the book could not stand another interruption, to Barbara Grossman who helped get it under way, and to Nan Graham who gave me lunch, time and a long leash.
Thanks for a 1992 Guggenheim Fellowship which helped with research for The Shipping News and Accordion Crimes, and is still helping another, now in progress. The Ucross Foundation of Wyoming provided a quiet island (literally, thanks to a spring flood) where sections of this book were written. Special thanks to Elizabeth Guheen and Raymond Plank for a hundred kindnesses.
Thanks to Patricia A. Jasper, director of Texas Folklife Resources, for permission to listen to the Resource Center’s collection of taped interviews with Texas accordion musicians and for introducing me to the southeast Texas music scene from Antoine’s in Austin to the Continental in Houston, and thanks to Rick Hernandez, Texas Commission on the Arts, who put me in touch with her. Thanks to Jane Beck of the Vermont Folklife Center for several useful suggestions. Huge thanks to musician- scholars Lisa Ornstein and Nick Hawes of the Acadian Archives at the University of Maine in Fort Kent. Lisa’s deep knowledge of Québec music, her kind introductions to Marcel Messervier and Raynald Ouellette, accordion virtuosi of Montmagny, and her translation help were invaluable. To Raynald Ouellette, not only an internationally renowned musician but a maker of fine accordions and organizer of the Carrefour mondiale, thanks for his remarks on the history of the accordion and its manufacture. To Marcel Messervier, whose fine accordions and extraordinary musicianship are legendary, thanks for an hour in his workshop and for his comments on his life as an accordion musician. Thanks to Jerry Minar of New Prague, Minnesota, for his help with the elusive Chemnitzer concertina, better known locally as the German-style concertina. Thanks to Joel Cowan, witty and peripatetic editor of Concertina and Squeezebox. Thanks to Bob Snope, accordion repairman at the Button Box in Amherst, Massachusetts, for his patient and thorough explanations of all facets of accordion lore, for his suggestions, and for reading the manuscript for accordion errors. Thanks to Rhea Coté Robbins of the Centre Franco-Américain, University of Maine at Orono, and to Vermonter Martha Pellerin of the trio Jeter le Pont, for their comments on Franco-Americans and Franco-American music. Thanks to Bart Schneider, musician and editor of Hungry Mind Review, for winging the odd accordion book my way. Thanks to Pat Fisken of the Paddock Music Library, Dartmouth College; to Judith Gray, folklife specialist, Edwin Mathias of the Recorded Sound Reference Center, and Robin Sheets, reference librarian of the Music Division, all at the Library of Congress. Thanks to Laura Hohnhold of Outside magazine for the occasional Chicago accordion tidbit. Thanks for the gimlet eye of Christopher Potter at Fourth Estate who picked up errors in fact and nuance. Thanks to Jim Cady of Cady and Hoar for clarifying a detail of a character’s business dealings. Thanks to my German editor Gerald J. Trageiser at Luchterhand Literaturverlag, who caught errors both subtle and gross. Thanks to Barry Ancelet at the University of Southwestern Louisiana for his invaluable suggestions.
Thanks to long-playing help from my son Jonathan Lang, sound engineer, and my daughter-in-law, blues singer Gail Lang, for instruction books, esoteric articles on current innovations in the accordion world, tapes of wizard accordion musicians, and advice on ancient speakers. To my son Morgan Lang, student of ethnomusicology, who first told me about the Chinese sheng, ancestor of the free-reed instruments, and widened my musical experience in every dimension, thanks. Thanks to my son Gillis Lang for San Diego accordion clips and witty puns, and to my daughter, Muffy Clarkson, who eased my heart and provided English muffins in extraordinary variety. Thanks to my father, George N. Proulx, for his true story of a punishing teacher who put male students under her desk.
To Joel Conarroe, thanks for the photograph of Uncle Dick in knickers with an accordion on his knee; thanks to Claire Van Vliet for the personalized paper accordion toaster by Cece Bell; thanks to Jon Fox for the miniature accordion (and case) that does everything but play. To Dan Williams, thanks for hard-to-find records, tapes and CDs, and dittodittoditto to Robert Warner for extraordinary accordion ephemera. Thanks to Bobby Doberstein for advice and help with everything from ski routes to stuck garage doors. Thanks to Kimble Mead for the Hawaiian Cowboy (and many other) tapes, and to the Breakfast Club who showed me real-life collectors in full frenzy. Thanks to Laurent and Pascale Gaudin who brought me back hard-to-find musette recordings from France, and thanks to Tom Watkin, fellow enthusiast and companion tripper to Montmagny’s annual weekend de l’accordéon. Thanks to the Tattered Cover Bookstore in Denver, especially Dotty Ambler, for books, help and quick service beyond all normal expectations. Finally, thanks to strong Gillian Blake in New York who carried bags of books from the Museum of Television and Radio back to my hotel for me.