Accordionists gather in Memphis to celebrate the instrument 'that can do it all'

Photo by Mike Brown // Buy this photo

"The accordion is such a happy instrument," says Linda Warren of Bartlett, one of the few teachers of the instrument left in the Mid-South. She has been playing for more than 40 years and had paying gigs when she was a teenager.

In the lobby of the Holiday Inn, across from the University of Memphis, Mary Tokarski opens the large instrument case that came with her from Connecticut.

She extracts a shiny, silver and black accordion so large that if it had wheels it might be mistaken for a '48 Lincoln Continental. She straps it to her chest, takes a breath and plays a classical piece that causes her whole body to sway ecstatically. The sound of the Titano accordion fills the hotel lobby and when she's finished, someone across the room, out of sight, applauds.

Photo by Mike Brown

"The accordion is such a happy instrument," says Linda Warren of Bartlett, one of the few teachers of the instrument left in the Mid-South. She has been playing for more than 40 years and had paying gigs when she was a teenager.

In the mid-1960s, Kemmons Wilson hired the teenaged Linda Warren to play the 5-7 p.m. happy hour at his old Holiday Inn at Union and Cleveland. "I took all kinds of requests," she said, "blues, rock and roll, classical."

"See, you can be as serious or as fun as you want to be," Tokarski says. "You're only limited by your imagination."

Tokarski, a concert hall accordion player, was proving a point. Her interviewer had started the conversation joking about polkas, crawfish boils and bar mitzvahs.

It seemed strange that the American Accordionists Association had chosen Memphis for its annual convention this year. Memphis isn't known for its accordion virtuosi.

Come to think of it, has the accordion ever made headway into rock and roll?

Mama's got a squeezebox

She wears on her chest

And when Daddy comes home

He never gets no rest

'Cause she's playing all night

And the music's all right

Mama's got a squeezebox

Daddy never sleeps at night.

It's Linda Warren who brings up The Who's tune "Squeeze Box." Double entendre aside, it has to be the most famous rock song devoted to an accordion.

Warren can play it. She can play anything, really. Just hum a few bars and she's off, her French manicure clicking up and down the keyboard like poodle paws on a Pergo floor.

Warren, who lives in Bartlett, is one of the few accordion teachers left in the Mid-South, and certainly its biggest proponent in the region. Her eyes well up with tears when she talks about the excitement it brought her as a young woman.

"The accordion is such a happy instrument," she says. "It leans against your heart. You physically experience the

music. And it's one of the few instruments that can do it all. You can take it anywhere. You can go to the bathroom with it, if you want to!"

Warren says that being half Italian probably had something to do with taking up the instrument as a kid. In Europe, the accordion is far more popular than here in the states, and the Italians like to claim it as their own (though more recently China has gotten credit for the earliest iterations of the instrument). The best accordions are still made in Italy.

Her Italian side also made her very competitive as a youngster. In the early 1960s, she took her squeezebox to the Mid-South Fair's Youth Talent Competition and won several years in a row. She loved beating the guys.

As a teenager, she even landed a paying gig. There's a picture of her from the mid-'60s playing the accordion for patrons at the old Holiday Inn at Union and Cleveland. Kemmons Wilson himself hired her for the 5-7 p.m. happy hour shift. Between tunes, she told jokes.

"I have perfect pitch, so all anyone had to do was hum a melody and I could play it," she said. "I took all kinds of requests -- blues, rock and roll, classical."

In her home studio, where she now mostly teaches piano lessons, Warren exhibits one of her favorite photographs.

It's a picture of Elvis Presley, embracing the accordion. He had one with him in Europe, when he was in the Army.

For Linda Soley Reed, president of the 4,000-member American Accordionists Association, the photo is vindication of sorts.

"I grew up with Elvis, and it's one of the reasons I wanted to learn the accordion," she said. "It's a very versatile instrument."

That in mind, one imagines a very different sort of pilgrimage for Elvis fans had the King of Rock and Roll been swiveling behind an accordion instead of a guitar.

Tonight at the Holiday Inn, members of the association will conjure just such an alternate history during their Elvis accordion competition. And at noon Friday, 100 or so players will make the pilgrimage to Graceland bearing squeezeboxes. They plan a mass accordion choir of "Love Me Tender" and "Blue Serenade."

Before rock and roll made the guitar the instrument of choice for parties and sing-alongs, the accordion was one of the most popular instruments taught in American music schools.

So Elvis can also be blamed for its declined use in the years when Lawrence Welk became associated with establishment music.

Still, John Lennon played one on various Beatles tracks. The late Danny Federici played the instrument with Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band for years. Sheryl Crow can accompany herself. From Bob Dylan to the Barenaked Ladies, the accordion is hardly a relic.

Attending the conference from New York, Faith Deffner says people are often surprised how frequently the accordion is heard in popular music, despite its reputation.

"It's not a demanding instrument," she said. "It has so many different sounds that it can adapt to anything. It brings about a camaraderie that you don't find in a lot of other instruments.

"A lot of people like to jest about the accordion, but I don't think there's a better instrument upon which to start your music education."

Accordion conference

The American Accordionist Association conference is at the Holiday Inn at the University of Memphis, 3700 Central. Some events are open to the public:

Today

11:30 a.m. -- Luncheon concert featuring Bruce Gassman, concert and symphony accordionist Mary Tokarski and "Roland V" champion Joe Natoli. $25 admission includes lunch.

7 p.m. -- Cabaret night with country and western group Joey Miskulin and Riders in the Sky. $30.

Friday

Noon -- Mass band performance at Graceland.

7 p.m. -- Evening concert starring Jeff Lisenby and the NashVegas Jazz, "Liberace of the Accordion" Tony Lovello and Joe Natoli. $25 admission.

For more information, visit ameraccord.com

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