Accordion Americana Project
Like a brilliant quilt, music is the fabric of a culture’s shared experience. The piano accordion is a part of the fabric. Music, like any living language, changes constantly and the pop songs we hear today may evolve into the folk songs of tomorrow. Thus, they become a piece of the quilt and part of our linked identities. The quilt binds all North Americans together, presenting an ever-changing picture of who we are, as a culture. The language of music is the critical link between all of us and should not be taken for granted. We should do all we can to cultivate, support, engage and embrace it as our own.
Because the diatonic “button box” accordion is a totally different instrument, the focus of this site, with a few influential exceptions, is on the piano accordion and the role that it has played in Americana music, from roots, folk, blues, gospel, country and pop to jazz.
The intentions of Accordion Americana are to tell the stories of working accordionists and to show their contributions to live and recorded music within the last fifty years. Also intended is to tell the “new” story that is evolving about the piano accordion, not the same old story with the same cast of characters. I seek to change perceptions that some may have of the piano accordion by often showing it used in different ways, by those with faces that may not be familiar to players of the instrument or the public.
Also, my intention is to show the piano accordion as a musical instrument that holds a place in the history of Americana music, rather than one that has been implied to have participated only on its fringes, or from afar. It has been on this continent for over 150 years. It is also important to show that this instrument has a place in the future– in emerging 21st Century music, utilized by musicians in bands, and singers and songwriters in their work, today.
It is hoped that this project will serve to inspire young people as developing musicians and to promote the piano accordion to them. Just as the piano accordion has always been, it is still an option for the next generation of music makers, for it is through them that this instrument has a chance to survive and participate, on any level, in the new music that is yet to be composed and performed.
Accordion Americana was created to entertain and inform only, not to endorse any products or services mentioned or featured on this site.
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It’s all about the music!
