Li'l Wally Jagiello
Living Category – Inducted 1969
Li'l Wally has been one of the most important and influential polka
musicians in America. He was responsible for creating the Chicago-style
polka, a slower, more danceable, more improvisational sound, whose core
appeal lay with Polish-Americans.
 Wally was a cottage industry unto himself, recording at an often
frantic pace and releasing over 150 albums on his own Jay Jay label. He
played both concertina and drums in concert, and performed good-humored
dance tunes and sentimental ballads with the same unwavering enthusiasm.
So popular was he that he and Frankie Yankovic became the first
inductees into the Polka Hall of Fame.
Walter Edward Jagiello was born in Chicago on August 1, 1930. His
parents were both Polish immigrants, and he was exposed to polka music
very early on -- so much so that he gave his first public performance at
age eight, fearlessly taking the stage at a neighborhood picnic to belt
out songs with the band. He started sneaking out to hear polka music in
the clubs along Division Street, and was soon getting professional
bookings as a singer with the bands he met. A self-taught drummer and
concertina player, he started playing with Chicago polka godfather Eddie
Zima at age ten, and was leading his own band at 14, by which time he'd
dropped out of school. His first recording session came in 1946 for his
own small Amber Records label, at which point he was still singing
entirely in Polish.
In 1949, Wally recorded eight songs for Columbia Records..
Dissatisfied with the experience, he launched Jay Jay Records in 1951,
and unleashed a torrent of music; during the '50s, he often managed to
turn out ten or more LPs a year. His slowed-down style left his
musicians plenty of room to improvise as they saw fit.
Wally's style became so popular in Chicago that virtually every other
polka band in the city had to adapt their own sound to fit his
blueprint. His burgeoning popularity crystallized into a breakout
national hit in 1954, thanks to his first English-language recording, "I
Wish I Was Single Again." It sold over 150,000 copies in Chicago alone,
and climbed onto the national charts, where it topped out at Number 22.
However, Wally was so overwhelmed by the duties of recording,
performing, and running the label that he began to suffer from ulcers;
he took some time off for a vacation in Miami, and liked it so much that
he and his wife would eventually move there permanently.
In the meantime, however, Wally returned to Chicago and resumed his
prolific writing and recording pace. He scored numerous hits with polka
audiences over the years, including the all-time polka standard "No Beer
in Heaven," "Li'l Wally Twirl," "Johnny's Knockin'," "She Likes
Kielbasa," "Seven Days and Seven Nights," "Take Me Baby," "Chicago Is a
Polka Town," "Lichtensteiner Polka," "Two Bucks Polka," "To Be in Love
With Someone," and many, many, many others. He played gigs all over the
Midwest whenever he could, touring with a core trio (concertina,
trumpet, and drums) and adding a clarinet, bass, and/or violin player
for bigger shows; most of his musicians held day jobs in factories, so
there was near-constant turnover in his backing group. At the peak of
his popularity, he had a polka radio show in Chicago, and played some of
the city's biggest dance halls, including a high-profile debut at the
Aragon Ballroom in 1955. He also bought his own record-pressing plant,
which enabled him to control more aspects of his one-man polka industry.
During the '60s, Li'l Wally appeared three times on The Lawrence Welk
Show. By the end of the decade, he and his wife had relocated to Miami,
where Wally bought a recording studio. In 1969, he and Frankie Yankovic
were selected as the two charter members of the Polka Hall of Fame. The
following year, he opened a polka bar in Miami, which stayed in business
for the next six years but was eventually forced to close due to the
city's much smaller Polish contingent. Wally continued to tour and
record from his Miami home base, and managed another big polka hit with
1982's "God Bless Our Polish Pope." The unabashedly sentimental ode to
Pope John Paul II got Wally the chance to perform for him in 1984. In
later years, Wally teamed up with the new-school punk-polka outfit the
Polkaholics in concert, though his own brand of polka remained defiantly
traditional in the face of a wider country & western influence.
He died on August 17, 2006, in Miami, Florida, at age 76. |
