Jimmy Sturr
Living Category – Inducted 1984
Today’s most eligible polka bachelor is Jimmy Sturr.
He is 40 years of age, Irish, earns six big figures a year and owns a
radio station.
 At
the ripe old age of thirteen, Jimmy was off and playing. The first
bookings were those classical traditional, all-out, three-day Polish
weddings. That kind of experience comes to few bandleaders. A full
music scholarship gave Jimmy the chance to attend the Valley Forge
Military Academy. After that came the University of Scranton. During
that time, the band continued without Jimmy. For the first nine years
the Sturr band played strictly in the polka field.
The Sturr Band was awarded a commendation of
excellence from Broadcast Music Inc. (BMI), the first ever awarded in
the polka field. Recently the Anheuser-Busch Corp. chose Jimmy and the
band to do the music track for a Budweiser commercial. His band is the
only polka band to appear at Carnegie Hall in New York City. They have
appeared five times and sold it out all five times. His band is the
only polka band to appear at the famed Opryland in Nashville,
Tennessee. Their travels have brought them twice to the MGM Grand Hotel
in Las Vegas.
While off the road Jimmy is President and sole
owner of WTBQ Radio in Warwick, New York. He is also President of
National Polka Artists, Inc., and the Starr Record Co., on which many
other artists record. Jimmy also owns his own travel agency called
(what else?) Jimmy Sturr Travel.
In the past eight years, his band took many polka
music awards with Most Favorite Album, Single, and Instrumental Group.
His name was recently submitted as a candidate for the Polka Music Hall
of Fame and he was immediately selected by the electors. |
