International Accordion Favorites: Waltzes, Polkas, Tangoes, Hornpipes, Two-steps and more!
by Bruce Bollerud

International Accordion Favorites 74 page book & CD set: $19.95. plus $2.23 Media Mail (ten days to two weeks or longer) 4.80 for Priority Mail (two to three business days). (Shipping to Canada: $3.76; to Europe: $8.80)

A note from Dix Bruce:

I met Bruce Bollerud in the early 1970s. I was in college and he was playing in a great trio: The Goose Island Ramblers. I became a fan of the band, which played a mixture of, bluegrass, country, polka, jazz, and ethnic music, every weekend at Johnny's Packer Inn, down a few blocks from the Oscar Mayer meat packing factory in Madison, Wis. The band opened my ears to trunks full of new music and taught me how to perform. I treasure those times and the music I learned from them.

Over the years we've kept in touch and I've often told Bruce that he should collect the incredible number and variety of songs he knows into a book or books. I said I'd be happy to help in any way I could. Bruce got busy and wrote two books, the first is "International Accordion Favorites" and it includes over thirty songs (see songlist) that every accordion player should know. Every song from the book is included on the accompanying CD, which I recorded for Bruce at his home in Madison, Wis. Again, I learned another whole bunch of songs as we recorded.

I think you'll enjoy this collection. By the way, Bruce's second book is titled "Uff Da, Let's Dance! Scandanavian House Party Music" and it's due for publication by Mel Bay soon. It's a treasury of fiddle and dance tunes that Bruce learned from old time fiddlers in the 1940s and 1950s. I liked the material so much I arranged the tunes for mandolin and colleted them ikn a book. Mel Bay is also due to publish the "Uff Da" mandolin book.

Bruce Bollerud was born and raised on a farm in southwestern Wisconsin. His parents were Norwegian-American. Bruce was introduced to music at an early age when he attended house parties in the neighborhood with his family. He began to play the bandonion (a concertina-like instrument ) at age 10. Soon he was playing house parties with local old time fiddlers Herman Erickson and Johnny Homme. He took piano lessons and played trombone in the high school band. He began to play piano accordion when he was 15. He has played with area old time dance bands including, The Rhythm Ramblers, Roger Bright, Verne Meisner, Simpson’s Night Hawks, Dick Sherwood and The Goose Island Ramblers, and his own group The Good Time Band. Bruce’s earliest musical training and experience was the music of the house party which was largely Norwegian with some of the old pop two steps thrown in. Also by Bruce Bollerud: “Uffda, Let’s Dance!: Scandanavian House Party Tunes for Accordion.”