Dear Friends,
Last month’s meeting was a lot of fun with a lot of good music. This is what our club is all about. I was very happy to see such a good turnout of members to kick off the new year.
There was a very nice variety of music with selections from Olga Fansler, Xavier de la Prade, Sheri Mignano, Stanko Pecavar, Guy Richards, and George Simko. I even got into the act to play some fun duets with George. I heard many positive comments about our program for the evening.
For the month of February we have another great meeting planned. Kris Nelson is cooking his famous Gumbo for us before the meeting, so come out and bring a friend. We’ll be serving the gumbo with rice, salad and French bread, so there will be plenty to eat and our friends at Hermann Sons will have the bar open if you’re thirsty. Dinner will be served starting at our usual time of 6:30 and the price is, as with all of our club events, a great bargain.
Our featured performer for this month is Joe Domitrowich. It’s always fun when Joe comes to play for us and tells me that he’s worked up a brand new program which he will perform on his one man orchestra. Come on out and have something to eat and see what musical dishes Joe has cooked up for us as well.
Don’t forget next month is our annual Spring Fling dinner dance. We’ll have more great food from Lombardi Catering and wine from Marcucci Winery and dance music from the Steve Balich Band. I am hoping to see another good turnout for this event.
On a sadder note I received a call from Dorothy Orchid to inform me that Carl Fortina has passed away. Carl appeared on the Spike Jones Show, Jack Benny Show, and the Dean Martin Variety Hour as a credited performer. He also worked on the Peter Gunn, Bonanza, and Gun Smoke TV series. Some sources credit him with playing on 25,000 to 35,000 TV shows. He played on over 550 motion picture scores including Charade, Camelot, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and The Godfather. He was a native of San Francisco first appearing before an audience of 17,000 people at five years of age and becoming a well known vaudeville performer as a boy. He moved to Los Angeles in 1949 and started his long career in the TV, recording and movie business. Listen for the accordions of Carl Fortina and Frank Morocco on the Beach Boys gold record song “Wouldn’t It Be Nice”. Carl was one the greats of the accordion world and he will be missed.
Tony Mustaro
President
Accordion Club of the Redwoods
