"WALLY"
POLKA-ROCK OPERA
ON HIS BIRTHDAY EVE
Chicago (PMN)—On Saturday July 31, the
eve of Li’l Wally's birthday, The Polkaholics will perform their
polka-rock opera "Wally!" in its entirety at Quenchers, 2401 N.
Western Ave., Chicago, Ill. As an added treat, the Johnny Thunders
tribute band "DTKLAMF, "which includes Dandy Don of The Polkaholics
and the three Chrises (Chris Jern, Chris Linster, and Chris Russell)
will open up the show with a rousing set of Johnny Thunders songs,
whose birth date is July 15, an appropriate late tribute to the
late-great guitar icon.
This extraordinary fusing of Li’l Wally
and Johnny Thunders is exactly what The Polkaholics are all about,
and for one night the music of these two musical legends will
collide head on. Admission is $5.00 and festivities will begin at
9:00 p.m.
Released as a CD in 2009, "Wally!"
tells the story of Li’l Wally’s rise to Chicago polka glory and
Florida sunset in polka-rock opera form, with storied-songs like
"Son of a Gun Polka," "Division Street," "Sea and Sand Polka," "King
of Happiness," and more.
From a boy singing with polka bands at
Caldwell Woods to being featured on the Lawrence Welk show and
playing for the Pope at the Vatican, Li’l Wally was the Horatio
Alger of polka and "Wally!" immortalizes his amazing journey.
Dandy Don (Hedeker), the founder of The
Polkaholics, has a connection to both of his heroes, Li’l Wally and
Johnny Thunders. It was on August 1, 1980, on Li’l Wally’s 50th
birthday, that Johnny Thunders played Don’s Dan Armstrong lucite
guitar at a Gang Wars show at Tuts, which was located on the
southeast corner of Belmont and Sheffield Aves in Chicago. Gang Wars
was a short-lived supergroup that featured Johnny Thunders and Wayne
Kramer.
Then, in 1999, Don Hedeker brought Li’l
Wally back from his semi-retirement in Florida to play a show with
The Polkaholics at Zakopane Lounge on the old "Polish Broadway,"
Division Street between Ashland and Western Aves., Chicago, which is
where Li’l Wally made his fame in the 1940s and 1950s.