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Editor's Note:Gene Hackemack, longtime owner of the Hofbrau Haus in New Ulm and sometime Texas Polka News contributor, is back with more news.
THE BEST KEPT SECRET this side of the Polka World is about to be exposed by me. Write this down on your Polka Musik entertainment calendar: The LAST WEEKEND in SEPTEMBER. What's happening? It all goes back to 1902, in the little village of Zbraslav, Czechoslovakia, just a few kilometers south of Prague...
This was the year and birthplace of Jaromir Vejvoda, who was the composer of Skoda Lasky, also known as Rosamunde in Germany and The Beer Barrel Polka in the USA! On a recent trip to Prague, Barbara and I stayed with good friends Vladimir and Vlasta Roskotovi, who happened to be good friends of Jaromir's youngest son, Josef, himself a very accomplished musician with his own orchestra. Just as fortunate for us was the fact that we were in town the very weekend of the third annual Zbraslav Vejvoda Škoda Lasky Competition Festival! Just what is it??? I will explain...
Josef Vejvoda speaks English and German fluently, I was fortunate enough to conduct a twenty minute interview with nun on video,mostly in English and a little German, with Barbara as my cameraman! After finishing a most delicious meal in his Skoda Lasky Restaurant we started talking. As the interview began, I curiously asked him how he knew German so well. He stated that he learned a little in school, but that he became fluent in it while playing musik in Germany for a year and a half. I felt a little in awe when I found out that Jaromir was born in this very same building in 1902.
Jaromir's brass band was called Vejvoda Kapela, and it's size varied according to it's audience. After composing Skoda Lasky in 1927, it was played under various names, sometimes humorous names such as One-half meter of Wood! This was somewhat of a problem until the name Skoda Lasky was finally given to it. Meanwhile, it became popular in Germany as Rosamunde, but it's popularity really hit it's peak when the Americans and English called it The Beer Barrel Polka! Meanwhile, with the war and it's aftermath, sight was lost as to where the song actually came from!
As communism began to take hold in Czechoslovakia, Josef said that 1948 is when things really got bad, especially for bands. Jaromir was not allowed to profit from his songs. He simply wanted a small house for him and his family, so he began working long and hard hours in a factory. Finally in 1960 he was given credit for composing the song, but still had to continue his work hi the factory "under the old system". Jaromir died hi November, 1988 at the age of 86, at least having known that his song was now famous worldwide and he was given credit for it. My Czech is very limited, but I have been told that the original words make it a very sad song. He is grateful that the English versionBeer Barrel Polka makes it a happy song!