Lil' Wally Radio Show

 

Walter "Li'l Wally" had a lot of pseudonyms. He was also Wladyslaw E. Jagiello aka Mały Władziu and aka Mały Władzio.  He became a band leader at 15 years old and quickly became a working musician. He assembled his own orchestra called the Lucky Harmony Boys. You probably gathered from the image above he played concertina and drums. He had started singing on stage at the age of 8 (Some sources say 10) for the Eddie Zima Orchestra so it seems like destiny.  

There's something to be said about his "Chicago" style. Different books dance around the topic by describing it as a "peasant" or "rural" style of polka with extra emphasis on the drums. But it was also called a "honky" style because that's where the word honky comes from: working class Slavic people. T word does sometimes show up in the titles and lyrics and early ephemera. [SOURCE] Like rock n' roll, it was dance music from from the working class. This was a style of polka distinct from the more orchestral northern style. 

Is that Agent 99?

Today Chicago has about 800,000 residents of Polish ancestry. So many Polish people immigrated to America that they created a pidgin called Pinglish, Polglish,Polglish or even Chicagowski. Slavic peoples began immigrating to America 1800s and worked in the industrial factories of the 19th century. Books like Upton Sinclair's The Jungle were written about the brutal conditions. So it shouldn't be shocking to read that Wally, born in 1930 to Polish immigrant parents, never went to high school. This was the great depression after all.

Instead, Jagiello founded his own record label in 1946, Amber Records, and had his first recording session that year still singing entirely in Polish. He didn't record anything in English until 1954. Polka was mostly popular with an ethnic Polish audience in Chicago who appreciated Jagiello's authenticity. Jagiello, for his part, was fully bilingual and performed English and Polish songs side by side in his sets. That Amber release is very rare. I've never even seen a picture of a copy. (No connection to the Denver-based 1968 Amber Records, or the 1950s Dallas-based AmBeR etc.)

In 1949 Jagiello signed to Columbia Records but he didn't like it. They released 8 songs but he disliked the sound of the recordings Columbia released, and he hated the loss of artistic control that came with working for the man. According to the book Immigration, Diversity, and Broadcasting in the United States by Vibert Cambridge Jagiello started his first radio show in 1950 at 1240 WCRW-AM. It aired on Mondays 5:00 - 5:30 PM. One source says he co-hosted that program with Chester A. Schafer. It looks like they had that show until about mid-1952. More here and here.

According to the book Polish Radio Broadcasting in the United States by Józef Migała he moved the show to 1490 WOPA-AM to run a full hour starting at 10:00 AM on Sundays. After just a few weeks it expanded to 3 hours. WCRW was only 100 watts and WOPA was 250, and only signed on in 1950. More than double the wattage and a nice new studio... this probably felt like an upgrade. WOPA also had an FM stick on 102.3. (I have not been able to confirm if he was simulcast on FM.)

A 1955 issue of broadcasting mentions Jagiello's program on WOPA. The "Happy Radio Program" was known in Polish as "wesoły program radiowy." Their description (below) of brokered ethnic programming and time-buys sounds like it's a foreign concept to them. That's because it was. In the early 1950s Polish and really most ethnic radio programming was quite unusual. The very first Polish radio program was probably Chet's Polka party on 1560 WTOD-AM in Toledo only a couple years earlier.

"Mr. Jagiello, a former union member, leads Little Wally's polka band, along with perhaps 10 other combos, plays dance halls and taverns. Their music is used for foreign language shows, through remote pick up by WOPA, Oak Park, a non-union station, on a paid-time basis. The musicians are not hired by that station. The bands buy time to advertise the places."

In 1956, his song, "I Wish I Was Single Again," hit the Top 40 charts. In 1951 he launched another label of his own, Jay Jay Records, the original address was 2425 South Kedzie Ave in Chicago. It was also the address for his recording studio, record pressing plant and short-lived second label: Banana records; that was circa 1957. Street numbering has changed but that location appears to be a motorcycle garage now.

Wally relocated his family to Miami around 1960. The street address NE 62nd St.; Miami, FL 33138 appears as the contact information for his label and recording studio as late as 1998. Jagiello bought the studio from Howard Warren in 1976 who was the original owner as Warren Studios going back to 1964. Paul Stanczyk, formerly of Belair Studios in Chicago oversaw the operation for decades. That address is now listed as Take-Off Records studio. I think the custom music staff metal work on the front door is original at least to Jagiello. [LINK] (The paint job is definitely new, and wow.) The Jay Jay label remained listed with a PO Box through the 2006 Billboard Buyers Guide. 

Jay Jay Record & Publishing Co.
PO Box 41-4156, Miami Beach,
FL 33141, (305)758-0000, Fax:
(305) 758-0000
Pres./Owner: Walter E. Jagiello
VP/Promo: Jeanette A. Jagiello
Mktg: Dorothy Flannagan
 Publicity: John Kozak
Labels: (Owned) Bonfire, Drum-Boy,
A Great Variety, Jay Jay, Polka-Tone
US Reps: Specialty Distributing Co.

During the '60s, Li'l Wally appeared three times on The Lawrence Welk Show, that's about as high-profile as polka gets. As the owner of Jay Jay he was quoted by Cashbox in 1961, complaining about the resistance among radio programmers to play Polka. It was and still largely is relegated to ethnic polish programs. Wally was booking tours, and playing concerts that attracted thousands, but couldn't get airtime outside a small number of polka programs. That's really what drove him to pay for airtime. More here.

“And yet, radio station disk jockeys, with few exceptions, practically refuse to expose polka music along the nation’s airwaves. The air exposure is sorely needed, as the average record purchaser makes his selections according to the suggestions offered by the deejay.”

A 1966 issue of Cashbox reported that since forming his Jay Jay label he had already cut over 50 albums and 200 singles. Another article that same year in Billboard reported that he sold the rights to some 200 albums to Premier Albums. But that same article confirms he will continue his Sunday three-hour broadcasts on Chicago stations 1240 WSBC-AM and 1300 WTAQ-AM.  The 1993 book Passport's guide to Ethnic Chicago by Richard Lindberg lists another Jagiello program "Lil' Wally Radio Show" on 1450 WCEV-AM. He was living full time in Miami by 1970 so it's self-evident that he's prerecording his shows, probably at his own studios, and shipping out 1/4 tape reels or transcription discs. Hopefully that's in a family archive somewhere.

It's very difficult to find how long some of his polka radio programs ran. The book Polka Happiness by Charles Keil listed polka programs on only 7 Chicago radio stations in his 1992 book: WOPA, WTAQ, WSBC, WEDC, WJOB, WLOI, and WIMS and among the DJs lists Jagiello. That intimated to me that his program was still running on either WSBC and/or WTAQ that year. If that's the case, it had been running over 25 years. More here.

Over 4 decades Wally created a Chicago polka sound others emulated. In 1969, he and Frankie Yankovic were selected as the two charter members of the Polka Hall of Fame. [SOURCE] Most of his 1970s biographies claim that he sold millions of records and that he had 16 gold records. It's hard to confirm how much of that is true. But it's all very plausible. I read a comment that suggested he owned a bar in Miami in the 1970s. I could not confirm it, but it's certainly in his style. Jagiello died in 2006. By way of an epilogue, let me remind you that Jay Jay records is still operating. In 2009, the Polkaholics launched a polka rock opera "Wally" based on the life of our favorite Chicago polka pioneer. More here.

Big Bill Hill

True to form, Big Bill Hill was a big man, 250 lbs, and over 6 feet tall. He was born in England, Arkansas in 1914 and rolled into Chicago in 1932 looking for work. He found work at a steel mill but he wanted to be on the radio. Nobody would hire him so he saved his money and bought air time on brokered stations. He started on WLDY-AM in Elmwood, and later WCRW-AM. He had his schtick down by the time he started his program "Shopping Bag Show" in 1955 on WOPA-AM in Oak Park. More here. 

WOPA-AM signed on in 1950. It's call letters the Oak Park Arms, a hotel on Oak Park Avenue where their studio was originally installed. Their 250 watt signal was strongest on the west side of Chicago, and William Klein's Village Broadcasting Company wisely targeted those black demographics so the schedule was full of blues, jazz, R&B, and gospel. Most of their day was brokered time so it was also peppered with ethnic programming of every stripe. But 1490 was short spaced between WXRT-AM and  WMOR-AM, so it was never going to have much more juice.

The solution in 1953 was 102.3 WOPA-FM.  WMOR had gone bankrupt and they bought the license at 3,600 watts.  This signal had solid Chicago coverage, though FM listener ship was low in the 50s it grew steadily. Initially the stations just simulcast all programming. But in 1966 the FCC mandated that FM simulcasts carry 50% originating programming.  The brokered ethnic moved to the FM side, but Big Bill Hill remained simulcast in the evening, even after the station bumped the wattage up to 6,000 watts.

His career changed forever in 1963. He already owned a booking agency, a dry cleaner, a management company and he owned his own club, the Copa Cobana. Supposedly he did remotes from all of those locations, even the dry cleaner. In 1967 it looked like it was all going to fall apart. WOPA was born again as a free form FM station full of underground music and hippies. His already floundering club, the Copa Cobana closed. But Bill defied all odds and started a R&B TV dance show on WCIU-TV. The "Red Hot and Blues" show ran until 1971. It was overtaken by another R&B dance program... Soul Train. More here. 

Cliff Arquette's Wild Boat Ride.

Let us consider the legend of  Cliff Arquette. It is said that at one time, he was performing regularly at 13 different daily radio shows at different 13 stations in the Chicago market. Furthermore that he was traveling from one studio to another by way of motorboats along the Chicago River which passed through its downtown. The claim seems to originate in an old issue of Coronet Magazine. But is it true?

He began as a bit-part funny-man hailing from Toledo, OH. He started out doing a vaudeville routine with Lolly Gookins called Cliff and Lolly Nuts of Harmony. He developed a character called Charley Weaver, who was a hapless folksy old man. It caught on. (He later got into a cross-dressing bit that was big for a time.) An issue of Popular Science from 1938 called him a "Radio Comedian" noting that he was playing more than 50 parts in various NBC radio programs. That's a nice early and reliable print source, but it cites no programs or stations!

Below is a partial list of programs he appeared on. I got some from the Radio Gold Index, more from the Encyclopedia of Old Time Radio by John Dunning. I cant' confirm it, but many of those NBC programs were performed at WBCN, the Chicago NBC affiliate. To be honest I can't find 13 programs happening concurrently in the Chicago metro but there are more enough a few to bear this out. His uncredited appearances are surely far greater.

• WGN - Cliff and Lolly, 1933
• WISN - Myrt and Marge, 1933 -? 
• NBC - The Fred Astaire (Packard) Show, 1934-1937
• KECA - Hollywood Spotlight, 1935
• NBC - Edgar A. Guest, 1935-1941
• WMAQ - Fibber McGee and Molly, 1936-1954
• NBC Blue - The Jack Benny (Jell-O) Program, 1938
• NBC Blue - The Rudy Vallee (Fleischmann's Yeast ) Hour, 1939
• NBC Blue - Avalon Time, 1939-1941
• NBC Blue - Frank Watanabe and The Honorable Archie, 1939-1940
• ABC - Point Sublime, 1940-1948
• NBC Blue - I Love a Mystery, 1942?
• Mutual - The Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok, 1943-1953
• NBC - The Lifebuoy Show, 1943
• ABC - Glamour Manor, 1944-1945
• NBC - The Dick Haymes (Autolite) Show, 1944-1948
• ABC - Ellery Queen, 1948
• CBS - My Home Town, 1949
• The Dave Willock and Cliff Arquette Show, 1950
• CBS - Lum and Abner Show, 1950
• CBS - The Harold Peary Show, 1951

There is a stretch in his career when he was clearly based in the Chicago area. It starts in 1933 or earlier and running until about 1938 when his career clearly became more mobile. The Chicago river hugs Wacker Drive right through the heart of the city, splitting into the north and south branches at Orleans Street. In that era WGN was in the Drake Hotel on Lakeshore Drive. 14 blocks north of the river—but only two if you boated out and around to the Lake Michigan side. WISN however, is up in Milwaukee. It's a trip not directly traversed by any river route, nor in a time frame allowing one to appear on multiple shows per day.

But WMAQ moved to 400 West Madison in 1928 (today 2 North Riverside Plaza) and that location is 1 block off Wacker drive following the south branch. As of 1935 downtown Chicago had at least 8 commercial radio stations: WCRW, WMAQ, WENR, WGN, WBCN, WBBM, WGES, WHFC, WKBI, and WSBC. WGES was on 2400 W. Madison Street in that era, and the NBC Tower at 454 N. Columbus Drive. I have to say... this at least appears plausible.