What’s an 8-year-old-girl to do growing up on farm in the east Iowa city of Solon? The small town is located near Iowa City and Cedar Rapids.
For Seal Beach Leisure World resident since 2003, Linda Herman, it was and easy decision after a friendly couple stopped by the family’s homestead selling accordion lessons.
“I had two older brothers, but I was the one chosen to learn music,” she said.
“I can’t say I was in love with it but I didn’t mind playing. I’d get up at 6 a.m. to practice and make everyone suffer. Started with 8 weeks on a 12 bass accordion. Then Dad purchased one for me to continue with,” she said.
However, Herman said she had a great teacher.
She and her husband had an accordion school as a business and they kept us busy and interested,” she said. “I was in their accordion band with about 20 to 25 other kids.
What had started out as something grudgingly accepted soon turned into a lifelong passion.
“Music has always been a part of my life. I’m sure my parents sacrificed to give me lessons. I always tried to do my best. I think music should be a part of the school system. It gives kids direction and discipline,” she said.
For Herman it also led to adventure and ultimately a way to support her self.
As a teenager I got to travel and perform all over the world with the group.”
In 1968, she went on a bus tour out west including California, where she eventually settled down.
In 1969, she was performing in New York City and in the Washington DC area.
She appeared on “The David Frost Show” in NYC, played at the 1970 Expo in Japan and in 1971 she had embarked on a European concert tour.
Herman had started playing for a dance band in Iowa when she was 16.
“It was New Year’s Eve and I thought, ‘Wow, I got paid to play!’ It was great. The band was lousy, but I had fun.”
Then she met Glen Kelley, whom she married.
“We had a 7-piece band that played a variety of music,” she said. “We did a lot of Octoberfest type things though. I did some arranging for the band.”
The band played across the Midwest, including the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa, the last venue Buddy Holly played before his fatal airplane crash.
In 1984, she and Kelley moved to Los Angeles and began playing what Herman calls the “senior circuit,” basically ballroom dance clubs and senior centers.
After Kelley passed in 1999, she went solo. She’s performed on cruise ships, casinos and accompanied variety acts on tours across the country.
These days she performs mainly in southern California, including the Breakfast Club in Los Feliz, where she has performed for 15 years, and the San Gabriel Elks, where she has played for 20 years.
Though Herman can play multiple styles on the accordion, her forte is ballroom dancing.
“That’s how I’ve been able to make my living on the accordion for so many years,” she said.
But ballroom dancing isn’t just reserved to big band music or waltzes.
“Basically, ballroom dancing includes everything from the foxtrot and rumba, to swing and country and western line dancing. It’s not just Glenn Miller,” she said.
Herman estimates that her repertoire includes 2,500 songs ranging from the 1920s to contemporary rock songs.
“Basically, if it has a danceable beat, I can rearrange it and play it on the accordion,” she said. “I perform mostly cover songs but in the last few years I have written some of my own material, music and lyrics.”
“One song I’m particularly fond of is called ‘Ode To The Sutliff Bridge.’ It came about in June of 2008 after a historic 100-year-old bridge to nowhere in Iowa,” she said.
“It was partially collapsed due to floodwaters. I grew up near the bridge. The bridge took me ‘home,’ to some place I had not been for quite a few years. So it is very near and dear to me,” she said.
Both her parents have since passed away.
“In July my husband John and I visited Iowa. He got to see the Bridge for the first time,” she said. “We stayed on a farm that belongs to some old neighbors. We had way too much fun.”
The following are Herman’s top 10 favorite songs
1. “Ode To The Sutliff Bridge”—original.
2. “Sentimental Journey”—A cover that she uses as a theme song.
3. “Such Is Life”—original.
4. “Sabor Ami”—cover—She just likes the melody.
5. “Oye Como Va”—cover—She likes the bass sound from the Roland accordion
6. “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow”—a cover she playse because she’s sentimental.
.7 “Gasoline Blues”—original about high gas prices.
8. “St. Louis Blues”—cover.
9. “San Diego Serenade”—cover—sentimental waltz.
10. “Ramblin Fever”—cover—reminds me of my friend Chad.
