Being of Polish and German heritage, I grew up hearing a lot of accordion music. I even took accordion lessons, as a young boy. I still enjoy listening to the music, especially the French cafe music. Working on this topic opened my eyes to just how widespread accordions, and their variant squeezeboxes, are among different cultures. It's not limited to just European, Cajun, and Tex-Mex music, as can be seen in the images below.

Here's what I have, so far, for my collection of Accordions On Stamps:


Dominica 649


Dominica 633


Luxembourg 1046


Netherlands Antilles B200


Slovenia 370


North Korea 1908


Brazil 2356


Cape Verde 613

I'll end this post with a video of Alex Meixner and Polka Freakout. If you have a chance to see Alex perform (I saw him at WurstFest in 2007) it's a show well worth going to. Great performer and a helluvanice guy.

Performance Schedule


Tedski

those are beautiful!!!

my aunt played when i was a child and i have not seen anyone locally in a long long time. i used to enjoy when she played a great deal and even thought of learning once or twice but never had the funds or time to put into it...

What a VERY interesting thematic idea! As a native south Louisianian I've been around Cajun and Zydeco music all my life and the accordion is an integral part of the music.

Ethnically half German myself - my father's family immigrated in 1893 to the United States into New Orleans (hey, not ALL immigrants went through Ellis Island!) and my mother's family are Cajun people. Where from I don't know as most of our family records, like so many others, was lost in the Flood of 1927... there's even a song about it by Randy Newman titled simply, "Louisiana 1927".

My favorite accordion player? Rosie Ledet

If I remember some of my history correctly, a number of long term Louisiana natives are actually Acadian which was a French colony in what is now New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. Over 11,000 Acadians were deported from the French colony in the Maritimes in and around the mid 18th century. A large number died in the mass expulsion and those that survived either were returned to France or moved to the Louisiana territory. Some eventually returned to the Acadian lands thus why you have a history in the Maritimes here in Canada with regards to that very same instrument.

Your recollection of your history classes is pretty accurate. The Cajun people have a strong cultural bind to both the French speaking peoples of Canada and France. As a relatively small group of people isolated from other French speaking peoples the Cajuns, as one might expect, have developed over the centuries a unique French dialect and their own versions of French food based on the game available to them and the crops that would grow in the wet ground of south Louisiana.

The Cajun people today are in a desperate campaign to reclaim and re-teach the Cajun French dialect as in the aftermath of World War II and the patriotism that apparently swept the U.S. in the aftermath it was frowned upon to speak anything other than English and the language very nearly died out. When my grandmother arrived for her first day of school she was instantly moved from 1st to 2nd grade - not because my grandmother was gifted or unusually bright but because she already spoke "the English". The first year of school way back when was spent teaching Cajun children to speak English!

I close with my grandmother's name as I find it to be a wonderfully, dripping in French name... Genevieve Marie Dupuy nee Lejeune.

the strange thing i noticed about DPR Korea is that most of there stamps are no where related to North Korea is culture or history. i have almost 200 DPR Kora stamps mostly are about other culture and people.

Greetings Aamer Jamal
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I'm not sure how the Democrastic People's Repbulic of Korea stamps relate to sqeezeboxes on stamps, but you are partially correct.
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There are plenty of North Korean history, culture, people and politics represented on their stamps. However, they also do a lot of catering to stamp collectors by issueing thematic stamps -- Princess Diana, Grand Master Artists, Ship, Space, ecetera. Printing pretty pictures on little pieces of paper is a fairly inexpensive endeavor. Selling them to collectors is almost like "free money."
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That's why if I collect any DPR Korea stamps they have been postally used and not CTO.
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Respectfully,

Gordon Lee

Accordion class at the Children's Palace in Pyongyang.






Tedski

Greetings Mr. Tedski
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Great tie-in.
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I got a kick out of watching that girl on the far left front in that first flick. She really leans to the right.
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Respectfully,

Gordon Lee