Polka star Mollie B embraces all styles

April 24, 2014 at 12:05a.m.

For anyone who thinks polka music is a dying genre, Mollie Busta Lange is coming to Youngstown to tell you otherwise.

As host of the “Mollie B Polka Party,” seen nationally on RFD-TV, FamilyNet and syndicated on hundreds of cable channels, the Northwest Ohio resident is doing her part to keep the ethnic songs alive.

“I can tell you it’s not dying, but since I was a little girl to now there definitely has been a decline,” said Lange, calling from Archbold, Ohio, located roughly 30 miles east of Toledo. “I can also tell you in the last three years since my polka show has started, it has not died.

“It’s been rising in popularity, slowly, but it has. Our show has had more than 160 different bands we’ve featured. So people are picking up on it.”

Lange and her bandmates — including husband, Sam (accordion, vocals) — started the band Squeezebox nearly a decade ago. The group cut its teeth playing everywhere it could — dances, festivals, casinos, church festivals, ethnic festivals.

The act’s repertoire is basically dance music in the vein of polkas, waltzes, swing music, two-step and a little bit of country.

“A lot of bands just really try to focus on one style — Polish, Czech or German,” Lange said. “My band does everything we can to only limit ourselves. So we will sing in German, Czech, English and Polish. We will play the polka in all of the different styles — and plus more. I know Slovenian style is big around that area. So we will do that as well.”

Such eclecticism led to an unexpected opportunity in 2011 when Lange became the host of the “Mollie B Polka Party.” The one-hour program features the nation’s top polka bands and a wide variety of ethnic styles produced on location at music festivals from around the country.

In fact, the high-definition weekly program comes to the Buckeye State for a taping May 6 to 9 at the Sawmill Creek Resort in Huron.

“How my program works is we go around the country and record different bands,” Lange said. “I host, and the bands perform. For example, when we recorded in Sandusky, we’ll record for four days. Each day we have between six to nine bands perform.

“I welcome everyone and also do band interviews and interview people who come and dance. Then all this is broken up into 101/2-minute segments that go onto my TV show, which airs every week.”

However, local polka fans will get a treat when Squeezebox comes to the area Saturday for a show at Kuzman’s in Girard. Lange said though audiences should expect to hear plenty of polkas, the act employs a secret weapon to interest younger fans to its music.

“If we have a younger audience, we try to attract them with songs they know,” Lange said. “And little by little sneak in more and more of the ethnic-sounding songs that actually come from Europe. But, definitely, you need to keep that repertoire to keep that younger audience entertained.”

This includes everything from Beatles and country songs to a Cee Lo Green song. Invariably, the entire show sounds like a “Roll out the Barrel” fun time.

“Honestly, we never play ‘Roll out the Barrel’ and ‘Have Another Beer’ until we get the request,” Lange said. “But someone always does.”