Brave Combo: Carl Finch (vocals, guitar, accordion, keyboards); Bubba Hernandez (vocals, tuba, bass); Danny O'Brien (trumpet); Alan Emert (drums).
Additional personnel: Joe Cripps (vocals, percussion).
Recorded at Reeltime Audio, Denton, Texas in 1999; track 12 recorded live at the Chameleon Club, Lancaster, Pennsylvania on July 21, 1998. Includes liner notes by Carl Finch.
POLKASONIC won the 2000 Grammy Award for Best Polka Album.
Since the early '80s, Texas-based Brave Combo has been redefining polka music. The group mixes "pure" polka (like jazz, and most other American forms, polka came from a fusion of many styles and ethnicities) with rock & roll, cumbia, mambo, Tex-Mex, and anything that strikes the band's fancy. Brace Combo are not postmodern jokers--they genuinely love polka music and, like all good children of the late 20th century, they put their own spin on it, charging it with a rock-tinged jolt and good-natured eclecticism.
Brave Combo plays GOOD-TIME music, tunes designed to make you dance and grab a day pass from your troubles. The giddy melody and vocals of "Skytrain" belie the mock-gloomy words (and quote from "Moon River" in the process). "Glamorous Gal" is a traditional polka, with Eastern European folk-styled horns and plenty of omm-pah-pah. Driving the party to a rousing close is the group's polka-ized take on Jimi Hendrix's "Purple Haze." POLKASONIC is a party waiting to happen.
