LOS ANGELES — It’s enough to make any serious polka fan fling his lederhosen in the closet and go out and shed a few tears in his beer.
The waltz is over for America’s Polka King, Jimmy Sturr, not to mention every other squeezebox-loving, ompah-dancing fanatic who followed the Grammy Awards each year just to learn whether Sturr would collect yet another trophy for best polka album of the year.
Moving to ensure that its awards show remains what it called “pertinent within the current musical landscape,” the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences announced Thursday it is eliminating its best polka album category.
Although posters to Internet sites catering to polka fans (yes, there are such places) were outraged, Sturr, who is hailed by fans the world over as the King of Polka, was doing his best to take the news in stride.
“Sure I feel a little bad, but I’m grateful, man,” said the 58-year-old musician who has won the best polka album trophy 18 of the past 24 years.
“The Academy did a lot, not only recognizing me but recognizing polka music,” he said. He added that the recognition gave him a chance to fuse polka with pop, country, rock and folk and broaden the music’s audience as he worked with musicians such as Willie Nelson and Alison Krauss.
For his part, Sturr said he suspects that if there were 20 people on the committee that recommended dropping his category, “19 of them have never been to a polka concert. “
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