The Six Fat Dutchmen was an American

polka Polka is a dance style and genre of dance music in originating in nineteenth-century Bohemia, now part of the Czech Republic. Though generally associated with Czech and Central European culture, polka is popular throughout Europe and the ...

band, formed around 1932 by

Harold Loeffelmacher Harold Loeffelmacher (March 14, 1905 – January 30, 1988) was an American musician and bandleader best known for forming the polka band known as the Six Fat Dutchmen. The band, based in New Ulm, Minnesota, traveled extensively and played as man ...

New Ulm, Minnesota New Ulm ( ) is a city and the county seat of Brown County, Minnesota, United States. The population was 14,120 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. It is located on the triangle of land formed by the confluence of the Minnesota River a ...

, United States. The band was known mostly for playing the

German-American German Americans (, ) are Americans who have full or partial German ancestry. According to the United States Census Bureau's figures from 2022, German Americans make up roughly 41 million people in the US, which is approximately 12% of the pop ...

(sometimes called "

oom-pah Oom-pah, Oompah, Ooumpah or Umpapa is an onomatopoeic term describing the rhythmic sound of a deep brass instrument in combination with the response of other instruments or registers in a band, a form of background ostinato. The oom-pah soun ...

") style of polka music that originated from

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

and the German-speaking areas of

Czechoslovakia Czechoslovakia ( ; Czech language, Czech and , ''Česko-Slovensko'') was a landlocked country in Central Europe, created in 1918, when it declared its independence from Austria-Hungary. In 1938, after the Munich Agreement, the Sudetenland beca ...

. They were regular performers at the then-famous George's Ballroom in New Ulm, and were voted Number One Polka Band for seven years in a row by the National Ballroom Operators Association. Compilations of their music continue to be produced and sold, more than 70 years after the band's founding. Like

Bill Monroe William Smith Monroe ( ; September 13, 1911 – September 9, 1996) was an American mandolinist, singer, and songwriter who created the bluegrass music genre. Because of this, he is often called the " Father of Bluegrass". The genre takes its n ...

's Bluegrass Boys, the band provided the name to its musical genre, "Dutchman Music". As might be surmised from the band's name, there were initially six members, but over time it grew to include about a dozen musicians. The band appeared often on a local television station in

Mankato, Minnesota Mankato ( ) is a city in Blue Earth County, Minnesota, Blue Earth, Nicollet County, Minnesota, Nicollet, and Le Sueur County, Minnesota, Le Sueur counties in the U.S. state of Minnesota. It is the county seat of Blue Earth County, Minnesota. The ...

, and their popularity grew to the point where they played the

Nebraska State Fair The Nebraska State Fair is the state fair of the U.S. state of Nebraska. It is held annually in Grand Island, approximately 100 miles west of the state capital of Lincoln, which hosted the fair until 2010. The fair usually runs for 11 days, an ...

for 26 straight years. The Six Fat Dutchmen played the Aragon and Trianon ballrooms in Chicago, broadcasting live on radio station WGN. They enjoyed a 14-year recording career with

RCA Victor RCA Records is an American record label owned by Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Group Corporation. It is one of Sony Music's four flagship labels, alongside Columbia Records (its former longtime rival), Arista Records and Epic ...

, during which they recorded 800 songs. After parting ways with RCA, the band recorded for

Dot Records Dot Records was an American record label founded by Randy Wood (record producer), Randy Wood and Gene Nobles that was active between 1950 and 1978. The original headquarters of Dot Records were in Gallatin, Tennessee. In its early years, Dot sp ...

for ten years. The 1995 compilation CD ''The Six Fat Dutchmen's Greatest Hits'' earned a 3.5 star rating (out of 5) in

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All-Music Guide and AMG) is an American online database, online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on Musical artist, musicians and Mus ...

. Another compilation, ''Greatest Hits Volume 2'' was released in 2006. Some of their vintage television appearances have been uploaded to

YouTube YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...

. Singer and

saxophone The saxophone (often referred to colloquially as the sax) is a type of single-reed woodwind instrument with a conical body, usually made of brass. As with all single-reed instruments, sound is produced when a reed on a mouthpiece vibrates to p ...

player

Dick Dale Richard Anthony Monsour (May 4, 1937 – March 16, 2019), known professionally as Dick Dale, was an American Rock music, rock guitarist. He was a pioneer of surf music, drawing on Middle Eastern music scale (music), scales and experimenting wit ...

was briefly a member of the Six Fat Dutchmen, before he became a regular on the long-running American television variety series, ''

The Lawrence Welk Show ''The Lawrence Welk Show'' is an American televised musical variety show hosted by big band leader Lawrence Welk. The series aired locally in Los Angeles for four years, from 1951 to 1955, then nationally for another 16 years on ABC from 1955 t ...

''. In 1990, three years after the death of Harold Loeffelmacher, he and his Six Fat Dutchmen were inducted into the

Minnesota Music Hall of Fame The Minnesota Music Hall of Fame is located at First North Street and Broadway in New Ulm, Minnesota, United States, in the former public library. It has memorabilia of individual musicians and musical groups, as well as photographs of all who ...

Partial discography

*''6 Fat Dutchmen'' (RCA Victor LSP-1769) 1958 *''Schottisches'' (1959) *''Polka Parade!'' (Hamilton Records, HLP 121) 1964 *''On Tour'' (Dot DLP 25734) 1960s *''Polkas: Greatest Hits!'' (Dot DLP 25358) 1961 *''Polka's No. 1 Band'' (Polka City PC-402) 1970s *''Ten Fat Hits!'' (Pickwick SPC-3083) 1970s *''Greatest Hits'' (Ross) 1995 *''Greatest Hits'' (Polka City PC-6656) 2002 *''Greatest Hits Vol. 2'' (Polka City PC-1028) 2006

References

External links

International Polka Association page for Harold Loeffelmacher
American polka groups German-American history Dot Records artists RCA Victor artists {{US-band-stub