William Penn Life, 1988 (23. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)

1988-02-01 / 2. szám

Mikisits

February 1988, William Penn Life, Page 3

From Page 1

Branch 98 member Frank Mikisits with his tape recorder. (Photo courtesy of The Globe-Times)

f f At first it wasn't easy for me to sing. I grew up in a remote village and by the time songs got there they were garbled. I really had to hustle and learn a lot of songs/'

knew nothing of the country of his birth. And in 1936 work was hard to get even for people not laboring under such handicaps.

"My very first job was a rough one — washing dishes in a restaurant,” he recalled. "I couldn’t speak the language, and I was given $10 a week plus room and board.”

Later he worked in New York as a baker, then moved to Bethlehem, worked as a laborer at Bethlehem Steel, and lived on East Mechanic Street. (He and his wife now live on North New Street.)

When World War II broke out, Mikisits served in the U.S. Army on Okinawa, and later was with the occupation forces in Korea; he left before the Korean War broke out. He then rejoined Bethlehem Steel, worked as a burner, and retired July 31, 1980.

And always, he sang. Bethlehem, in the days when Mikisits first lived there, offered plenty of places to sing. Among them, he remembered, were Hungarian Hall (now the Panthers Athletic Association), the Hungarian Singing Society, the Hungarian Catholic Club, and the Windish Club on Fourth Street.

"At first it wasn’t easy for me to sing,” he said. "I grew up in a remote village, and by the time songs got there they were garbled.” (These were the days before omnipresent radio.) "I really had to hustle and learn a lot of songs.”

For 16 years he sang with the late Johnny Toth and his orchestra at the White House Bar and Grill in Miller Heights. When Toth started the Hungarian radio program which Mikisits now hosts, Mikisits joined him after three months. .g.

The show, originally on Bethlehem’s WGPA, has since moved to WHOL in Allentown, where it airs from noon to 1:00 p.m. Sundays. It has a wide following among members of the Lehigh Valley’s Hungarian community.

"The show takes a lot of my time,” he noted. "A lot of people think, 'Well, Frank just has to do that one hour on Sunday.’ But Frank has to prepare something on Saturday.”

He added that the program had helped him to learn who the other good Hungarian singers were, because he got records. "My favorite is Solti Karoly (Charles Solti). He sings a lot the way I do.”

In the early days of the radio show, especially, Mikisits had a lot of outside singing engagements. He especially remembers singing at Hungarian Hall.

"That was a frequent place, especially when we had national celebrations like March 15, the anniversary of Lajos Kossuth’s uprising against the Austrian Empire.”

In 1964 Mikisits established Tatra Records, to record himself. His first long-playing record was very successful, so he went on to do a Christmas album. He has done a total of 10 records and one cassette, some of them recorded in Bethlehem. Four were done at Grace Community Hall on the South Side, while the Christmas record was done at Salem Lutheran Church.

He recalled being asked to be guest soloist for the entertainment at the William Penn Association’s National Bowling Tournament in New Brunswick in 1985. He sang at the Hyatt Regency Hotel, backed by a nine-piece orchestra under Pete Carr. Bandleader Carr referred to him as "nota kyraly,” the melody king.

"He said to me, 'Tell me, Frank, is there anyone of Hungarian descent in this country who recorded 10 Hungarian records here, except you?”’

The word, and the sound, of Frank Mikisits’ recordings spread far beyond the United States. Last summer he visited Hungary for five weeks, and at the border the guard who checked his passport said, "Mikisits — that’s a familiar name. Are you THE Frank Mikisits? I have one of your cassettes.”

As if that were not enough boost for anyone’s ego, during his stay he heard his records played on Hungarian radio stations. When he searched in a record shop for records for his radio show, the manager found out who he was and offered to trade two of the shop’s records for every one of Mikisits’ own.

Listening to a Mikisits’ recording, it is possible to believe that, with training, he might have gone further with his singing. Over the years he has had some opportunities that he passed up, and later regretted.

"I took about 10 singing lessons with Ernest Edwards over on Second Avenue. He wanted to star me in operettas, but I was working at Bethlehem Steel at the time — hard laborer’s work. I didn’t think I could handle it.

Another time a cousin sent my name to Arthur Godfrey’s Amateur Hour, but

I 'chickened out.’ What a fool I was!”

For a time he was a member of the Junior Bach Choir, when Dr. Ifor Jones was Bach Choir director.

"I loved that,” he said. "We sang every Tuesday evening, and that was my practice.”

"During that time I was asked to sing at a wedding. I sang the Bach-Gounod 'Ave Maria,’ and I hit that high A clean as a whistle. I couldn’t do that today.”

But when he was asked to join the main Bach Choir, he passed up the chance, feeling his schedule was already too full. "I didn’t want Dr. Jones to see me half asleep,” was the way he put it.

So he remained what he began by being — an ethnic balladeer with soul and class.

But, though he remains a celebrity in Hungary, he plans to close out Tatra Records. At one time the company had a wholesale distributor in Canada, and retail outlets in New Brunswick, Perth Amboy, N.J., Detroit, Mich., Munich, Germany, and Vienna, Austria. But things have fallen off.

"What happened was business got very bad since the cassettes; the bottom fell out around 1980 or 1982. Then, too, people got older and closed their businesses.”

This is the crux, really, of Mikisits’ problem; his American audience is

dimishing and it will take a lot of effort on the part of the older generation of Hungarian Americans to instill in the younger generation an interest in their rich ethnic music. Today, unfortunately, people who have a keen interest in ethnic music for its own sake, regardless of their particular ethnic background, are few in number.

Mikisits’ local singing engagements these days are limited by the fact that he has trouble finding Hungarian orchestras to back him up — and a Hungarian orchestra, as he pointed out, is a very special thing.

To unaccustomed ears, it has a strange, wild sound that probably stems from the fact that the Hungarians, or Magyars, originally came to Europe from Asia centuries ago. Furthermore, Hungarian music of the sort Mikisits sings has also been influenced by gypsies, another people originally from Asia. This sound, which it is easy enough to get used to, and which soon becomes endearing, is made by a special combination of instruments.

"The most important instrument in a Hungarian orchestra is the cimbalon,” Mikisits said. "This is a stringed instrument that is played by hitting it with sticks tipped with cotton. Then there is a first violin, second violin, a bass. Some have a clarinet.

"These days there is only one band in the Lehigh Valley that is able to do Hungarian music. We need a good Hungarian orchestra; then I can work.

But if I don’t have good backup, it upsets me.”

He seemed comforted by the possibility that ethnic music festivals held around the country may help to rebuild the audience for all kinds of ethnic music to some extent. At the same time, he sensed that things may never be as they once were, unless the younger generation is taught to love their heritage by their parents and grandparents.

"I keep waiting for the old times to come back,” he said. 4