Alumni

Peter Danielczuk

Ansonia Official keeps in step with the polka...
By Lisa A. Davis - Register Staff
(New Haven Register 7-20-97)

Gaining celebrity status took only a “hop-step, close-step” for Peter J. Danielczuk.

Danielczuk, president of the Board of Aldermen, was practically born doing the polka. And polka fans in the Northeast have enjoyed his polka music radio shows for the last decade.

You could say Danielczuk inherited a love for polka music from his parents. They were the children of Polish immigrants, and they spent most Friday and Saturday nights as young adults dancing the Polka, a blend of spinning and stomping. Polka is the Polish word for “woman.”

His parents infatuation with the lively music was absorbed by Danielczuk, who as a boy got to tag along at the local dances.

Sundays also were centered around the polka. The Danielczuks, who have lived in Ansonia since the alderman’s grandparents arrived in the early 1900’s, would listen to the toe-tapping beat of polka music while taking long drives.

“We used to ride for six, seven hours, listening to polka music,” Danielczuk remembers.

Long before, the music took Europe by storm. A polka rag began in Paris and London in 1844, and it became popular in America in the 1920’s. The music depends heavily on accordions, trumpets and drums.

At 20, Danielczuk accepted his first professional broadcast job as an engineer for Victor Zembruski’s Sunday polka show on the former WADS radio in Ansonia.

In 1982, Danielczuk got his shot at the microphone and started his own weekend polka music show on WADS with Richard Yash. He hosted shows on WWCO in Waterbury and WDTZ in Bridgeport before moving to WICC, also in Bridgeport, where he host a Saturday polka show form 6-8pm. The show reaches the state, New York City and parts of New Jersey, Massachusetts and Rhode Island.

“My show hasn’t changed much over the years, “ said Danielczuk, knows as “Peter J,” in radioland. (The J stands for John, his middle name.) “I play music, take lots of request, which I always try to play, and I include information on upcoming polka dances, events and tidbits on my Polish heritage.”

To keep his material fresh, Danielczuk spends about 20 hours a week listening to new compact discs and reading several Polish news publications that keep him updated with the Polish-American community.

Danielczuk’s passion had made him a student of the polka, but it also catapulted him into celebrity status and introduced him to his late wife, Mary Ann.

They met at a polka dance in 1974 and married in 1002 after many spins around the dance floor, Mary Ann died of cancer in April 1995. “She was an incredible dancers. We always had so much fun together,” he said.

Danielczuk’s Saturday night radio show consistently gets nearly 60-70 callers from around the Northeast. He will help host Bobby Vinton’s live Christmas show in Atlantic City in December.

On Monday, Danielczuk will be playing his recordings on a Royal Caribbean cruise to Bermuda, which he does every year. He does not play any instrument himself, but will occasionally sing,. He even has done the vocal on “Skinny Minney,” a song on Richard Bobinski’s Playing With My Band compact disc.

“Peter is absolutely awesome,” said Curtis Hansen, WICC’s program director. “People come out of the woodwork to see him perform. They flock to him.”

One of his biggest fans if Robert Krieder of Milford, who with his wife, Margaret, faithfully listens to Danielczuk on WICC every week. They also attend annual polka festivals at Warsaw Par that Danielczuk hosts.

“He is always, top-notch,” Robert Krieder said, “He has a good taste for polka music, that’s why I love his show. WICC picked the right man when they picked him.”

“Polka music is happy music and that’s why I have stayed with it all these years,” Danielczuk said. “I love making people happy. Even if you have never listened to polka music before, when you do for the first time, you can’t help keeping your feet form tapping.”